Page:The jade story book; stories from the Orient (IA jadestorybooksto00cous).pdf/95

Rh course the same good fortune would be his. But instead of coming to life again the worms died, which meant the loss of much money for him. This made him very jealous of his brother.

The musty rice-seed which he had given his brother, and which Musai had planted, also turned out well, for it flourished better than any of his own had done. This only added to his jealousy.

The time to cut and harvest the rice approached, when clouds of birds came and devoured it. Musai hastened to drive them away, and this he did again and again, but each time they returned.

Chasing them away was very tiring work, so he finally pursued them to a distant field, and then they disappeared. Here he lay down to rest, and soon fell asleep.

There came to him a dream in which he was surrounded by a band of merry children. They danced and sang and played games.

In the last of these the eldest of the children lifted up a stone which lay near Musai's head and from beneath it drew a paper bag. With this in his hand he went to the