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The trader's son (1)
In the province of Hunan there dwelt a man who was engaged
in trading abroad; and his wife, who lived alone, dreamt one
night that some one was in her room. Waking up, she looked
about, and discovered a small creature which on examination she
knew to be a fox; but in a moment the thing had disappeared,
although the door had not been opened.
The next evening she asked the cook-maid to come and keep
her company; as also her own son, a boy of ten, who was accustomed to sleep elsewhere. Towards the middle of the night, when
the cook and the boy were fast asleep, back came the fox; and the
cook was waked up by hearing her mistress muttering something
as if she had a nightmare. The former then called out, and the fox
ran away; but from that moment the trader's wife was not quite
herself, her behavior growing more mysterious each day.
The next night she dared not blow out the candle, and bade her
son be sure and not sleep too soundly. Later on, her son and the
old woman, having taken a nap as they leant against the wall,
suddenly waked up and found her gone. They waited some time,
but she did not return, and the cook was too frightened to go and
look for her; so her son took a light, and at length found her
fast asleep in another room. She didn't seem aware that anything
particular had happened, but she became queerer and queerer
every day, and wouldn't have either her son or the cook to keep
her company any more.
Her son, however, made a point of running at once into his
mother's room if he heard any unusual sounds; and though his
mother always abused him for his pains, he paid no attention to
what she said. Consequently, everyone thought him very brave,
though at the same time he was always indulging in childish
tricks.
One day he played at being a mason, and piled up stones upon
the windowsill, in spite of all that was said to him; and if anyone
took away a stone, he threw himself on the ground, and cried like
a child, so that nobody dared go near him. In a few days he had
got both windows blocked up and the light excluded; and then he
set to filling up the chinks with mud. He worked hard all day
without minding the trouble, and when it was finished he took
and sharpened the kitchen chopper. Everyone who saw him was
disgusted with such antics, and would take no notice of him.
That night he darkened his lamp, and, with the knife concealed
on his person, sat waiting for his mother to mutter. As soon as
she began he uncovered his light, and, blocking up the doorway,
shouted out at the top of his voice. Nothing, however, happened,
and he moved from the door a little way, when suddenly out
rushed something like a fox, which was disappearing through the
door when he made a quick movement and cut off about two
inches of its tail, from which the warm blood was still dripping as
he brought the light to bear upon it. His mother hereupon cursed
and reviled him, but he pretended not to hear her, regretting only
as he went to bed that he hadn't hit the brute fair. But he consoled himself by thinking that although he hadn't killed it out-
right, he had done enough to prevent it coming again.
On the morrow he followed the tracks of blood over the wall
and into the garden of a family named Ho; and that night, to his
great joy, the fox did not reappear. His mother was meanwhile
prostrate, with hardly any life in her, and in the midst of it all his
father came home. The boy told him what had happened, at
which he was much alarmed, and sent for a doctor to attend his
wife; but she only threw the medicine away, and cursed and
swore horribly. So they secretly mixed the medicine with her tea
and soup, and in a few days she began to get better, to the inexpressible delight of both her husband and son.
One night, however, her husband woke up and found her
gone; and after searching for her with the aid of his son, they discovered her
sleeping in another room. From that time she became more
eccentric than ever, and was always being found in strange
places, cursing those who tried to remove her. Her husband
was at his wits' end. It was of no use keeping the door
locked, for it opened of itself at her approach; and he had
called in any number of magicians to exorcise the fox, but
without obtaining the slightest result.
One evening her son concealed himself in the Ho family garden,
and lay down in the long grass with a view to detecting the fox's
retreat. As the moon rose he heard the sound of voices, and,
pushing aside the grass, saw two people drinking, with a long-
bearded servant pouring out their wine, dressed in an old dark-
brown coat. They were whispering together, and he could not
make out what they said; but by-and-by he heard one of them
remark, "Get some white wine for tomorrow," and then they
went away, leaving the long-bearded servant alone. The latter
then threw off his coat, and lay down to sleep on the stones;
whereupon the trader's son eyed him carefully, and saw that he
was like a man in every respect except that he had a tail. The boy
would then have gone home; but he was afraid the fox might hear him, and accordingly remained where he was till near dawn,
when he saw the other two come back, one at time, and then they
all disappeared among the bushes.
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