25.  If you had been Subha Datta’s wife, what would you have done when this misfortune came to her husband?

26.  What would you have done if you had been the woodcutter?

CHAPTER XIV

This is the end of the story of the Magic Pitcher, but it was the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of Subha Datta and his family.  They never forgot the wonder-working pitcher, and the children were never tired of hearing the story of how their father came to get it.  They often wandered about in the forest, hoping that they too would meet with some wonderful adventure, but they never saw the fairies or found a magic pitcher.  By slow degrees the woodcutter returned to his old ways, but he had learnt one lesson.  He never again kept a secret from his wife; because he felt sure that, if he had told her the truth about the pitcher when he first came home, she would have helped him to save the precious treasure.

27.  What lesson can be learnt from this story?

28.  Do you think it is easier for a boy or a girl to keep a secret?

29.  Why is it wrong to let out a secret you have been told?

30.  What do you think was the chief fault in the character of Subha Datta?

STORY II

The Story of a Cat, a Mouse, a Lizard and an Owl.

CHAPTER I

This is the story of four creatures, none of whom loved each other, who lived in the same banyan tree in a forest in India.  Banyan trees are very beautiful and very useful, and get their name from the fact that “banians,” as merchants are called in India, often gather together in their shade to sell their goods.  Banyan trees grow to a very great height, spreading their branches out so widely that many people can stand beneath them.  From those branches roots spring forth, which, when they reach the ground, pierce it, and look like, columns holding up a roof.  If you have never seen a banyan tree, you can easily find a picture of one in some dictionary; and when you have done so, you will understand that a great many creatures can live in one without seeing much of each other.

In an especially fine banyan tree, outside the walls of a town called Vidisa, a cat, an owl, a lizard and a mouse, had all taken up their abode.  The cat lived in a big hole in the trunk some little distance from the ground, where she could sleep very cosily, curled up out of sight with her head resting on her forepaws, feeling perfectly safe from harm; for no other creature, she thought, could possibly discover her hiding-place.  The owl roosted in a mass of foliage at the top of the tree, near the nest in which his wife had brought up their children, before those children flew away to seek mates for themselves.  He too felt pretty secure as long as he remained up there; but he had seen the cat prowling about below