Читать книгу Kibun Daizin; Or, From Shark-Boy to Merchant Prince онлайн

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“Mother, please give me a cake.”

“Why, my dear, where are your manners? What will our young friend here think of you?”

At this the child looked around, and, for the first time becoming aware of the boy’s presence, turned shy and sat down. Looking gently in her face, her mother then asked her what she had been doing. Afraid of the stranger, she whispered in her mother’s ear: “I have been playing oni^[6] with Sadakichi in the garden. But I don’t like Sadakichi. When he was the oni he just caught me at once.”

ssss1.A play similar to tag or prisoner’s base.

“But that often happens in playing oni,” said the mother, with a smile.

“Yes, but he does it too much; he has no right to catch people in the way he does, and I don’t wish to play with him any more.”

“Well, if that is so, how would you like to play with Bunkichi here instead?”

Accepting it as one of the duties that might fall to him, to act as the child’s companion and caretaker, Bunkichi, rather pleased than otherwise, offered to go out and try to amuse her. The little girl looked into her mother’s face, and then at Bunkichi. “Mama, how long has he been here?” she asked in a low voice.