Page:The jade story book; stories from the Orient (IA jadestorybooksto00cous).pdf/363

Rh thing that had happened to him since he left Chang-ngan.

His mother, who was a very wise woman, as most mothers are, told him the Genii would be angry if he turned their great rivers into brooks, and would probably refuse to give him the pestle and mortar made of jade. But she gave him a box containing six white seeds, one of which he was to cast into each brook as he passed it on his return journey, and it would then expand into a river again.

The next morning Pei-Hang kissed his parents, and continued on his way to Mount Sumi. On the seventh day he came to the Blue River, which was a quarter of a mile wide, and as blue as the sky of summer, and fishes were popping their heads out of the water in every direction. The head of every fish was twice as large as a football, and had two rows of teeth. But he threw a red seed into the river, and in a moment it had become a little brook, across which he could hop on one foot, and the huge fishes were changed into tadpoles.

Very soon he reached the White River, which was half a mile wide, and so rapid