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Some twenty years ago a fleet of fishing-boats was homing into Enoura Bay. The wind had died out altogether, leaving the sea perfectly flat and as glassy clear as a mirror. A song rose above the bronze backs of the rowers — a fisherman's chanty, to the lilt of which the long sweeps rose and fell.
The catch had been good. The boat bottoms were littered with nets and gasping, giant magaro, and monster shell-fish sucked at the boats' ribs.
In the prow of one of the boats crouched an old man, his bright eyes peering inscrutably into the water. And from under his arm peered forth a small, brown boy.
An unfamiliar splash struck the sea, and the rowers' arms became paralyzed with fright. It was nothing but an empty water-bucket that had toppled overboard and was slowly filling, but each stilled, brown man watched it with plain terror.
The bucket sank with a gurgling gasp, and it might better have been one of themselves, for its effect upon the fishermen. The old man clasped the boy to him, and a hasty prayer spilled from his lips:
' ■ Great Buddha, spare us this omen, for now surely the sea will some day claim one of us. "
The sea chanty ceased, and the silent rowers pulled for the beach.
In the household of Gombei, the
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old man, the evil portent of the sea had long since been forgotten, and the rearing of Hisa, his granddaughter, became his only care. He was too old any longer to go out with the fleet, and so did the best he could by strapping the child to his back and waddling down to the beach to help count the catch. And then there was Masao, the little boy, for whom the old man had taken a great fancy. These three were never apart, and it was talked about in the village that Gombei had set his heart upon bringing the children up to be sweethearts.
Over the charcoal of the family hibachi the old man sipped his tea and talked wisely with Hisa's mother, the widow, about his plan, and at last it came about that the two families met and ceremoniously decided that Gombei 's heart was as straightly true as a young lover's in the wisdom of his wish.
As time went on the grandfather brought everything to bear upon his heart's desire. He prospered, and his fishing-fleet was known from Mito to Shizu-ura. The child Hisa did not belie his hopes and grew up to young womanhood as pink-skinned and brown-eyed as a lotus flower bowered in russet maples. And as her shape rounded, so did her nature, for from a frolicksome child she became sagacious, strong and self-reliant, yet gentle, compassionate and sweet.