The Grateful Statues
In a small village in Japan, there once lived an old couple. The old man and his wife made their living by weaving big hats out of straw, which they sold in the nearest town.
Late one evening ,the old couple had finished five straw hats, when the old man said to his wife :"Tomorrow os New Year's Day,and we have no money to celebrate it fittingly . We don't even have enough money to buy us two little rice cakes."
"Well, why don't you hurry over to the town and sell these five hats?" the old woman said to him . "With yhe money you get , you could bring back a cake or two."
The old man bundled the hats and hurried to the town . But everyone in the town was busy preparing for the New Year's Day, and no one was interested in buying his hats .And to make matters worse ,it began to snow very hard.
Sad and disappointed ,the old man began trudging his way to his village . He was going alone a lonely mountain trail , when he came upon six statues of Jizo, the protector of children . All the status were covered with snow from top to bottom.
"What a great pity!"the old man sighed, looking at the snow-covered statues."No doubt the statues are made of stone , but still , think of it --how cold they must be , standing out in the terrible snow."
The old man was about to pass the statues , and then he took another look at them.
"Oh, I feel so sorry for the statues , and I just cannot leave them like this,"he said to himself ."I know what I'll do ,"he exclaimed sudenly.
He untied the straw hats that he was carrying on his back .And ,one by one ,he bagan tying them on the heads of the Jizo statues.
The old man came to the sixth statue , and he realized that all his hats were gone. And there was one statue still standing with its head uncovered. And then he remembered his own hat. He took it off, and tying it to the head of the sixth Jizo, went on his way home , happy with what he had done.
When he reached home, he found his old wife waiting hopefully for the rice cakes that he was supposed to bring.
"Sorry, Woman .. no cakes ,"he said. And he told her how he had given the hats ,plus his own, to the Jizo statues.
"That was a kind thing you did ,dear husband, "the old woman smiled a proud smile."It is better to do a kind deed than to have all the rice cakes in the world. We can celebrate the New Year by sitting by the fire and talking about the days when we were young."
The old man and his wife went to bed. Just before dawn, while they still slept, a very wonderful thing happened.There was a sound of voices singing in the distance , and coming nearer and nearer to the hut of the old couple. The voices were raised in a merry song that said:
"A kind old man , walking in the snow.Gave all his hats to the stone Jizo: So we bring him gift with a yo-heaveho!"
Nearer and nearer came the singing voices. And yet, the tired couple slept. The voices reached the door of the hut and came to a stop. There was the sound of something heavy bejng dumped at the doorstep.
Awakened by the sound, the old man and his wife jumped out of the bed.
They rushed tk the door , and opened it.And their eyes became wide when they saw what it was . On a spread mat in front of their house, there lay one of the biggest, most beautiful and freshest rice cake that the old couple had ever seen.
"Who could have brought such a wonderful gift for poor people like us ?" they wondered. They looked about and they saw tracks in the snow,leading away from their house. The snow was twinkling and winking in the light of the dawn, and there in the distance , hobbling away in the snow, were ghe six stone statues of Jizo, still wearing the hats that the old man had given them.
And so it happened, that because of their kindness, the old couple had a wonderful New Year's Day celebration after all. 