.

The child replied: "After we have studied until evening he asks each of us
what our sisters do. They answer him: she kneads bread, she goes to get
water. But when he questions me I have nothing to say, and he beats me."

"Is it nothing but for that?"

"That is all."

"Well," added the young girl, "the next time he asks you, answer him: 'This
is what my sister does: When she laughs the sun shines; when she weeps it
rains; when she combs her hair, legs of mutton fall; when she goes from one
place to another, roses drop.'"

The child gave that answer.

"Truly," said the schoolmaster, "that is a rich match." A few days after he
bought her, and they made preparations for her departure for the house of
her husband. The stepmother of the young girl made her a little loaf of
salt bread. She ate it and asked some drink from her sister, the daughter
of her stepmother.

"Let me pluck out one of your eyes," said the sister.

"Pluck it out," said the promised bride, "for our people are already on the
way."

The stepmother gave her to drink and plucked out one of her eyes.

"A little more," she said.

"Let me take out your other eye," answered the cruel woman.

The young girl drank and let her pluck out the other eye. Scarcely had she
left the house than the stepmother thrust her out on the road. She dressed
her own daughter and put her in the place of the blind one. They arrive.

"Comb yourself," they told her, and there fell dust.

"Walk," and nothing happened.

"Laugh," and her front teeth fell out.

All cried, "Hang H'ab Sliman!"

Meanwhile some crows came flying near the young blind girl, and one said to
her: "Some merchants are on the point of passing this way. Ask them for a
little wool, and I will restore your sight."

The merchants came up and the blind girl asked them for a little wool, and
each one of them threw her a bit. The crow descended near her and restored
her sight.

"Into what shall we change you?" they asked.

"Change me into a pigeon," she answered.

The crows stuck a needle into her head and she was changed into a pigeon.
She took her flight to the house of the schoolmaster and perched upon a
tree near by. The people went to sow wheat.

"O master of the field," she said, "is H'ab Sliman yet hanged?"

She began to weep, and the rain fell until the end of the day's work.

One day the people of the village went to find a venerable old man and said
to him:

"O old man, a bird is p