Page:Tales of the Punjab.pdf/63

Rh find, was just putting it into his mouth, when a thought struck him.

'If I take these pears home I shall be able to sell them for ever so much to the other bears, and then with the money I shall be able to buy some khichrî. Ha, ha! I shall have the best of the bargain after all!'

So saying, he began to gather the ripe pears as fast as he could and put them into the khichrî pot, but whenever he came to an unripe one he would shake his head and say, 'No one would buy that, yet it is a pity to waste it.' So he would pop it into his mouth and eat it, making wry faces if it was very sour.

Now all this time the woodman's wife had been watching the bear through a crevice, and holding her breath for fear of discovery; but, at last, what with being asthmatic, and having a cold in her head, she could hold it no longer, and just as the khichrî pot was quite full of golden ripe pears, out she came with the most tremendous sneeze you ever heard—A-h-che-u!

The bear, thinking some one had fired a gun at him, dropped the khichrî pot into the cottage yard, and fled into the forest as fast as his legs would carry him.

So the woodman and his wife got the khichrî, the wood, and the coveted pears, but the poor bear got nothing but a very bad stomach-ache from eating unripe fruit.