Once long ago, in a small village in Japan, there lived a man whose name was Gombei. He lived very close to a wooded marsh where wild ducks came each winter to play in the water for many long hours. Even when the wind was cold and the marsh waters were frozen, the ducks came in great clusters, for they liked Gombei’s marsh, and they often stayed to sleep on the ice.

Just as his father had done before him, Gombei made his living by trapping the wild ducks with simple loops of rope. When a duck stepped into a loop, Gombei simply pulled the rope tight and the duck was caught. And like his father before him, Gombei never trapped more than one duck each day.

“After all, the poor creatures come to the marsh never suspecting that they will be caught,” Gombei’s father had said. “It would be too cruel to trap more than one at a time.”

And so for all the years that Gombei trapped, he never caught more than one duck a day.

One cold winter morning, however, Gombei woke up with a dreary ache in his bones. “I am growing too old to work so hard, and there is no reason to continue as my father did for so many years,” he said to himself. “If I caught one hundred ducks all at once, I could loaf for ninety-nine days without working at all.”

Gombei wondered why he hadn’t done this sooner. “It is a brilliant idea,” he thought.

The very next morning, he hurried out to the marsh and discovered that its waters were frozen. “Very good! A fine day for trapping,” he murmured, and quickly he laid a hundred traps on the icy surface. The sun had not yet come up and the sky was full of dark clouds. Gombei knelt behind a tree and clutched the ends of the hundred rope traps as he shivered and waited for the ducks to come.

Slowly the sky grew lighter and Gombei could see some ducks flying toward his marsh. He held his breath and watched eagerly as they swooped down onto the ice. They did not see his traps at all and gabbled noisily as they searched for food. One by one as the ducks stepped into his traps, Gombei tightened his hold on the ropes.

“One—two—three—” he counted, and in no time at all, he had ninety-nine ducks in his traps. The day had not even dawned and already his work was done for the next ninety-nine days. Gombei grinned at his cleverness and thought of the days and weeks ahead during which he could loaf.

“One more,” he said patiently, “just one more duck and I will have a hundred.”

*  *  *  *  *

The last duck, however, was the hardest of all to catch. Gombei waited and waited, but still there was no duck in his last trap. Soon the sky grew bright for the sun had appeared at the rim of the wooded hills, and suddenly a shaft of light scattered a rainbow of sparkling colors over the ice. The startled ducks uttered a shrill cry and almost as one they fluttered up into the sky, each trailing a length of rope from its legs.

Gombei was so startled by their sudden flight, he didn’t let go of the ropes he held in his hands. Before he could even call for help, he found himself swooshed up into the cold winter sky as the ninety-nine wild ducks soared upward, pulling him along at the end of their traps. . . .

Soon one hand began to slip, a little at first, and then a little more. He was losing his grip on the ropes! Slowly Gombei felt the ropes slide from his numb fingers and finally, he was unable to hold on any longer. He closed his eyes tight and murmured a quick prayer as he plummeted pell-mell down to earth. The wild ducks, not knowing what had happened, flew on trailing their ropes behind like ribbons in the sky.

As Gombei tumbled toward the ground, however, a very strange thing began to take place. First, he sprouted a bill, and then feathers and wings, and then a tail and webbed feet. By the time he was almost down to earth, he looked just like the creatures he had been trying to trap. Gombei wondered if he were having a bad dream. But no, he was flying and flapping his wings, and when he tried to call out, the only sound that came from him was the call of the wild duck. He had indeed become a wild duck himself. Gombei fluttered about frantically, trying to think and feel like a duck instead of a man. At last, he decided there was only one thing to do.

“If I am to be a wild duck, I must live like one,” he thought, and he headed slowly toward the waters of a marsh he saw glistening in the sun.

He was so hungry he simply had to find something to eat, for he had not even had breakfast yet. He swooped down to the marsh and looked about hungrily. But as he waddled about thinking only of his empty stomach, he suddenly felt a tug at his leg. He pulled and pulled, but he could not get away. Then he looked down, and there wound around his leg was the very same kind of rope trap that he set each day for the wild ducks of his marsh.

“I wasn’t harming anything. All I wanted was some food,” he cried. But the man who had set the trap could not understand what Gombei was trying to say. He had been trapped like a wild animal and soon he would be plucked and eaten.

“Oh-h-h-h me,” Gombei wailed, “now I know how terrible it is for even one wild duck to be trapped, and only this morning I was trying to trap a hundred poor birds. I am a wicked and greedy man,” he thought, “and I deserve to be punished for being so cruel.”

As Gombei wept, the tears trickled down his body and touched the rope that was wound tightly about his leg. The moment they did, a wonderful thing happened. The rope that was so secure suddenly fell apart and Gombei was no longer caught in the trap.

“I’m free! I’m free!” Gombei shouted, and this time he wept tears of joy. “How good it is to be free and alive! How grateful I am to have another chance,” he cried.

As the tears rolled down his face, and then his body, another strange and marvelous thing happened. First, his feathers began to disappear, and then his bill, and then his tail and his webbed feet. Finally he was no longer a duck, but had become a human being once more. . . .

*  *  *  *  *

Never again will I ever trap another living thing,” Gombei vowed when he reached home safely. Then he went to his cupboard and threw out all his rope traps and burned them into ash.

“From this moment on, I shall become a farmer,” he said. “I will till the soil and grow rice and wheat and food for all the living creatures of the land.” And Gombei did exactly that for the rest of his days.

As for the wild ducks, they came in ever-increasing numbers, for now they found grain and feed instead of traps laid upon the ice, and they knew that in the sheltered waters of Gombei’s marsh they would always be safe.