Page:Folk-lore of the Telugus.djvu/127

119 manage with the things we possess and not seek what we have not.' To which the housewife agreed and said:—'I shall manage tomorrow's meal with the little that we have.' So saying she washed, pounded and dried a quantity of sesamum. A fowl, then came and scratched away the seed. The Brahman seeing this, said:—'The sesamum seeds have become impure and unfit for a Brahman meal. Go and exchange these for something else and return.' The housewife came the next day into the house to which I was invited to eat, and asked the housewife if she would give ordinary sesamum in exchange for her pounded seed. The housewife gladly agreed to her proposal, took some sesamum seed in a sieve and was conversing when the master asked her what it was that she was bargaining about. To which she said that she received pounded sesamum seed in exchange for a smaller quantity of unhusked seed. The Brahman hearing this, said:—'O fool! would anybody give pounded seed in exchange for unhusked? There must be some reason for her giving it.