The Tongue-Cut Sparrow

Every morning, before the sun had even cleared the hedge, a clear, ringing song rose in the little garden, as pure as a drop of water falling into an earthenware jar. It was the song of a tiny sparrow, perched right on the windowsill, waiting for the old man to wake.

An old tale from Japan tells that this sparrow was no wild bird. The old man had cared for it for many years. He fed it grain by grain from his own bowl of rice, and he talked with it every day as if it were a little child of the house.

The old man lived with his wife in a house at the edge of the forest. At every meal he quietly saved a pinch of rice at the rim of his bowl, a share for the sparrow outside the window. The old woman was nothing like him. Whenever the bird swooped down near the meal tray, she snapped at it and chased it away, and her voice was seldom gentle.

One day the old woman cooked a pot of starch from rice flour to stiffen a few of her clothes. When she had finished, she left the bowl of starch on the veranda and went back into the kitchen. The sparrow saw the bowl of white paste and thought it was a share the old man had set aside just for it. It swooped down and pecked at it until the bowl was empty.

When the old woman came back out and found the bowl empty, her face darkened. The sparrow hid nothing. It confessed at once: "I ate your bowl of starch. I thought it was food saved for me."

But that honest answer did nothing to soften her anger. In a fury, the old woman snatched up the scissors lying on the table. In the blink of an eye, the sparrow, hurt and terrified, shot straight out of the house, no longer able to sing a single note. The familiar morning song was suddenly gone from the garden.

That afternoon the old man came home from cutting wood in the forest. He did not hear the familiar bird greeting him at the window as it did every day. When his wife told him what had happened, his heart ached as if it had been cut. The next morning he rose early, ate a hasty breakfast and strode straight into the forest. He called out across the hillsides again and again, crying for his little sparrow and asking where it could be.

The old man walked on and on, over one hill and then another, until his voice was hoarse, and still there was no sign of the bird. As the sun sank low, he wandered into a dense grove of bamboo, deep green, its tall stems crowded close together. In the middle of that grove he heard the very song he knew so well, clear and whole, without a single missing beat.

The sparrow flew out to meet him and landed on his shoulder in delight. Wonder of wonders, its voice had healed, as if nothing had ever happened. The bird led him deep into the bamboo, to a pretty little house built of pure white wood. It shone as if no speck of dust had ever touched it.

The sparrow's family came out to welcome the old man like a relative coming home from far away. A fragrant feast was laid out, one warm, steaming dish after another, and before the old man had even sat down, his heart was full of joy. The young sparrows also danced for him, a dance they called the suzume-odori, the dance of the sparrows. They spread their small wings wide and spun in circles, and the old man clapped and laughed like a little child.

When it was time for him to go home, the sparrow brought out two finely woven bamboo baskets, one large and one small. It invited him to choose one to take with him as a gift. The old man looked at the large basket, shook his head and smiled gently. "I am old and frail now. I will just take this small basket," he said. The sparrow smiled and walked him all the way to the edge of the bamboo grove.

Back home, the old man set the small basket down in the middle of the yard and lifted the lid. He and his wife were both astonished. Inside was no small gift to match the size of the basket, but gold, silver and jewels, glittering and heaped right up to the brim. From that day on, the old couple lived in comfort, warm and well fed, and they no longer had to worry about every meal as before.

When she heard that the small basket had been so full of gold and silver, the old woman could not hold back her greed. She kept lamenting that if only the old man had chosen the large basket, the riches would surely have been many times greater. Without waiting for her husband to come along, she found her own way into the forest, crossing hill after hill, until she reached that same deep green bamboo grove.

The sparrow still kept its good manners and welcomed the old woman into the house, though it clearly remembered what had happened before. She did not bother to sit down to the meal or watch the dance the way the old man had. She only demanded, impatiently, the very largest basket at once. The sparrow brought out the large basket. The old woman hurried to swing it onto her shoulder and turned to leave right away, without a single word of thanks.

Halfway home, her greed pushed her on, and she could not wait until she reached the house. She sat right down at the side of the road, and with trembling hands she lifted the lid. The moment the basket opened, there was a loud noise, and strange shapes bounced out, squealing and chattering until a whole corner of the forest rang with the din. The old woman jumped with fright, dropped the basket and ran straight home as fast as her legs could carry her, never daring to look back.

The old woman reached home out of breath and empty-handed. And yet, strangely, from that day on she let go of most of her usual sharp, cross words, and her voice grew noticeably softer. The old man still went out to the garden every morning as before. The song of a sparrow still drifted in on the wind from somewhere, sometimes near, sometimes far, as if it had never left that little garden at all.