I knew someone at Kurobane in nasu, so we decided to head straight across the plain from there. It began to rain as we walked along, taking our bearings on a distant village, and the sun soon sank below the horizon. After borrowing accomodations for the night at a farmhouse, we started out across the plain again in the morning. A horse was grazing nearby. WQe appealed for help to a man who was cutting grass and found him by no means incapable of understanding other people's feelings, rustic though he was.

"What's the best thing to do, I wonder?" he said. "I can't leave my work. Still, inexperienced travelers are bound to get lost on this plain, what with all the trails branching off in every direction. Rather than see you go on alone, I'll let you take the horse. Send him back when he won't go any farther." With that, he lent us the animal.

Two small children came running behind the horse. One of them, a little girl, was called kasane. Sora composed this poem:

kasane to wa	Kasane must be
Yaenadeshiko no	a name for a wild pink
na narubeshi	with double petals!*

Before long, we arrived at a hamlet and turned the horse back with some money tied to the saddle.