Hukumusume fairy tale collection > Story Top > Short stories of Edo
A Letter on a Leaf
(Short stories of Edo)
Translation ちいさな翻訳屋さん
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Persimmon
Leaf| ♪Reading in English | ||
| TIME 2:05 | Reading Google Translate | |
Japanese ←→ Japanese ＆ English ←→ English
There lived a very stingy man.
One day, the man thought about writing a letter but didn’t want to use his paper.
“I don’t want to waste my paper on something I will give to others. Why don’t I write on that?”
So he picked a few leaves from a persimmon tree in his yard. He then wrote on the leaves and had a messenger deliver it.
The man who received the letter was no less stingier than the one who sent it.
“Oh my! It’s clever of him writing on persimmon leaves.”
Then this man told the messenger who had delivered the letter,
“I’m sorry but take off your clothe and show me your back.”
When the messenger did as he was told, the man started writing his response on the messenger’s back.
Upon the messenger’s return after a while, the stingy man asked him,
“Good work. So, did you bring his response to my letter?”
“Sure. It is here.”
As the messenger showed his back, the stingy man said regretfully,
“What a clever idea! I should never have wasted the persimmon leaves on him…”
The end.
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