Page:Folk Tales from Tibet (1906).djvu/40

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THE STORY OF THE TWO NEIGHBOURS.

upon a time there were two Neighbours living in two houses, side by side, in the same village. One of these was rich, and the other one poor. The rich man, whose name was Tse-ring, was proud, arrogant, and stingy; whilst the poor man, whose name was Cham-ba, was a kind-hearted man, who was generous to all as far as his means allowed.

Now it happened that a pair of Sparrows came and built their nest in the eaves over the doorway of the poor man's house, where, in the course of time, the young birds were hatched out. One day, before the young birds had learnt to fly, the two old Sparrows were away hunting for food, and one of the young ones fell out of its nest on to the poor man's door-step, and broke its leg. Shortly after the poor man coming into his house saw the young Sparrow lying helpless on his door-step, so he picked it up to see what was wrong, and found that its leg was broken. So he carried it into the house, and very carefully bound up its leg with a piece of thread; and then took it up to the roof, and put it back in the nest.