"Come a little closer and I'll make a son! Come a little closer and I'll make another," she shouted to the peach. The peach eventually arrived where she was.
The old woman picked up the big peach and took it home. She set it in the big mortar. About that time the old man came home from the mountains.
"Hello, grandma. Do we have anything? I'm starved!"
"Earlier when I went to the river to wash clothes, a big peach came floating along. I picked it up, and put it over there in the mortar. Please eat that."
"Really? That was a good idea. Let's eat it!" Saying this, the old man went over to the mortar. When he got there he was very surprised.
"Grandma! Didn't you say you put a big peach in the mortar? This looks more like a little dog!"
The old woman was also surprised, and ran to look in the mortar. Without question, it was a cute little white dog.
"Well, really! I'd have sworn that was a peach I put in there."
The old couple was amazed. But the white dog was so cute, they treated it like their own son, and took good care of it. (Like most old men and old women who lived in a certain place long, long ago, they had not had any children earlier.) The dog grew larger and larger, and eventually it was the largest dog anywhere around.
One day the dog, which was called Shiro because it was so white, told the old man to get a saddle ready. The old man argued that a saddle would be uncomfortable, but Shiro insisted. The process was repeated when Shiro asked for a straw bag, and then a grub hoe to be attached to the saddle.
"Now, follow me, grandpa," Shiro said, and the two started walking toward the mountains.
When they reached a point deep in the mountains, he said, "All right, grandpa, please dig here."
The old man removed the hoe and straw sack from Shiro's back, and began to chop at the ground. But what do you think? Each hoeful brought up large gold Oban, small gold koban, and other treasures as well.
"Grandpa, please put the treasure in the sack and put it on my back."
"Oh, no! It would be much too heavy for you-- I can't do that."
"It will be fine. Please do it."
And so the old man did. The same thing happened when Shiro told the old man to climb on his back.
Carrying the treasure and the old man, Shiro descended the mountain and returned to the house. Once inside, the old man opened the sack and showed the treasure to his wife. As they were staring at all the Oban and koban, the old lady next door came over to borrow some fire. She, too, was surprised to see all the treasure spread out on the floor.
"Grandpa! I've always heard you people were dirt poor, with no money at all. How on earth did you get all this gold and treasure all of a sudden?"
The old man explained all the dog had done that day, from first to last.
"What a wonderful dog! We'd like to borrow him for just one day." And she grabbed Shiro and hauled him away, with no regard for the old man's feelings.
The next day when Shiro told the greedy old man next door to fasten a straw sack to the saddle, the neighbor snarled, "I know-- what do you think I borrowed your for." and tied on three straw sacks.
Then he tied on the hoe, and shouted, "All right, go to the mountain," and began to drive Shiro up the mountain.
Once on the mountain, Shiro stopped at a suitable place and said, "Please dig here, old man."
The greedy neighbor began digging excitedly, but all he dug up were snakes and toads, scorpions and centipedes, ants and all sorts of unpleasant things. That made the old man so angry that he killed Shiro with his hoe and buried him in the hole he had just dug. Then he stuck a willow branch in the ground to mark the grave, and walked home, dragging the sacks and hoe behind him.
The kind old man began to worry at nightfall, but waited until morning to go ask.
"Your dog?" the greedy old man said. "The dog treated me very badly, and in the end I had to kill him. There's a willow branch stuck in the ground not far from the path, if you want to go see."
Then he started complaining about how much of his time the dog had wasted, as though he expected the kind old man to apologize. But the kind old man said nothing. After a while he started walking, and when he got to the grave he could see through his tears that the branch had grown into a mature willow tree.
Since there was no way to get his Shiro back, the old man decided the willow would make a good momento. He patiently cut out a large section of the trunk, and rolled it back down the mountain to his home, where he spent the night carving a large mortar to pound mochi/1 in.
The day eventually came when the kind old woman asked her husband to make some mochi. He put some rice in the willow mortar, but a surprising thing happened as soon as he began to pound on it. With each stroke of the mallet, golden Oban and koban popped out of the mortar, along with other treasures.
Just at that moment, the greedy old woman next door came over to borrow some fire. She asked where all the wealth had come from, and hearing the story, added "In that case we'll just borrow the mortar for a while," and took the keepsake of Shiro back to her own house without waiting for permission.
When the greedy neighbors had bought up all the mochi rice they could afford, they put it in the mortar and the old man started pounding. But instead of gold and jewels, the rice turned into unspeakably filthy, smelly things. The old pair did speak of the filth, in increasingly angry tones, and finally the old man took an ax and chopped the willow mortar to pieces, which he burned in the irori/2.
The next day the kind old man walked over and asked for his mortar back.
"I'm sorry you took the trouble to come over, since I burned that piece of trash up."
"That's really going too far. Can I at least have the ashes back?"
"Please take all you want. They're in the corner of the irori."
The kind old man scraped some ashes, all he had left to remember Shiro by, into a low woven basket, and started on the road back to his home. Then a little breeze started up, and before he could cover the ashes, some of them were blown onto the withered branches of a tree next to the road. Blossoms popped out along the branches immediately.
The old man couldn't believe his eyes. But he didn't just stand there in amazement-- he climbed into the tree and sprinkled ashes on all the dried branches, which burst into bloom. Then he climbed into the next tree and started to decorate it.
Just then the lord of that region and his retainers came by in procession. The sight of the old man in the flowering trees was one he had never seen before.
"Amazing! You're the best old man in Japan when it comes to making trees blossom! Can you do that again?"
The old man climbed a third tree and started sprinkling ashes. Every branch the ashes touched, no matter how dead it looked, was soon covered with white or pink blossoms.
"Beautiful! Beautiful! You're the best old man in Japan when it comes to making trees blossom!"
Along with the praise and the title, the lord gave the kind old man a large amount of gold as a reward. He took it home to show the kind old woman, but as they were counting it, the greedy old neighbor woman came over.
"What's this? Where did you get all that gold?"
Holding tightly to the basket of ashes, the kind old man explained about the flowers. The greedy old woman rushed back to her place.
And so, the next morning the greedy old man scraped together the ashes and cinders from the irori, and walked out to some dried trees.
"I'm the best old man in Japan when it comes to making trees blossom!" he called out.
He was heard by the lord, who was proceeding with his retainers back to the castle.
"In that case, make me some blossoms!"
The old man climbed up a dead tree and flung a handful of ashes at a branch. There was not a single blossom, though. Instead the ashes went straight into the eyes of the lord and his retainers, which produced tears instead of petals. The Lord was extremely angry. His men pulled the old man from the tree, and scolded him severely. The greedy old man apologized over and over again, and finally they let him go home.