e city in
the early morning. Every year when the girls and boys went to the river
and filled their chatties with water to throw over the pagodas and idols
to insure a good rainy season and abundant crops, she always had the
largest bucket of the clearest water and threw it higher than anybody
else. She carried the sweetest flowers to the _zayat_ every evening, and
on worship days took rice in the prettiest of cups made of banana leaves
and offered to the Gautamas in the idol-house.

But she was not happy. When her neighbors went to the pagodas they had
their little ones tied upon their backs or running at their sides, but
she had no child whom she could take with her, none to whom she could
tell stories of the great Lord Sa Kyah who rules over the spirits in the
_hpea_ country, and so she was sad. She was getting old too, and often
envied the women who lived near who had bright boys to run errands and
girls to help in the house. Each year at the Feast of Lights, when she
sent her little candle floating down the river, she prayed for a child,
but in vain.

At last she made a pilgrimage to a pagoda where folks said was a _parah_
who would give anything that was asked of him. Bright and early she set
out, and on her head as an offering she carried an image of a tiger and
one of a man, and when she arrived at the pagoda she offered the images
and prayed for a son.

While she was praying at the pagoda, Lord Sa Kyah heard her, took pity
on her, and promised her a son. But, alas! when he was born, to his
mother's great sorrow, instead of being the beautiful boy she hoped for
he was nothing but a frog.

Lord Sa Kyah in order to comfort her, however, told her that her son was
really a great _hpea_, and that after one year and seven months he would
change into the most handsome man in all the hill and water country.

All the women scoffed and made fun of the poor mother, and all through
the village she was called Myeh Khit, or "Frog's Mother," but she bore
their jeers in silence and never reviled in return.

Now the king of the country had seven daughters. All were married except
one, and one day Myeh Khit went to him to ask for this daughter in
marriage for her son. The king was of course very angry that she should
ask that his only remaining daughter should marry a frog, but he spoke
deceitfully, called his daughter and asked her if she would be willing
to accept a frog for a husband. Like a dutiful daughter she told him