“We don’t have to bother about fetching this and fetching that.  You see that big pitcher.  Well, we get all our food and everything else we want out of it.  We just have to wish as we put our hands in, and there it is.  It’s a magic pitcher—­the only one there is in the whole wide world.  You get the food you would like to have first, and then we’ll tell you what we want.”

Subha Datta could hardly believe his ears when he heard that.  Down he threw his axe, and hastened to put his hand in the pitcher, wishing for the food he was used to.  He loved curried rice and milk, lentils, fruit and vegetables, and very soon he had a beautiful meal spread out for himself on the ground.  Then the fairies called out, one after the other, what they wanted for food, things the woodcutter had never heard of or seen, which made him quite discontented with what he had chosen for himself.

7.  What would you have wished for if you had had a magic pitcher?

8.  Would it be a good thing, do you think, to be able to get food without working for it or paying for it?

CHAPTER V

The next few days passed away like a dream, and at first Subha Datta thought he had never been so happy in his life.  The fairies often went off together leaving him alone, only coming back to the clearing when they wanted something out of the pitcher.  The woodcutter got all kinds of things he fancied for himself, but presently he began to wish he had his wife and children with him to share his wonderful meals.  He began to miss them terribly, and he missed his work too.  It was no good cutting trees down and chopping up wood when all the food was ready cooked.  Sometimes he thought he would slip off home when the fairies were away, but when he looked at the pitcher he could not bear the thought of leaving it.

9.  What sort of man do you think Subha Datta was from what this story tells you about him?

10.  What do you think was the chief cause of his becoming discontented after he had been in the service of the fairies for a few days?

CHAPTER VI

Soon Subha Datta could not sleep well for thinking of the wife and children he had deserted.  Suppose they were hungry when he had plenty to eat!  It even came into his head that he might steal the pitcher and take it home with him when the fairies were away.  But he had not after all the courage to do this; for even when the beautiful girls were not in sight, he had a feeling that they would know if he tried to go off with the pitcher, and that they would be able to punish him in some terrible way.  One night he had a dream that troubled him very much.  He saw his wife sitting crying bitterly in the little home he used to love, holding the youngest child on her knee whilst the other three stood beside her looking at her very, very sadly.  He started up from the