I. The
ground-rat is more powerful, for however high I may be the ground-rats
burrow holes in me and I cannot resist them."

The poor parents by this time began to feel rather discouraged,
but still they made up their minds to persevere and went on to look
for the ground-rat. They found him and offered him their daughter in
marriage, but the ground-rat denied that he was the most powerful
being on earth, the Musahars were more powerful for they lived by
digging out ground-rats and eating them.

The hapless couple went home very dejectedly, reflecting that they
had begun by despising their own caste and had gone in search of
something greater and had ended where they begun. So they arranged
to marry their daughter to a man of their own caste after all.

_Moral_ You should not despise your own caste or race; you cannot
help what caste you are born into. A Santal may learn to read and
write and associate with men of good position and thereby his mind
may be perverted. He may wish to change his caste become a Sadhu, or
a Kherwar, or a Boistab, or a Mussulman, or a Christian or anything
else; but people will still know him for a beef-eating Santal. If he
becomes a Christian, no one will think him the equal of a Saheb or
a Brahman; no Saheb will marry his daughter or give him his daughter
in marriage. Remember what happened to the Musahar, who despised his
own caste. God caused you to be born in a certain caste. He and not
we made the different castes and He knows what is good and bad for us.

LII. Tipi and Tepa.

Tipi and Tepa dwelt together and lived on baked cakes. One day they
met a bear in the jungle. "Now I will eat you" growled the bear. "Spare
us," said Tipi and Tepa "and to-morrow we will beg some food and bake
it into cakes and give it to you," So the bear let them go away to beg;
but when they came back they ate the food which they had procured and
then hid themselves inside a hollow gourd. The bear came and looked
about for them but could not find them and went away.

The next day Tipi and Tepa again went out begging and as luck would
have it again met the bear. "Now I will eat you" said the bear. "No"
said they "let us go and beg some food for you." So they went off
begging and came back and baked cakes and ate them and then hid
inside the gourd. The bear came and carried off the gourd on its
shoulder and began to pick plums and other fruit and put them into
the gourd. As fast as the fruit was put i