The Magic Bead, Dog and Cat

On the wooden board of a little counter sat a clay jug. Its neck was long and slender, and it shone black from being tipped by one hand more times than anyone could count.

The jug poured a bowl of hot tea. Then another. Then another. One person carried a bowl away, another held one out, and still the jug was as heavy as at the start. It tipped and poured, tipped and poured, and never ran dry.

The counter stood by a ferry landing, where the boats came in to the riverbank.

Its owner was a white-haired old man, poor, honest and childless. He never went to fetch more water, and there was no jar of water stored in the shop. People had long since stopped asking.

But he had two companions in place of children. One was a gentle old dog, with long ears that hung down beside his cheeks. The other was a mischievous cat, the kind that would drop a mouse on the nose of a dozing dog and then look amazed, as if someone else had done it.

In old Korea, people said the jug had a story of its own.

Long ago, when the old man still went hungry, a lost traveler stopped by, parched with thirst. The old man offered him the last water in his jug. The traveler took a long drink. Then he gave the old man a tiny thing that looked like a chip of amber. He told the old man to drop it into the jug. As long as it stayed there, the old man would never go without something to drink.

The old man dropped it in. At once the jug grew heavy, and when he tipped it, warm water flowed out. He turned to offer the traveler a bowl and stopped short. No one was there. People say that was no ordinary traveler. Only the dog and the cat knew the secret.

Then one morning, the jug ran dry. Not a drop was left. The dog sat with his ears drooping and his eyes lowered, and would not lie down. The cat paced back and forth, then climbed onto the beam that held up the roof.

That night the old man worked it out. The chip of amber must have slipped out with the water into some customer's jug. But whose, among all the people crossing on the ferry each day?

He fell asleep. The dog and the cat turned to face each other.

The cat spoke first. If he got close enough, he would smell it at once. But he had no idea where to look.

The dog had a plan. They would visit every house in the village, one by one, as if just calling on friends. The cat would go inside and greet the cats there, keeping his nose open and sniffing carefully. The dog would stay in the yard and chat with the dogs. Whatever the cat smelled, he would come out and tell the dog.

They began that very night. The cat crept along the beams of other people's houses, over the heads of the sleepers. In the yard, the dog chatted very politely with the dog of the house, stretching the talk out as long as he could. Night after night they went on, until they had covered the whole village. Still nothing.

So the amber bead must have crossed to the other side of the river.

The ferry was always crowded, and nobody would take a dog or a cat on board. So they waited for the cold. Then the river froze so thick that ox carts and horses crossed straight over it. It stayed that way for nearly two months. At home, his old customers had stopped coming since the jug ran dry, and the old man began to think his two companions had left him too.

One night, near the time the ice would melt, the cat was running along the rafters of a house at the edge of the village across the river. A familiar smell rushed into his nose. It came from a stone tobacco box on top of a wardrobe. The lid fitted so tightly that the whole box looked like one solid block of stone.

The cat slid down to the yard and told the dog. The dog said he could not climb that high. And the cat was not strong enough to push the box off so that it would fall and break.

The dog thought for a while, then explained his idea. The cat should find the chief of the rats in those parts and make him an offer. If he agreed to help, for ten years the two of them would leave the rat clan in peace. For ten years they would not touch a single mouse.

And what good would that do, the cat asked.

That stone is hardly harder than wood, the dog answered. If the whole rat clan gnaws in turns, they will gnaw a hole right through, and the bead is ours.

That promise of ten years mattered. Soon the cat would have to remember it very carefully.

The chief of the rats listened and nodded. The rats gnawed in shifts. But by then the ice had broken up, and the two had to stay on the far bank for several months.

One night, the cat nearly pounced on a big fat rat passing by. He remembered his promise just in time, for that rat was the chief himself.

At last the hole was finished, but it was too narrow. The cat reached in with his paw again and again, and could not touch the bead. Once more the dog thought of a way. They dropped a baby mouse into the box, and it carried the bead out. The bead was given to the dog to keep.

When they reached the riverbank, the ice had melted. The dog told the cat to hold the bead tight in his mouth, climb onto his back and cling to the fur of his neck. Then they set off across, the dog swimming.

They were more than halfway over when some children on their way to school saw them from the bank and burst out laughing. A cat was riding across the river on a dog.

The dog was worn out and saw nothing funny in it. But the cat began to shake. When the cat shook, the dog's back rocked. When it rocked, the dog went under. When he went under, he swallowed water. And the more the dog went under, the funnier the cat found it.

Now the cat's mouth was the thing to watch.

He could not hold it in. He burst out laughing, just as loudly as the children on the bank.

The bead fell into the water.

The dog dived straight after it, forgetting who was on his back. The cat could not let go in time and was dragged under. In his fright he dug his claws into the dog's skin. The dog felt a sharp stab of pain, and the bead slipped away.

The cat scrambled onto the bank, soaked and furious. The dog shook off the water and charged at him. The cat shot up a tree and stayed there until the sun had dried his fur. Below, the dog barked and barked.

Half a year of searching. Lost in one laugh.

From that day the two were angry with each other. Whenever they met, they turned their faces away.

But the dog did not give up. He dived at that spot again and again, and sat on the riverbank day after day.

Winter came back and laid ice over that stretch of river. One day the dog saw a man spearing fish through a hole in the ice. As one fish came up, a familiar smell reached the dog's nose. The moment the man set the fish down, the dog snatched it and ran.

The old man was glad of a fresh fish and cleaned it at once. As the knife opened its belly, the amber-colored bead rolled out. The dog leaped up against the old man, barking until the whole yard rang.

The bead went back into the jug. That afternoon, steam rose again from the wooden board.

Old Korean storytellers add one more thing, to answer what every child wonders: why dogs and cats glare at each other whenever they meet. Since the day the bead fell into the river, the two have not made up. Not yet, which is not the same as never.

Evening comes, and the ferry landing fills with people again. On the wooden board, the long-necked jug tips once more and pours a bowl of hot tea, then another, then another, and grows no lighter at all. The dog lies stretched out by the door, his ears hanging down beside his cheeks. The cat perches on the beam that holds up the roof. Between the two of them there is only a small gap, exactly as wide as one laugh.