A BOX OF DEMONS : Page 134

"And it's back to the field she goes!" cries the old woman, turning her back. "You know we can't feed a bird. Why, some days there is scarcely enough rice in the house for the two of us. Back to the fields with the bird I say!"

The old man picks the bird up tenderly and follows his wife into the house. She sits at her bowl, muttering. He tends the bird in a corner.

nabrator: But the old man would not take the sparrow back to the fields. All that night he tended the little bird, binding its wing, feeding it drops of water squeezed from a soft little rag. But the old woman scolded and muttered and complained, heaping abuse upon her husband, upon the sparrow, upon the gods who had given her such a miserable life.