Carriage attendant

 In the middle of the meadow, a short, oddly shaped man with bent knees and a leather whip in his hand was staring at him silently.

 Ichiro walked closer and closer to him, and then stopped in surprise.
The man had one eye, and the invisible one was white and shaking, and he was wearing strange clothes like a kind of jacket.
First of all, his legs were so bent that they looked like those of goat.
Its feet, in particular, were in the shape of a spatula for serving rice.
Ichiro felt a little creeped out, but he tried to calm down and asked him.
"Do you know Wildcat?"

 The man looked at Ichiro sideways and smiled, his mouth curving up into a grin.
"Wildcat-sama will be back soon. You must be Ichiro-san."

 Ichiro was startled and stepped back, and said.
"Yes, I'm Ichiro. But how do you know that?"
Then the strange man started to grin more and more.
"Then you saw the postcard."
"Yes, I did. That's why I came."
"That writing is very poor."
The man looked down and said sadly.
Ichiro felt sorry for him and said.
"Well, he seemed to be a very good writer."
The man was so happy that his breath came in gasps, and he turned red up to his ears.
The man opened the collar of his clothes and let the wind blow into his body, and asked.
"Is his handwriting very good?"
Ichirou couldn't help laughing as he replied.
"Even a fifth grade student cannot write like that."

 Then the man suddenly looked uncomfortable again.
"A fifth grade means an elementary school student."
The man's voice sounded so weak and pathetic that Ichiro rushed to say.
"No, it's the fifth grade of a college or university."

 Then the man became happy again and shouted, smiling and laughing as if his whole face was a mouth.
"I wrote that postcard."

 Ichiro tried to hold back his laughter, and asked.
"Who the hell are you?"
The man suddenly became serious and said.
"I'm the carriage attendant of Wildcat-sama."

- To return to table of contents of Acorns and Wildcat