I will ask for no second helping but if you do not fill the leaf full I shall have the right to abuse you, and if I do not do all the work you give me properly, then you can abuse me and beat me.  If I run away from fear of hard work you may cut off the little finger of my right hand, and if you do not give me the wages we have agreed upon then I shall have the right to cut off the little finger of your hand.  What do you say to this proposal:  consult your friends and give me your answer.”  Then the miser answered “I engage you on these terms and if I turn you off without reason you may cut off my little finger.”  Then Kora turned to the man who had fetched him and said “Listen to all this:  if there is any dispute hereafter you will be my witness.”

So Kora began to work and the first day they gave him rice on a single sal leaf and he ate it up in one mouthful:  but the next day he brought a plantain leaf (which is some three feet long) and said “Give me my rice on this and mind you fill it full.”  And they refused:  but he said “Why not? it is only a single leaf” and they had to give in because he was within his rights; so he ate as much as he wanted, and every day he brought a plantain leaf till his master’s wife got tired and said to her husband “Why have you got a servant like this—­he takes a whole pot of rice to himself every day,” but he answered “Never mind:  his wages are nothing, he is working for his keep alone;” so the whole year Kora got his plantain leaf filled and he was never lazy over his work so they could find no fault with him on that score, and when the year was up they gave him one grain of rice and one seed of maize for his wages for the year.  Kora kept them carefully, and his master’s sons laughed at him and said “Mind you don’t drop them or let a mouse eat them.”

Kora said nothing but when the time for sowing maize came he took his grain of maize and sowed it by the dung heap, and he called them to see where he sowed it; and at the time of sowing rice he sowed his grain separately, and when the time for transplanting came he planted his rice seedling in a hollow and bade them note it.  When the maize ripened it was found that his plant had two big cobs and one small one on it, and his rice seedling sent up a number of ears; and when it ripened he cut it and threshed it and got one pai of rice, and he kept the maize and rice for seed.  And the next year also he sowed this seed separately and it produced a big basket of rice and another one of maize, and he kept this also for seed; and in the course of five or six years he had taken all their high lands to sow his seed in and in a few years more he had taken all their rice lands too.  Then his master was very miserable but he saw that it was useless to make any complaint and the master became so poor that he had to work as a servant to Kora.  At last the miser called the heads of the village together and wept before them, and they had pity on him and interceded for him; but