ied himself and went to his clearing and brought home the
biggest pumpkin that had grown there; this he offered to the spirits;
he sliced off the top of it as if it were the head of a fowl, and
as he did so he saw that the inside was full of rice; he called his
mother and they filled a winnowing fan with the rice and there was
enough besides to nearly fill a basket; they were delighted at this
windfall but kept the matter secret lest they should be robbed. The
monkey boy told his mother to be sure and cook enough rice so that
his brothers and their wives might have as much as ever they could
eat, and not merely a small helping such as they had given him,
and if necessary he would go and fetch another pumpkin; so his
mother boiled the rice. When the time fixed for the feast came,
nothing was to be seen of the brothers because they did not expect
that there would really be anything for them to eat; so the monkey
boy went and fetched them, and when they came to the feast they
were astonished to have as much rice as they could eat. When the
crop was quite ripe the monkey boy gathered all the pumpkins and
got sufficient rice from them to last for the whole year. After
this the brothers went out to buy horses, and the monkey boy went
with them and as he had no money he took nothing but a coil of rope;
his brothers were ashamed to have him with them and drove him away,
so he went on ahead and got first to the place where the horsedealer
lived. The brothers arrived late in the evening and decided to make
their purchases the following morning and ride their horses home, so
they camped for the night. The monkey boy spent the night hiding on
the rafters of the stable; and in the night the horses began to talk
to each other and discussed which could gallop farthest, and one mare
said "I can gallop twelve _kos_ on the ground and then twelve _kos_
in the air." When the monkey boy heard this he got down and lamed
the mare by running a splinter into her hoof. The next morning the
brothers bought the horses which pleased them and rode off. Then the
monkey boy went to the horsedealer and asked why the mare was lame
and advised him to apply remedies. But the dealer said that that
was useless: when horses got ill they always died; then the monkey
boy asked if he would sell the mare and offered to give the coil of
rope in exchange; the dealer, thinking that the animal was useless,
agreed, so the monkey boy led it away, but when he was out of