Once there was a very poor man, named Haamdaa'nee, who begged from
door to door for his living, sometimes taking things before they
were offered him. After a while people became suspicious of him, and
stopped giving him anything, in order to keep him away from their
houses. So at last he was reduced to the necessity of going every
morning to the village dust heap, and picking up and eating the few
grains of the tiny little millet seed that he might find there.
One day, as he was scratching and turning over the heap, he found a
dime, which he tied up in a corner of his ragged dress, and continued
to hunt for millet grains, but could not find one.
"Oh, well," said he, "I've got a dime now; I'm pretty well fixed. I'll
go home and take a nap instead of a meal."
So he went to his hut, took a drink of water, put some tobacco in
his mouth, and went to sleep.
The next morning, as he scratched in the dust heap, he saw a countryman
going along, carrying a basket made of twigs, and he called to him:
"Hi, there, countryman! What have you in that cage?"