stly, that there would be no paddy to cut, none to keep in the
store-room of the house. He feared that his wife would have no rice, nor
Saidjah himself, who was still a child, nor his little brothers and
sisters. And the district chief too would accuse him to the Assistant
Resident if he was behindhand in the payment of his land taxes, for this
is punished by the law. Saidjah's father then took a poniard which was
an heirloom from his father. The poniard was not very handsome, but
there were silver bands round the sheath, and at the end there was a
silver plate. He sold this poniard to a Chinaman who dwelt in the
capital, and came home with twenty-four guilders, for which money he
bought another buffalo.

Saidjah, who was then about seven years old, soon made friends with the
new buffalo. It is not without meaning that I say "made friends," for it
is indeed touching to see how the buffalo is attached to the little boy
who watches over and feeds him. The large strong animal bends its heavy
head to the right, to the left, or downward, just as the pressure of the
child's finger, which he knows and understands, directs.

Such a friendship little Saidjah had soon been able to make with the
new-comer. The buffalo turned willingly on reaching the end of the
field, and did not lose an inch of ground when plowing backwards the
new furrow. Quite near were the rice fields of the father of Adinda
(the child that was to marry Saidjah); and when the little brothers
of Adinda came to the limit of their fields just at the same time that
the father of Saidjah was there with his plow, then the children called
out merrily to each other, and each praised the strength and the
docility of his buffalo. Saidjah was nine and Adinda six, when this
buffalo was taken by the chief of the district of Parang-Koodjang.
Saidjah's father, who was very poor, thereupon sold to a Chinaman two
silver curtain-hooks--heirlooms from the parents of his wife--for
eighteen guilders, and bought a new buffalo.

When this buffalo had also been taken away and slaughtered--

(I told you, reader, that my story is monotonous)

... Saidjah's father fled out of the country, for he was much afraid of
being punished for not paying his land taxes, and he had not another
heirloom to sell, that he might buy a new buffalo. However, he went on
for some years after the loss of his last buffalo, by working with hired
animals for plowing; but that is a very ungrateful labor, an