Pear Blossom had been the name of a little Korean maid who was suddenly
left motherless. When her father, Kang Wa, who was a magistrate high in
office, married again, he took for his wife a proud widow whose
daughter, born to Kang Wa, was named Violet. Mother and daughter hated
housework and made Pear Blossom clean the rice, cook the food and
attend to the fire in the kitchen. They were hateful in their treatment
of Pear Blossom, and, besides never speaking a kind word, called her
Pigling, or Little Pig, which made the girl weep often.
It did no good to complain to her father, for he was always busy. He
smoked his yard-long pipe and played checkers hour by hour, apparently
caring more about having his great white coat properly starched and
lustred than for his daughter to be happy. His linen had to be beaten
with a laundry club until it glistened like hoar frost, and, except his
wide-brimmed black horsehair hat, he looked immaculately white when he
went out of the house to the Government office.
Poor Pigling had to perform this task of washing, starching and
glossing, in addition to the kitchen work and the rat-tat-tat of her
laundry stick was often heard in the outer room till after midnight,
when her heartless stepsister and mother had long been asleep.
There was to be a great festival in the city and for many days
preparations were made in the house to get the father ready in his best
robe and hat, and the women in their finery, to go out and see the king
and the royal procession.
Poor Pigling wanted very much to have a look at the pageant, but the
cruel stepmother, setting before her a huge straw bag of unhulled rice
and a big cracked water jar, told her she must husk all the rice, and,
drawing water from the well, fill the crock to the brim before she
dared to go out on the street.
What a task to hull with her fingers three bushels of rice and fill up
a leaky vessel! Pigling wept bitterly. How could it ever be done?
While she was brooding thus and opening the straw bag to begin
spreading the rice out on mats, she heard a whir and a rush of wings
and down came a flock of pigeons. They first lighted on her head and
shoulders, and then hopping to the floor began diligently, with beak
and claw, and in a few minutes the rice lay in a heap, clean, white,
and glistening, while with their pink toes they pulled away the hulls
and put these in a separate pile.
Then, after a great chattering and cooing, the flock was off and away.
Pigling was so amazed at this wonderful work of the birds that she
scarcely knew how to be thankful enough. But, alas, there was still the
cracked crock to be filled. Just as she took hold of the bucket to
begin there crawled out of the fire hole a sooty black imp, named
Tokgabi.
“Don’t cry,” he squeaked out. “I’ll mend the broken part and fill the
big jar for you.” Forthwith, he stopped up the crack with clay, and
pouring a dozen buckets of water from the well into the crock, it was
filled to brimming and the water spilled over on all sides. Then
Tokgabi the imp bowed and crawled into the flues again, before the
astonished girl could thank her helper.
So Pigling had time to dress in her plain but clean clothes that were
snow-white. She went off and saw the royal banners and the king’s grand
procession of thousands of loyal men.
The next time, the stepmother and her favorite daughter planned a
picnic on the mountain. So the refreshments were prepared and Pigling
had to work hard in starching the dresses to be worn—jackets, long
skirts, belts, sashes, and what not, until she nearly dropped with
fatigue. Yet instead of thanking and cheering her, the cruel stepmother
told Pigling she must not go out until she had hoed all the weeds out
of the garden and pulled up all the grass between the stones of the
walk.
Again the poor girl’s face was wet with tears. She was left at home
alone, while the others went off in fine clothes, with plenty to eat
and drink, for a day of merrymaking.
While weeping thus, a huge black cow came along and out of its great
liquid eyes seemed to beam compassion upon the kitchen slave. Then, in
ten mouthfuls, the animal ate up the weeds, and, between its hoof and
lips, soon made an end of the grass in the stone pathway.
With her tears dried Pigling followed this wonderful brute out over the
meadows into the woods, where she found the most delicious fruit her
eyes ever rested upon. She tasted and enjoyed, feasting to the full and
then returned home.
When the jealous stepsister heard of the astonishing doings of the
black cow, she determined to enjoy a feast in the forest also. So on
the next gala-day she stayed home and let the kitchen drudge go to see
the royal parade. Pigling could not understand why she was excused,
even for a few hours, from the pots and kettles, but she was still more
surprised by the gift from her stepmother of a rope of cash to spend
for dainties. Gratefully thanking the woman, she put on her best
clothes and was soon on the main street of the city enjoying the gay
sights and looking at the happy people. There were tight rope dancing,
music with drum and flute by bands of strolling players, tricks by
conjurers and mountebanks, with mimicking and castanets, posturing by
the singing girls and fun of all sorts. Boys peddling honey candy,
barley sugar and sweetmeats were out by the dozen. At the eating-house,
Pigling had a good dinner of fried fish, boiled rice with red peppers,
turnips, dried persimmons, roasted chestnuts and candied orange, and
felt as happy as a queen.
The selfish stepsister had stayed home, not to relieve Pigling of work,
but to see the wonderful cow. So, when the black animal appeared and
found its friend gone and with nothing to do, it went off into the
forest.
The stepsister at once followed in the tracks of the cow but the animal
took it into its head to go very fast, and into unpleasant places. Soon
the girl found herself in a swamp, wet, miry and full of brambles.
Still hoping for wonderful fruit, she kept on until she was tired out
and the cow was no longer to be seen. Then, muddy and bedraggled, she
tried to go back, but the thorny bushes tore her clothes, spoiled her
hands and so scratched her face that when at last, nearly dead, she got
home, she was in rags and her beauty was gone.
But Pigling, rosy and round, looked so lovely that a young man from the
south, of good family and at that time visiting the capital, was struck
with her beauty. And as he wanted a wife, he immediately sought to find
out where she lived. Then he secured a go-between who visited both
families and made all the arrangements for the betrothal and marriage.
Grand was the wedding. The groom, Su-wen, was dressed in white and
black silk robes, with a rich horsehair cap and head-dress denoting his
rank as a Yang-ban, or gentleman. On his breast, crossed by a
silver-studded girdle, was a golden square embroidered with flying
cranes rising above the waves—the symbols of civil office. He was tall,
handsome, richly cultured, and quite famous as a writer of verses,
besides being well read in the classics.
Charming, indeed, looked Pear Blossom as she was now called again, in
her robe of brocade, and long undersleeves which extended from her
inner dress of snow-white silk. Dainty were her red kid shoes curved
upward at the toes. With a baldric of open-worked silver, a
high-waisted long skirt, with several linings of her inner silk robes
showing prettily at the neck, and the silver bridal ring on her finger,
she looked as lovely as a princess.
Besides her bridal dower, her father asked Pear Blossom what she
preferred as a special present. When she told him, he laughed heartily.
Nevertheless he fulfilled her wishes and to this day, in the boudoir of
Pear Blossom, now Mrs. Su-wen, there stands an earthen figure of a
black cow moulded and baked from the clay of her home province, while
the pigeons like to hover about a pear tree that bursts into bloom
every spring time and sheds on the ground a snowy shower of fragrant
petals.