Buying Mittens
Tales from a Japanese Dreamland: Book 3
by
Nankichi Niimi
Copyright Paul Quirk 2013
Translated from - Tebukuro wo kai ni by Nankichi Niimi
Cover image: Buying Mittens by Tamie Oda
Discover other titles by Kenji Miyazawa and Nankichi Niimi published by Little J Books at https://www.littlejbooks.com/
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This series is dedicated to my wife Yuuki, who has provided me with the support and encouragement to make this project a reality.
Contents
Buying Mittens
About the Authors
About Little J Books
Other Titles by Little J Books
Buying Mittens
by Nankichi Niimi
The cold winter had made its way down from the north to the woods where a mother fox lived with her young cub.
One morning the little fox was about to go outside to play, when suddenly he cried out, and rolled back down in front of his mother with his paws pressed over his eyes.
"Ma, something's stuck in my eye. Quick, quick, take it out," he pleaded.
Suddenly in a fluster, his mother rushed to pull back her son's paws from in front of his eyes, fearful of what she might see - but there was nothing there. When she took a look outside their hole, she soon realized what had happened. There had been a huge snowfall during the night and the glare of the sun on the fresh white snow was blinding. Having never seen snow before, the little fox was surprised by the bright glare and mistakenly thought something had hit him in the eye.
He soon went out to play. As he ran through the snow that was as soft as a ball of silk, he sent snow powder flying like a spray, tiny rainbows appearing instantly around him.
Then, suddenly from behind came a great noise,
DO-TA DO-TA Zaaaa!!
and the little fox was covered in powdery snow. Startled, he jumped sideways and rolled for about ten meters or so. He looked back to see what had happened, but there was nothing there. A huge clump of snow had fallen from the branches of a fir tree. Silky white threads of snow were still floating down between the branches.
A little while later the little fox returned to their hole.
"Ma, my hands are cold. They've gone all num num" he said, placing his wet paws that were now bright pink in front of his mother. Mother fox took them and blew on them, wrapping them gently in her own warm paws.
"They'll be warm soon enough. Once you touch the snow they start to warm up," she said, but she hated the idea of her baby getting frostbite and decided that when evening came, she would go to town and buy some mittens to fit her little boy's hands.
The dark, dark night arrived, wrapping up the woods and the fields with its shadow like a sheet, but no matter how hard it tried, it couldn't smother the snow's brilliant white light rising up from the ground.
The two silver foxes emerged from their hole. The little fox walked beneath his mother's stomach, busily looking this way and that, his big round eyes wide with excitement.
After they'd walked for a while, a single bright light appeared up ahead. When the little fox saw that, he said,
"Ma, that star has fallen down."
"That's not a star," replied his mother, and suddenly her legs froze to the spot.
"That is the light from the town."
Seeing the light had reminded her of the terrible experience she had the last time she went to town with her friend. Despite her pleas to stop, her friend tried to steal a duck from a farmhouse, and when they were sprung by the farmer they both had to run for their lives, only barely managing to escape.
"Ma, what are you doing? Come on, let's go," said the little fox from under his mother's tummy, but her leg's refused to take her any further. As there was nothing she could do, she had to ask the little one to go into town on his own.
"Sweetie, give me one of your paws," she said to the little fox. As she held her son's paw in her own, it suddenly turned into a tiny human hand. He stretched out the fingers, made a fist, pinched it, and then put it up to his nose to smell it.
"Ma, this is weird, what is it?" asked the little fox as he stared with wonder at this strange-looking paw.
"That's a human hand. Now listen carefully honey. When you get to the town you'll see a lot of human houses. Make sure to look for the one with a picture of a top hat on the sign out front. After you find that, knock on the door, and then call out, 'Good evening!' After you do that, a human will come and open the door just a wee bit, then you take this hand, see, this human hand here, and put it through the doorway, and you say 'Can I please have some mittens to fit snug on my hands?' Do you understand me sweetie? You mustn't show them this hand here," warned the little fox's mother.
"Why not?" asked the little fox.
"If a human realizes that you are a fox, they won't sell you any mittens. Even worse than that, they'll grab you and put you in a cage. Humans are scary."
"Oh."
"Never show them this one, just this one here, see, the human one," stressed his mother as she placed two silver coins in the little fox's human hand.
The little fox tottered slowly across the snow-lit field towards the light of the town. Although there was only one light at first, it soon increased to two and then three, until finally there were ten. As he looked at these lights, the little fox thought to himself that lights were like stars, with reds and yellows and blues. Eventually he arrived in the town, but all the houses along the street had their doors closed, and the only sign of life was from the warm light falling onto the road from the windows high up.
Most of the houses had small electric lamps above their shop signs, so the little fox was able to look at these as he searched for the hat shop. There were signs with pictures of bicycles, seeing glasses, and all kinds of other signs. Some were newly painted, while others were peeling like an old wall, but the little fox didn't know what any of them meant because he had never been into town before.
Finally he came to the hat store. The sign with the large black silk hat his mother had given him directions for, was lit up by a blue electric light.
The little fox knocked on the door just as he had been told.
"Good evening," he called out.
There came the sound of movement inside, and finally the door opened just a couple of inches, a thin ribbon of light stretching out along the white snow-covered road.
Startled by the bright light, the little fox accidentally put the wrong paw in through the gap - the one his mother told him he mustn't show.
"Can I please have some mittens to fit snug on my hands"
Oh, my! thought the hat maker. A fox p
aw. A fox paw asking for some mittens. I bet he is going to try and buy them with some leaves. So he said,
"Please pay first."
The little fox did as he was asked, handing the hat maker the two silver coins he had been holding. Placing the coins between his thumb and forefinger, the hat maker rubbed the two coins together, and the coins went clink, clink. He then knew that they weren't leaves but real coins, so he took two child-sized mittens from the shelf and placed them in the paw of the little fox. The little fox thanked the hat maker and then headed back in the direction that he had come.
Ma said humans were scary, but they aren't scary at all, he thought. He didn't do anything when he saw my hand.
But the little fox was curious to see what humans were like.
As he passed beneath a window he heard the sound of a human speaking. It was so gentle; so beautiful; such a charming voice.
Go to sleep, go to sleep
On mama's breast
Go to sleep, go to sleep
In mama's arms
The little fox was sure the person singing must be a mother. That's because his own mother sang him songs just like that when she was rocking him to sleep.
Then he heard a small child speak.
"Mummy, when it's cold like tonight, the little fox in the woods will be crying 'I'm cold, I'm cold."
The mother spoke again,
"The little fox in the woods will also be listening to his mummy's singing as he goes off to sleep in his hole. Now it's time for you to go to sleep too. I wonder who will be the first to get to sleep, you or the little fox in the woods? I think it will be you.'
When he heard this, the little fox suddenly wanted to see his mum again, and raced toward where she was waiting for him.
Mother fox had been beside herself with worry, shaking as she waited anxiously for her little one's return, so when he did come back she hugged him tightly in her arms and was so happy she wanted to cry.
The two foxes returned to the woods. Their coats shone silver under the bright moon, their footprints filling with dark-blue shadows.
"Ma, humans aren't scary at all."
"Why is that?"
"I accidentally stuck out my real paw. But the man didn't try and grab me. He just gave me these nice warm mittens," replied the little fox, patting the mittens that were now on his paws together, as he showed them to his mother.
"Really!" gasped his mother, before wondering out loud,
"I wonder if humans really are good. I wonder if they really are."
THE END