Then she got very angry and scolded the widow and said that she would pay her nothing as she had not done her work properly and she turned her out.  Then the widow was very unhappy for she had nothing to give her starving children and she wished that she had stuck to her usual work.  When she got home and her children began to cry for food, she remembered that she had seen some wild saru (vegetable) growing in a certain place; so she took a basket and a sickle and telling her children not to cry went out to gather it.  It was dark and lonely and she felt frightened but then she thought of her children and went on and gathered the saru, and returned home crying because she had nothing better to give her offspring.  On the way she met an old man who asked her why she was crying and she told him all her story.  Then he told her to take the herbs home and chop them all up and to put some in every basket and pot she had and to cook the rest for supper.  So when she got home she did as she had been directed and when she came to take the herbs which she had cooked out of the pot, she found that they had turned into rice, and she and her children ate it with joy.  The next morning she found that every pot and basket into which she had put the herbs was full of rice; and from that time she prospered and bought goats and pigs and cattle and lived happily ever after.

But no one knew where the old man came from, as she had forgotten to ask him.

XXXII.  The Monkey and the Girl.

Once upon a time the boys and girls of a village used to watch the crops of but growing by a river, and there was a Hanuman monkey who wished to eat the but, but they drove him away.  So he made a plan:  he used to make a garland of flowers and go with it to the field and, when he was driven away, he would leave the flowers behind; and the children were pleased with the flowers and ended by making friends with the monkey and did not drive him away.  There was one of the young girls who was fascinated by the monkey and promised to marry him.  Some of the other children told this in the village and the girl’s father and mother came to hear of it and were angry and the father took some of the villagers and went and shot the monkey.  Then they decided not to throw away the body, but to burn it like the corpse of a man.  So they made a pyre and put the body on it and set fire to it; just then the girl came and they told her to go away, but she said that she wished to see whether they really burned him like a man.  So she stood by and when the pyre was in full blaze, she called out “Oh look, what is happening to the stars in the sky!” at this every one looked up at the sky; then she took some sand which she had in the fold of her cloth and threw it into the air and it fell into their eyes and blinded them.

While they were rubbing the sand out of their eyes the girl leapt on to the pyre, and was burned along with the monkey and died a sati.  Her father and brothers were very angry at this and said that the girl must have had a monkey’s soul and so she was fascinated by him; and so saying they bathed and went home.