     "That seems to be the trouble?" he asked me.

     "Could I possibly have tuberculosis?" I wondered, betraying my nervousness.

     Even at times like this he would write a prescription with his usual good-natured smile.
My medicine was ready.

     Without even a Thank you," I took it and went home.

     Neither of us worried about the cost of the medicine.

     Even I, who was nervous and more timid than others, would always behave like this in front of him.  It was truly a mystery.

     "Born, Mend It Again"

     I later slipped away to Kaohsiung for a time.  I tried many different jobs but couldn't settle into a regular occupation.

     In the end I managed to establish myself as a woodcutter for over a year.  I rented quite a spacious house for only eight yen a year, because they said it was haunted.

     In a place called Nei- -wei [sic] in Kaohsiung, the foot of Mt. Shou approached the eaves of my house.  I could always hear the monkeys gibbering.  Sometimes they would come along the branches of a longan tree that spread above the roof of my house.  Here in such a place I climbed the mountain every day and climbed trees to gather firewood.

     I made a living by loading a handcart I had borrowed with firewood and pulling it into town, where my wife would sell it.

     We would make about two yen selling a load every few days.
If I had not left my children with various illnesses due to malnutrition, I would have felt as though I were living in a fairyland.

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