Meiwa 9, Fifth Month, 10th day [10 June 1772]. My stepmother gave birth to a baby boy, Senroku. At that time I was perhaps nine years old. How miserable I was! From that day on, I was his 'nursemaid'. Even into the late spring evenings my clothes were soaked with his drool and excrement. And into the early autumn twilight my skin had no chance to dry. Whenever Senroku got cranky, I was singled out and unfairly blamed by my mother and father. I was beaten with a stick a hundred times a day, eight thousand times a month, and I cried every day of the year.*