m that time he grew richer than ever. And the youth returned to
his mother and told her all that had happened and they understood
the meaning of the advice which Chando had given to the two men and
acted accordingly. And it is true that we see that avaricious men
who trespass across boundaries become poor.

XII. The Changed Calf.

There was once a cowherd named Sona who saved a few rupees and he
decided to buy a calf so as to have something to show for his labours;
and he went to a distant village and bought a bull calf and on the way
home he was benighted. So he turned into a Hindu village and went to an
oilman's house and asked to be allowed to sleep there. When the oilman
saw such a fine calf he coveted it and he told Sona to put it in the
stable along with his own bullock and he gave him some supper and let
him sleep in the verandah. But in the middle of the night the oilman
got up and moistened some oil cake and plastered it over the calf;
he then untied his own bullock and made it lick the oil cake off the
calf, and as the bullock was accustomed to eat oil cake it licked it
greedily; then the oilman raised a cry, "The bullock that turns the
oil mill has given birth to a calf." And all the villagers collected,
and saw the bullock licking the calf and they believed the oilman. Sona
did not wake up and knew nothing of all this, the next morning he
got up and went to untie his calf and drive it away, but the oilman
would not let him and claimed the calf as his own. Then Sona called
the villagers to come and decide the matter: but they said that they
had seen him bring no calf to the village and he had not called any of
them to witness it, but they _had_ seen the bullock licking the calf;
why should the bullock lick any but its own calf? No one ever saw a
bullock lick a strange bullock or cow and so they awarded the calf
to the oilman. Then Sona said that he would call someone to argue the
matter and he went away meaning to get some men from the next village:
but he lost his way in the jungle and as he went along a night-jar
flew up from under his feet; he called out to it to stay as he was in
great distress, and the bird alighted and asked what was the matter,
and Sona told it his trouble. Then the night-jar said that it would
argue the matter for him but it must have a colleague and it told Sona
to go on and ask the first living being he met to help; so he went on
and met a jackal and the jackal agreed to help