So the little daughter-in-law was crowned queen, but she did not let the other daughters-in-law who were also working at the tank know of her good fortune.  As queen, she gave a great feast to all the workers on the tank.  But in her own palace she took some wheat flour, and she kneaded it into shapes resembling human feet and human fists.  And when the other daughters-in-law were with the crowd of workers eating at the feast, she went up to them, and to each daughter-in-law who had kicked her she gave a flour foot, and to each daughter-in-law who had struck her with her hands she gave a flour fist.  Then the daughters-in-law recognised who the little queen was, and they fell at her feet and begged for her forgiveness.  So the little queen forgave them and took them back with her into her husband’s palace.  And they all lived together happily ever afterwards.

CHAPTER V

The Friday Story

Once upon a time there was a town called Atpat.  In it there lived a miserably poor Brahman.  He had a wife who was as poor as he was.  One day she felt her poverty so much that she went to a gossip of hers who lived close by and told her all about her troubles.  The neighbour could suggest nothing better than that the poor woman should worship the goddess Shukra or Venus.  So she told the Brahman woman to fast every Friday through the month of Shravan.  Every Friday evening she should invite a married lady friend to her house.  She should bathe her friend’s feet.  She should give her sweetened milk to drink and fill her lap with wheat cakes and bits of cocoa-nut.  She should continue to worship Shukra in this way every Friday for a whole year, and in the end the goddess would certainly do something for her.  The Brahman woman thought the advice good, and every Friday she worshipped Shukra and had a married friend to dine with her just as her neighbour had advised her.

Now the Brahman woman had a rich brother living in the same town, who one day invited one thousand Brahmans to dine.  At the same time he invited all the townspeople with the single exception of his sister.  The poor lady thought that she must have been left out by accident, and that there would be no harm in going, even although uninvited.  She put on her silk dining-clothes, and, taking her children with her, went off to the dinner.  She seated herself close to her children, and was eating away when her brother came round serving ghee.  When he saw his sister he shouted at her, “You have neither nice clothes nor nice jewelry.  You have made me a laughing-stock by coming as you have come.  I shall not turn you out, but do not come to-morrow.”