can abuse me and beat me. If I run away
from fear of hard work you may cut off the little finger of my right
hand, and if you do not give me the wages we have agreed upon then I
shall have the right to cut off the little finger of your hand. What
do you say to this proposal: consult your friends and give me your
answer." Then the miser answered "I engage you on these terms and if
I turn you off without reason you may cut off my little finger." Then
Kora turned to the man who had fetched him and said "Listen to all
this: if there is any dispute hereafter you will be my witness."

So Kora began to work and the first day they gave him rice on a
single _sal_ leaf and he ate it up in one mouthful: but the next
day he brought a plantain leaf (_which is some three feet long_)
and said "Give me my rice on this and mind you fill it full." And
they refused: but he said "Why not? it is only a single leaf" and
they had to give in because he was within his rights; so he ate as
much as he wanted, and every day he brought a plantain leaf till his
master's wife got tired and said to her husband "Why have you got a
servant like this--he takes a whole pot of rice to himself every day,"
but he answered "Never mind: his wages are nothing, he is working for
his keep alone;" so the whole year Kora got his plantain leaf filled
and he was never lazy over his work so they could find no fault with
him on that score, and when the year was up they gave him one grain
of rice and one seed of maize for his wages for the year. Kora kept
them carefully, and his master's sons laughed at him and said "Mind
you don't drop them or let a mouse eat them."

Kora said nothing but when the time for sowing maize came he took his
grain of maize and sowed it by the dung heap, and he called them to
see where he sowed it; and at the time of sowing rice he sowed his
grain separately, and when the time for transplanting came he planted
his rice seedling in a hollow and bade them note it. When the maize
ripened it was found that his plant had two big cobs and one small
one on it, and his rice seedling sent up a number of ears; and when
it ripened he cut it and threshed it and got one _pai_ of rice, and he
kept the maize and rice for seed. And the next year also he sowed this
seed separately and it produced a big basket of rice and another one
of maize, and he kept this also for seed; and in the course of five
or six years he had taken all their high lands to sow his s