[Illustration: The woodman and his wife.]
Once upon a time there lived an old woodman and his wife in a tiny
little hut near the edge of the forest. Now, a very rich man had his
orchard near their home—so close, in fact, that the boughs of a big
pear-tree hung right over their yard. The rich man was a generous
neighbor, and he agreed to give the poor man and his wife the fruit that
fell into their garden. So the old woodman and his wife watched with
hungry eyes as the pears ripened in the sunshine.
“How I wish that a wind-storm would come and let those pears drop on our
side of the fence,” said the old woman.
“Yes,” agreed the old man; “I wish that I dared to shake the tree a
little and make some of the fruit fall this way, but our neighbor might
see it, and then he would be angry and not give us any of them.”
Every day, the old woman grumbled more and more, because the pears did
not drop on their side of the fence.
“I declare, we shall be beggars,” she groaned; and she insisted that her
husband work harder and harder each day, while she would give him
nothing to eat but a dry crust of bread.
The poor man grew thinner and thinner while he waited for the pears to
ripen and fall into their yard; and every day he worked harder and
harder, but he could not please his grumbling old wife. At last he
turned around on her and, in great anger, said, “Wife, I will not do any
more work unless you make some khichri for my dinner.”
“Khichri!” shrieked the wife; “khichri! Indeed I will not. Do you not
know that khichri takes rice and pulse and butter and spices? Do you
think that I am going to use all we have in the house on one meal for
you?”
“Yes,” said the old man, “that is why I demand khichri. You have starved
me quite long enough and now I will have the best dish you can make me.”
The cross old woman took the things out of the closet and began to cook
a savory khichri. It smelt so good that the old man could hardly wait
for it.
“Let me have a taste?” he begged.
“No, no,” scolded his wife, “you cannot have even a taste of it until
you have brought me in another load of wood, and mind that it is a big
one. You will have to work for your khichri.”
The old woodman took his axe and went out to the forest and began to hew
and hack the trees with all his strength and soon he had a large load of
wood.
Chop! chop! chop! At every blow of his axe he would think of the savory
khichri he would soon enjoy.
Suddenly a big black bear came lumbering along through the forest with
his long black nose tilted in the air and his little keen eyes peering
all about him, for bears are always curious.
“Grr-rr-Grr-rr! Good-day to you, my friend,” growled the bear. “And may
I ask what you are doing with that large bundle of wood?”
“I cut it for my wife,” answered the woodman. “You see, she would not
cook me any dinner unless I brought her the wood. Today she has made me
khichri for dinner and I know that when she sees this large load of
wood, she will give me a generous portion. Oh, just smell that khichri;
it is delicious!”
This made the bear very hungry and so he growled, “Do you think that
your wife would give me some khichri, if I brought her some wood?”
“Maybe she might, if you brought her a very large load,” answered the
man.
After a long discussion, the bear agreed to bring in half a cord of
wood, if the man would save him some of the khichri.
“Half a cord is a very large load of wood,” grumbled the bear.
“But there is saffron and rice and pulse and butter in the khichri. It
is a very expensive dish,” said the woodman.
The bear licked his chops at this and his bright little eyes gleamed
with greed.
“It is a bargain,” he cried. “I will bring you half a cord of wood, so
go home and tell your wife to keep the khichri hot, for I shall be with
you soon.”
The woodman went home and told his wife about his bargain with the bear.
“Half a cord of wood is good pay for a share of our dinner,” said the
man.
Now the wife knew that her husband had made a good bargain with the
bear, but she always found fault and grumbled about everything, so she
began to scold the old man.
“You should have made a better bargain with the bear. Bears are always
greedy,” she stormed. “You know that he will gobble up all the khichri,
before we have had a mouthful.”
[Illustration: “Do you think your wife would give me some khichri, if
I brought her some wood?”]
[Illustration: “Do you think your wife would give me some khichri, if
I brought her some wood?”]
When the woodman heard this he grew quite pale. “Don’t you think that we
had better begin now and have a fair start before the bear comes?” he
asked.
So they squatted down upon the floor mat with the big brass pot of
khichri placed between and began to eat and eat as fast as they could.
“Yum-mm, Yum-mm, YUMM, this khichri is good!” mumbled the man as he
crammed his mouth full. “But we must remember to leave some for the
bear, wife!”
“Yes, certainly, certainly!” replied the woman, helping herself to more.
“We must leave some for that poor hungry bear!”
But they went right on eating and eating until there was not a single
mouthful left in the pot.
“What shall we do now, when the bear comes?” cried the woodman. “It is
all your fault, wife, for suggesting that the bear would eat it all.”
“My fault! my fault, indeed!” shrieked the wife. “You suggested that we
begin to eat before the bear came in, and you ate twice as much as I
did!”
“No, I did not!”
“Yes, you did so, and you know it!”
“Well, there is no good in quarrelling about it now,” said the woodman.
“The bear will be here in a few moments and he will be furious when he
finds the khichri all gone. He is very large and very hungry and he may
eat us when he finds that we have gone back on our word.”
“Nonsense!” said the woman. “What a coward you are! All you think about
is saving yourself! I do not care whether he is angry or not. I want to
get that wood from him.”
“He will never give it to you, when he finds no dinner,” said the man.
“Of course not, you stupid,” scolded the woman, “but I have thought of a
plan. We must lock up everything in the house and leave the khichri pot
by the fire, to look as though we were keeping it hot for him and then
we must hide in the garret. When the bear comes and does not see us, he
will think that we have gone out and left his dinner for him; then he
will throw down his wood and come in. When he finds that the pot is
empty, he will rampage about a little, but he cannot do very much
damage. He will never bother to carry all that wood away again, for
bears are as lazy as they are greedy.”
Now all this time the bear had been working hard in the forest and it
took him much longer than he had expected to gather all that wood.
However, at last he dragged half a cord of wood to the house of the old
woodman. Seeing the brass khichri pot standing by the fire, he threw
down his pile of wood and went at once for his dinner. And then when he
saw that there was not even a grain of rice left in the pot, Me-oh-my!
wasn’t he angry? He growled and he roared and he poked his head ’way
down into the pot and licked the sides of it. But not even a tiny bit of
pulse could he taste, though all the time he could smell how savory that
khichri had been.
He sat on the floor and cried in his rage and disappointment, “Grr-rr!
Grr! Grr-rr-rr! That is a fine way to keep a promise! Well, since you
have eaten all the khichri, I will find something else to eat!” Then he
upset everything in the house, but no food could he find.
“Grr! Grr-rr! Grr-rr!” growled the bear. “I will take all of this wood
back to the forest again. They broke their bargain with me and they
shall not have one of my sticks to burn.”
But just as the old woman had expected he was much too lazy to carry the
heavy load back to the forest, even for revenge.
“I will not go away empty-handed,” he growled. “If they would not save
me a taste, I can at least get the smell!” And he carried the brass pot
away with him.
Now, as the bear left the cottage, he saw the beautiful golden pears
hanging from the tree. These were the first pears of the season, and
they looked very good to him. So he climbed up into the tree and began
to eat the biggest, ripest pear that he could find. My! but it was good!
The bear was so hungry, after his hard work in the forest, that he
licked his chops and smacked his lips as he munched the pear. And then
he thought of a plan.
“I shall take these pears home with me and sell them to the other bears
in the forest and with the money I can buy all the khichri that I can
eat! Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the bear. “I shall have the best of the
bargain after all! I will fool that old woodman and his wife, and they
will not have even so much as a taste of one.”
Then the bear began to gather the ripe pears as fast as he could and put
them into the big brass pot, but whenever he came to an unripe pear he
would shake his head and say, “No one will buy this green one, yet it is
a shame to waste it.” So he would pop the green pear into his own mouth
and gobble it up, though he made wry faces as he ate.
Now all this time, the woodman and his wife had been hiding in the
garret and the woodman’s wife was peeking through a little crevice
watching the bear. When she saw how furious he was, she held her breath
for fear he would discover them. When he climbed the tree and was eating
the pears, she was angry at losing their share of the fruit, but she was
too terrified to call out. At last from the excitement and the dust in
her hiding place, she could hold in no longer, and just when the bear
had filled the pot with ripe golden pears, out she came with a most
tremendous sneeze: “A-h Che-u! Che-uu-uu!”
The bear was startled by this sound—so much like the explosion of a
gun—and off he lumbered into the forest, dropping the khichri pot in the
yard as he ran.
Now, as the pot had dropped into their yard, the woodman and his wife
got all the pears, as well as the khichri they had eaten, and half a
cord of wood, while the poor bear got nothing but a very bad stomachache
from eating unripe fruit. So that was the end of the bear’s bad bargain.
[Illustration: Elephant heads and flowers.]