Turmoil at the Ikeda House
–Morning of December 13th–
On December 13th, the ninth and seventh district divisions (respectively representing the current-day Kue neighborhood of Tomamae City and Ichijima) of the exterminators mustered at the third house downstream, that of Ikeda Tomikura. There were three others there: Tomikura himself, his eldest son Tomiyoshi, and his second oldest, Kamejirō. Tomikura’s wife, fearing for their safety, had already sought shelter with their children. The rather large house was divided into three sections, and flames and coals flickered red in the fireplace. The party was ready for battle: rifles, swords, bamboo spears, hatchets, sickles, and axes had been forced into every nook and cranny.
Mori Kinzaburō, a farmer from the ninth district, was clad in his favorite black woolen clothes, squatting in a corner of the room. Sitting next to him, in about the middle of the room, was the short of stature Ohashi Minetarō, known to all as a strong man. On his hip he wore a sharp short sword, which they said he had claimed in the Russo-Japanese War. The several rounds of live ammunition on him were meaningful to the man.
“This is all I need to put the bear out of its misery,” Ohashi, with full knowledge of all the bear had done, boasted with his usual bluster. “He’s a rat in a trap.” He showed no sign of anger.
At about four in the morning emergency supplies came through. The men were of the sentiment that you can’t fight if you can’t eat, but just as their spirits had been raised a messenger arrived.
“The bear appears to have entered a house nearby. Use extreme caution!” A wave of sudden anxiety coursed through the house.
It was then that a thud-thud-thud sound echoed through the home and a pile of stacked firewood came tumbling down.
The thudding caused two horses in the barn to flee. Kube Inosuke and the others from Sankebetsu were scared stiff, and then the lamp went out, plunging the house into darkness. Screams came from inside the house. Some had fled the house, some were hanging to the rafters, and some had hidden themselves in the toilet. The Ikeda house was in total turmoil.
Being that the bear had already been nearby three times in search of corn, the men were overwhelmed with fear strong enough to freeze their blood.
Ohashi Minetarō, dumbstruck by this new attack by the bear, crawled to the washbasin and hid himself under it. Under the basin were already stored a large quantity of pumpkins, but Ohashi, being of small stature, was able to weasel himself inside. However, his head and shoulders were exposed. Meanwhile, Mori Kinzaburō, still in his black wool, crawled on, passing by Ohashi. He thought to hide himself behind the washbasin, and Ohashi, pressed uncomfortably close to Mori, mistook him for the bear.
Unable to run or even stand, Ohashi yelled, “BEAR! BEAR!” with a fading voice before he at last remembered the short sword on his hip. He drew the blade and, gasping, stabbed the bear. But Mori, on the receiving end, believed instead that he had been attacked by the bear. He clung fast to Ohashi, who tried repeatedly to push him away. This got him off of and away from Ohashi in a hurry.
Man’s fear of the bear had provoked all of this. There was no evidence that the bear had ever been there. On the contrary, they had no idea how far away it was. But something was not right. The exterminators, crouched in their hiding places, looked around before returning wordlessly to the room.
Someone lit a lamp and went to investigate the barn, and another man checked out the perimeter of the house. But there was not a single paw print to be found.
“It weren’t the bear!”
“The wood’s done plowed through! Was that what made the sound?”
At last they realized that this was not the work of the bear, and they began to calm down.
What had actually happened was that two or three of the young men, terrified of the bear, had gone out together to the garden to fetch some firewood. Trying to finish their task quickly, they ignored the procedure and took what was easy to get from the top of the pile. This caused a large hole to open up, and with the added weight of the show the whole thing collapsed.
Once they realized that nothing amiss had happened around the house, the white-faced haughty hero Ohashi Minetarō crawled out from under the washbasin. Whereupon he continued to spout his usual braggadocio.
“Well, did that take you by surprise? Listen to me! We were close to being bear food just now! I’m not going to let a bear rub its balls on my face and get away with it! Where did he go? Get out there and kill me a bear! You’re not injured, are you?” Mere moments ago, Ohashi had thought that he was in a bear hug.
It was then that Mori Kinzaburō and his black woolen clothes appeared, the fervor still clinging to him. Still half-dazed, his expression was dubious. From Mori’s clothes, it was clear that Ohashi had mistaken him for the bear. Ohashi, guessing this, tried to hush it all up, but there were too many men present, and finally he acceded.
This tale was told forevermore as “The Incident of the Bear’s Balls.”
The day’s events did not stop there. For the farmers of the frontier, there was no food more important for the winter season than pickles. They were something prized by not just the frontiersmen, but by all the people of the north as the best flavor of the winter. They were piled high in the Ikeda house; there were two radiant barrels of pickled radishes on the dirt floor room. To keep the pickles through the long winter, place and temperature were key, so the dirt floor was the best place to keep them cool. They were all lined up in the dark corners of the dirt floor room.
The exterminators had discovered this room, and because the outhouse made them feel uneasy, they had assumed it for their bathroom. One by one they had urinated in there. In one night they had ruined an entire winter’s worth of food. And to add insult to injury, they had made free use of the family’s tools and cookery as though they were an army occupying the house.