Page:Child-life in Japan and Japanese child stories (Ayrton, Matilida Chaplin. , 1901).djvu/59

Rh daughters. These, mindful of the future, and aghast at the prospect in store for him in the world to come, frequently endeavored to convert him. Many were the tears they shed. At last one day, after they had pleaded with him more earnestly still than before, the father, touched by their

supplications, promised to shoot no more. But, after a while, some of his neighbors came round to request him to shoot for them two storks. He was easily led to consent by the strength of his natural liking for the sport. Still he would not allow a word the two white Bird to be breathed to his daughters. He slipped out at night, gun in hand, after they were, as he imagined, fast asleep.

They, however, had heard everything, and the elder sister said to the younger: "Do what we may, our father will not condescend to follow our words of counsel, and nothing now remains but to bring him to a knowledge of the truth by the sacrifice of one of our own lives. To-night is fortunately moonless; and if I put on white garments and go to the neighborhood of the bay, he will take me for a stork and shoot me dead. Do you continue to live and tend our father with all