some other way of killing
him because all the ploughing was finished; but his wife told him he
could plough down their crop of _goondli_, the bullocks would stop
to eat the _goondli_ as they went along and so he would easily catch
up his son. Accordingly the next morning father and son took out the
ploughs and the boy asked where they should plough, and the father said
that they would plough down the field of _goondli_. But the boy said
"Why should we do that? it is a good crop and will be ripe in a day
or two; it is too late to sow again, we shall lose this crop and who
knows whether we shall get anything in its place?"

And the father thought 'What the boy says is true; the first crop
is like the first child, if I kill him who will support me in my
old age? Who knows whether my second wife will have children. I will
not kill him however angry she be;' so they unyoked their ploughs and
went home. He told his wife that he would not kill the boy and scolded
her and ended by giving her a beating. Then she ran away in a passion
but he did not trouble to go and look for her and in a few days her
father and brothers brought her back, and her husband told them what
had happened and they also scolded her and told her to mend her ways.

VII. The Pious Woman.

There was once a very pious woman and her special virtue was that she
would not eat or drink on any day until she had first given alms to a
beggar. One day no beggar came to her house, so by noon she got tired
of waiting, and, tying in her cloth some parched rice, she went to the
place where the women drew water. When she got there she saw a Jugi
coming towards her, she greeted him and said that she had brought
dried rice for him. He said that omens had bidden him come to her
and that he came to grant her a boon: she might ask one favour and
it would be given her. The woman said: "Grant me this boon--to know
where our souls go after death, and to see at the time of death how
they escape, whether through the nose or the mouth, and where they
go to; and tell me when I shall die and where my soul will go to;
this I ask and no more." Then the Jugi answered, "Your prayer is
granted, but you must tell no one; if you do, the power will depart
from you." So saying he took from his bag something like a feather and
brushed her eyes with it and washed them with water. Then the woman's
eyes were opened and she saw spirits--_bongas, bhuts, dains, churins_,
and the souls of de