"What a dreadful misfortune for my poor Suzume San to lose her
tongue!" he said to himself. "She won't be able to chirp any more,
and surely the pain of the cutting of it out in that rough way must
have made her ill! Is there nothing to be done?"

The old man shed many tears after his cross wife had gone to sleep.
While he wiped away the tears with the sleeve of his cotton robe, a
bright thought comforted him: he would go and look for the sparrow
on the morrow. Having decided this he was able to go to sleep at
last.

The next morning he rose early, as soon as ever the day broke, and
snatching a hasty breakfast, started out over the hills and through
the woods, stopping at every clump of bamboos to cry:

"Where, oh where does my tongue-cut sparrow stay? Where, oh where,
does my tongue-cut sparrow stay!"

He never stopped to rest for his noonday meal, and it was far on in
the afternoon when he found himself near a large bamboo wood. Bamboo
groves are the favorite haunts of sparrows, and there sure enough at
the edge of the wood he saw his own dear sparrow waiting to welcome
him. He could hardly believe his eyes for joy, and ran forward
quickly to greet her. She bowed her little head and went through a
number of the tricks her master had taught her, to show her pleasure
at seeing her old friend again, and, wonderful to relate, she could
talk as of old. The old man told her how sorry he was for all that
had happened, and inquired after her tongue, wondering how she could
speak so well without it. Then the sparrow opened her beak and