"Grandmother wept, and stroked us, and sang a little song that she made herself. I can remember it still:--
_Oy a no nai ko to_ _Hamabé no chidori:_ _Higuré-higuré ni_ _Sodé shiboru._[2]
"So the third grave was made,--but it was not a _ningyō-no-haka_;--and that was the end of our house. We lived with kindred until winter, when grandmother died. She died in the night,--when, nobody knew: in the morning she seemed to be sleeping, but she was dead. Then I and my little sister were separated. My sister was adopted by a _tatamiya,_ a mat-maker,--one of father's friends. She is kindly treated: she even goes to school!"
"_Aa fushigi na koto da!--aa komatta ne?"_ murmured Manyemon. Then there was a moment or two of sympathetic silence. Iné prostrated herself in thanks, and rose to depart. As she slipped her feet under the thongs of her sandals, I moved toward the spot where she had been sitting, to ask the old man a question. She perceived my intention, and immediately made an indescribable sign to Manyemon, who responded by checking me just as I was going to sit down beside him.
"She wishes," he said, "that the master will honorably strike the matting first."
"But why?" I asked in surprise,---noticing only that under my unshod feet, the spot where the child had been kneeling felt comfortably warm.
"She believes that to sit down upon the place made warm by the body of another is to take into one's own life all the sorrow of that other person,--unless the place be stricken first."
Whereat I sat down without performing the rite; and we both laughed.
"Iné," said Manyemon, "the master takes your sorrows upon him. He wants "--(I cannot venture to render Manyemon's honorifics)--"to understand the pain of other people. You need not tear for him, Iné."
[Footnote 1: The posthumous Buddhist name of the person buried is chiseled upon the tomb or _haka._]
[Footnote 2: "Children without parents, like the seagulls of the coast. Evening after evening the sleeves are wrung." The word _chidori--_indiscriminately applied to many kinds of birds,--is here used for seagull. The cries of the seagull are thought to express melancholy and desolation: hence the comparison. The long sleeve of the Japanese robe is used to wipe the eyes as well as to hide the face in moments of grief. To "wring the sleeve"--that is, to wring the moisture from a tear-drenched sleeve--is a frequent expression in Japanese poetry.]