6.--[COPY OF THE ACCOUNT WRITTEN IN POPULAR STYLE BY MATSUDAIRA KWANZAN DONO, DAIMYŌ.]
Some time in the eleventh month of the past year, when Katsugorō was playing in the rice-field with his elder sister, Fusa, he asked her,-- "Elder Sister, where did you come from before you were born into our household?"
"How can I know what happened to me before I was born?"
Katsugoro looked surprised and exclaimed:
"Then you cannot remember anything that happened before you were born?"
"Indeed I do," replied Katsugorō. "I used to be the son of Kyūbei San of Hodo-kubo, and my name was then Tōzō--do you not know all that?"
"Ah!" said Fusa, "I shall tell father and mother about it."
But Katsugorō at once began to cry, and said:--
"Please do not tell!--it would not be good to tell father and mother."
Fusa made answer, after a little while:--
"Well, this time I shall not tell. But the next time that you do anything naughty, then I will tell."
After that day whenever a dispute arose between the two, the sister would threaten the brother, saying, "Very well, then--I shall tell that thing to father and mother." At these words the boy would always yield to his sister. This happened many times; and the parents one day overheard Fusa making her threat. Thinking Katsugorō must have been doing something wrong, they desired to know what the matter was, and Fusa, being questioned, told them the truth. Then Genzō and his wife, and Tsuya, the grandmother of Katsugorō, thought it a very strange thing. They called Katsugorō, therefore; and tried, first by coaxing, and then by threatening, to make him tell what he had meant by those words.
After hesitation, Katsugorō said:--"I will tell you everything. I used to be the son of Kyūbei San of Hodokubo, and the name of my mother then was O-Shidzu San. When I was five years old, Kyūbei San died; and there came in his place a man called Hanshirō San, who loved me very much. But in the following year, when I was six years old, I died of smallpox. In the third year after that I entered mother's honorable womb, and was born again."
The parents and the grandmother of the boy wondered greatly at hearing this; and they decided to make all possible inquiry as to the man called Hanshirō of Hodokubo. But as they all had to work very hard every day to earn a living, and so could spare but little time for any other matter, they could not at once carry out their intention.