LVI.  The Strong Man.

There was once a Strong man but no one knew of his strength.  He was in the service of a farmer who made him headman over all his labourers.  In those days much of the country was still covered with jungle.  One day the farmer chose a piece of forest land which he thought suitable for cultivation and told his labourers to set to work and clear it, and as usual after giving his orders he troubled himself no more about the matter, as he could fully rely on the Strong man.

The next morning, the Strong man set the other labourers to work ploughing a field and then said that he would go and have a look at the jungle which his master wanted cleared.  So he went off alone with only a stick in his hand.  When he reached the place, he walked all round it, and saw how much could be made into good arable land, and then he began to clear it.  He pulled up the trees by the roots and piled them into a heap and he took the rocks and threw them to one side and made the ground quite clear and smooth, and then went back to the house.  On being asked why he had been so long away, he answered that he had been pulling up a few bushes at the place which was to be cleared.

The following morning the Strong man told the farm labourers to take their ploughs to the clearing and begin to plough it.  When the farmer heard this, he was puzzled to think how the land could be ready for ploughing so soon, and went to see it and to his amazement found the whole land cleared, every tree pulled up by the roots and all the rocks removed.

Then he asked the Strong man whether he had done the work by himself.  The Strong man answered “no,” a number of people had volunteered to help him and so the work had been finished in a day.

The farmer said nothing but he did not believe the story and saw that his servant must really be a man of marvellous strength.  Neither he nor the farm labourers let any one else know what had happened, they kept it to themselves.

Now the Strong man’s wages were twelve measures of rice a year.  After working for four years he made up his mind to leave his master and start farming on his own account.  So he told the farmer that he wished to leave but offered to finish any work there was to do before he went, that no one might be able to say that he had gone away, leaving his work half done.  The farmer assured him that there was nothing for him to do and gave him rice equal to his four years’ wages.  The rice made two big bandis, each more than an ordinary man could lift, but the Strong man slung them on to a bamboo and carried them off over his shoulder.