The Acorns & Wildcat Kenji MIYAZAWA Translated by SoRaJune Part II 宮沢賢治 どんぐりと山猫 英語版 パート2

There was a beautiful golden meadow.
The wind went through the grasses and
olive-colored nutmeg tree forest
surrounded it.
In the center of the meadow, there
was a short odd shaped man. He squatted
holding a leather whip and stared
Ichiro in silence.
Ichiro was frightend as getting closer
to him. One eye of the man was bad
showing only white and twitching. He
wore Kimono like unusual jacket and
his legs were bent like a goat’s.
His feet were pointy like a tip of a
spoon. Ichiro was afraid but tried
to keep himself as calm as possible.
“Do you know where Wildcat is?”
The man gave a glimpse at him and
grinned with curling lips.
“Mr. Wildcat will be back here
shortly. You must be Ichiro.”
Ichiro was startled and stepped back.
“Yes, I’m Ichiro. Why, how do you know
that?”

The man still grinned and said.
“You have received the card.”
“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”
The man looked down the ground and said
in somewhat dismal manner, “The writing
wasn’t good, was it?”
Ichiro felt sorry and said, “It was
all right, presented well.”
The man was so pleased with Ichiro’s
words and breathed heavily. He opened
the neck of his kimono to get air.
“How was the handwriting?”
“It was also good. No fifth grader can write
as well as that.” said Ichiro with smile.
“You mean the fifth grader in the primary
school?”
The man’s voice was so sad and miserable.
Ichiro hurriedly corrected his words.
“No, I mean the fifth grader in a college.”
The man joyously cried out with open mouth
that was so big as if covering entire his
face.
“It was me who wrote that card.”
Ichiro supressed his laugh and asked,
"What are you doing here?”
“I'm driving a wagon for Mr. Wildcat.”
said the man.

At that moment the strong wind roared
and all the grasses undulated. The odd
shaped man bowed deeply. When Ichiro
turned back to see what was going on,
there was Wildcat in yellow kimono with
green round eyes. Ichiro noted that his
ears were very pointy. Wildcat made a bow.
Ichiro returned the greeting. “Hello, sir.
Thank you for the invitation”
Wildcat pulled his whiskers and thirsted
out his round belly.
“Hello. Thank you for coming. I brought
you here for your advice. A difficult case
has been heard for three days. I had
trouble to judge it. Please have a seat
and relax. Acorns will be here in any minute.
Every year they gave me headache. “
Wildcat took out his cigar box and put one
cigar in his mouth. “Would you have one?” He
offered the box to Ichiro. Ichiro was shocked
and said no. The cat smiled calmly and said,
“I see, you’re still a bit young.” He lit
it with a match and breathed out blue smoke
wearing grimace. The driver stood very
strait. His eyes were moist as he craved
for the cigar.
(to be continued)