hought of nothing else, and early in the morning she
called another slave (for she was a rich woman) and bade him go and ask
for another pumpkin. But the girl, who had just been out to look at her
tree, told him that they were all eaten, so he went back empty-handed to
his mistress.

In the evening her husband returned from hunting a long way off, and
found his wife in tears.

'What is the matter?' asked he.

'I sent a slave with some grain to your sister to buy some pumpkins, but
she would not sell me any, and told me there were none, though I know
she lets other people buy them.'

'Well, never mind now--go to sleep,' said he, 'and to-morrow I will go
and pull up the pumpkin tree, and that will punish her for treating you
so badly.'

So before sunrise he got up and set out for his sister's house, and
found her cleaning some corn.

'Why did you refuse to sell my wife a pumpkin yesterday when she wanted
one?' he asked.

'The old ones are finished, and the new ones are not yet come,' answered
the girl. 'When her slave arrived two days ago, there were only four
left; but I gave him one, and would take no corn for it.'

'I do not believe you: you have sold them all to other people. I shall
go and cut down the pumpkin,' cried her brother in a rage.

'If you cut down the pumpkin you shall cut off my hand with it,'
exclaimed the girl, running up to her tree and catching hold of it. But
her brother followed, and with one blow cut off the pumpkin and her hand
too.

Then he went into the house and took away everything he could find, and
sold the house to a friend of his who had long wished to have it, and
his sister had no home to go to.

Meanwhile she had bathed her arm carefully, and bound on it some healing
leaves that grew near by, and wrapped a cloth round the leaves, and went
to hide in the forest, that her brother might not find her again.

For seven days she wandered about, eating only the fruit that hung from
the trees above her, and every night she climbed up and tucked herself
safely among the creepers which bound together the big branches, so that
neither lions nor tigers nor panthers might get at her.

[Illustration: HOW THE GIRL LOST HER HAND]

When she woke up on the seventh morning she saw from her perch smoke
coming up from a little town on the edge of the forest. The sight of the
huts made her feel more lonely and helpless than before. She longed
desperately for a draught of milk from a gourd,