Tales of a Korean Grandmother. Frances Carpenter

into the corner where Yong Tu and his cousins were busy making kites for the New Year flying.

      "Wori! Wori! Dog, come here," Yong Tu called severely. And the boy joined in the chase, finally catching the excited dog by the neck and holding him tight until the black cat got away to safety in the Garden of Green Gems, beyond the women's houses.

      These children did not have much sympathy for the cat, but Yong Tu was afraid the animals might spoil his precious kite-making materials which were spread out on the ground. The Kims liked Dog because he was such a good watchman. But he was in no way an indoor pet like the dogs of Western lands. This black cat, which often crept over their wall, was very wild. Once Ok Cha had tried to pet it, but the cat would only growl, spit at her, and scratch.

      "Why do dogs and cats fight so, Halmoni?" the little girl asked, looking up from her tray of pine seeds.

      "My grandmother used to tell me a story about that," Halmoni said. "And I'll tell it to you." Somehow Yong Tu and his cousins must have guessed their grandmother was beginning a story. Before she was well started, they had brought their papers, their bamboo sticks, and their glue-pots and set up their little kite factory at her feet.

      "The dog and the cat in my tale lived in a small wineshop on the bank of a broad river beside a ferry, my children. Old Koo, the shopkeeper, had neither wife nor child. In his little hut he lived by himself except for this dog and this cat. The tame beasts never left his side. While he sold wine in the shop, the dog kept guard at the door and the cat caught mice in the storeroom. When he walked on the river bank, they trotted by his side. When he lay down to sleep upon the warm floor, they crept close to his back. They were good enough friends then, the dog and the cat, but that was before the disaster occurred and the cat behaved so badly.

      "Old Koo was poor, but he was honest and kind. His shop was not like those where travelers are persuaded to drink wine until they become drunk and roll on the ground. Only one kind of wine was sold, but it was a good wine. Once they had tasted it, Koo's customers came back again and again to fill their long-necked wine bottles.

      "'Where does Old Koo get so much wine?' the neighbors used to ask one another. 'No new jars are ever delivered by bull carts at his door. He makes no wine himself, yet his black jug is never without wine to pour for his customers.'

      "No one knew the answer to the riddle save Old Koo himself, and he told it to no one except his dog and his cat. Years before he opened his wineshop, Koo had worked on the ferry. One cold rainy night when the last ferry had returned, a strange traveler came to the gate of his hut.

      "'Honorable Sir, he begged Koo, 'give me a drop of good wine to drive out the damp chill.'

      "'My wine jug is almost empty,' Koo told the traveler. I have only a little for my evening drink, but no doubt you need the wine far more than I. I'll share it with you.' And he filled up a bowl for his strange, thirsty guest.

      "The stranger on leaving put into the ferryman's hand a bit of bright golden amber. 'Keep this in your wine jug,' he said, 'and it will always be full.'

      "Now, as Old Koo told his dog and his cat, that traveler must have been a spirit from Heaven, for when Koo lifted the black jug, it was heavy with wine. When he filled his bowl from it, he thought he had never tasted a drink so sweet and so rich. No matter how much he poured, the wine in the jug never grew less.

      "Here was a treasure indeed. With a jug that never ran dry, he could open a wineshop. He would no longer have to go back and forth, back and forth, in the ferryboat over the river in all kinds of weather.

      "All went well until one day when he was serving a traveler, Koo found to his horror that his black jug was empty. He shook it and shook it, but no answering tinkle came from the hard amber charm that should have been inside.

      "'Ai-go! Ai-go!' Koo wailed. 'I must unknowingly have poured the amber out into the bottle of one of my customers. Ai-go! What shall I do?'

      "The dog and the cat shared their master's sadness. The dog howled at the moon, and the cat prowled around the shop, sniffing and sniffing under the rice jars and even high up on the rafters. These animals knew the secret of the magic wine jug, for the old man had often talked to them about the stranger's amber charm.

      "I am sure I could find the charm,' the cat said to the dog, 'if I only could catch its amber smell.'

      "'We shall search for it together,' the dog suggested. 'We shall go through every house in the neighborhood. When you sniff it out, I will run home with it.'

      "So they began their quest. They asked all the cats and dogs they met for news of the lost amber. They prowled about all the houses, but not a trace could they find of their master's magic charm.

      "'We must try the other side of the river,' the dog said at last. 'They will not let us ride across on the ferryboat. But when the winter cold comes and the river's stomach is solid, we can safely creep over the ice, like everyone else.'

      "Thus it was that one winter morning the dog and the cat crossed the river to the opposite side. As soon as the owners were not looking, they crept into the houses. The dog sniffed round the courtyards, and the cat even climbed up on the beams under the sloping grass roofs. Day after day, week after week, month after month, they searched and they searched, but with no success.

      "Spring was at hand. The joyful fish in the river were bumping their backs against the soft ice. At last, one day, high up on the top of a great brassbound chest, the cat smelled the amber. But, ai, the welcome perfume came from inside a tightly closed box. What could they do? If they pushed the box off the chest and let it break on the floor, the Master of the House would surely be warned and chase them away.

      "'We must get help from the rats,' the clever dog cried. They can gnaw a hole in the box for us and get the amber out. In return, we can promise to let them live in peace for ten years.' This plan was all against the nature of a cat, but this one loved its master and it consented.

      "The rats consented, too. It seemed to them almost too good to be true that both the cats and the dogs might leave them alone for ten whole peaceful years. It took the rats many days to gnaw a hole in that box, but at last it was done. The cat tried to get at the amber with its soft paw, but the hole was too small. Finally a young mouse had to be sent in through the wee hole. It succeeded in pulling the amber out with its teeth.

      "'How pleased our master will be! Now good luck will live again under his roof,' the cat and the dog said to each other. In their joy at finding the lost amber charm, they ran around and around as if they were having fits.

      "'But how shall we get the amber back to the other side of the river?' the cat cried in dismay. 'You know I cannot swim.'

      "'You shall hold the amber safely inside your mouth, Cat,' the dog replied wisely. 'You shall climb on my back, and I'll swim you over the river.'

      "And so it happened. Clawing the thick shaggy hair of the dog's back, the cat kept its balance until they had almost reached their own bank of the stream. But there, playing along the shore, were a number of children, who burst into laughter when they saw the strange ferryman and his curious passenger. 'A cat riding on the back of a dog! Ho! Ho! Ho!' they laughed. 'Ha! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Ho! Just look at that.' They called to their parents, and they came to laugh, too.

      "Now the faithful dog paid no attention to their foolish mirth, but the cat could not help joining them in the fun. It, too, began to laugh, and from its open mouth Old Koo's precious amber charm dropped down upon the river bottom.

      "The dog shook the cat off his back, he was so angry, and it was a miracle that the creature at last got safely to the shore. In a rage the dog chased the cat, which finally took refuge in the crotch of a tree. There the cat shook the moisture out of its fur. By spitting and spitting, it got rid of the water it had swallowed while in the river. The cat dared not come down out of the tree until the angry dog had gone away.

      "That, so my grandmother said, is why the dog and the cat are never friends, my dear ones. That is why, too, a cat always spits when a strange dog comes too near. That is why a cat does not like to get its feet wet."

      "But what about the amber charm and poor Old Koo?"