The Generous Host

            Once there was a villager who was quite poor but he was so kind and generous that he offered food to any one who came to his door, His wife was very unhappy about it,

  

  

‘Why are you always giving away your food when we have hardly anything for ourselves?’ she often complained. But the villager paid no attention to this and so his wife looked for an opportunity to teach him a lesson.

           

One day, when the villager was returning home, he met some travelers who were looking for a place to rest and eat.

           

At once the villager invited them to his house. When his wife saw this, she was furious, ‘there is not a grain of rice in the house, what shall we offer them?’ she yelled. ‘S-S-S-Sh, So saying, he grabbed a gunny bag and set out for the bazaar. His wife was upset,

  

‘Whatever food he brings will be served to those men and again we will have only rice to ear’ she thought, ‘I must find out a way to drive those men before he returns’.

           

She laid the grinding stone on the kitchen floor as if to grind spices for cooking and at the same time she let out a loud cry, ‘oh my God, oh my God what will become of these men, oh my God’. The travelers heard her cry from the next room. They went inside the kitchen and asked her what the matter was.

           

‘Oh my God’ she pretended to cry, ‘I do not know, but I have to tell you this. My husband said that he is going to knock you all in the head with this stone after he returns from the market’ she said.

           

As soon as the men heard this, they looked at each other’s faces and whispered, ‘let’s get out of here, brothers, before he returns, this is a mad house’. So they left as fast as they could.

           

In the mean time the villager returned home. Unable to find the guests he asked his wife, ‘where are they?’ His wife replied, ‘they asked for the grinding stone and I didn’t give it to them, so they left’. ‘You refused to give our guests an ordinary stone, shame on you’ exclaimed the villager. Then he grabbed the stone and ran out of the house muttering, ‘I will run after them and give them the stone’.

           

Pretty soon he spotted them walking. Then he shouted, ‘come back my friends, here is the grinding stone you can have’. As soon as the men heard this, they started to run faster. When the men heard this, they started to run faster. When the men reached the town, they told their fellow men about what had happened at the villager’s house. After that, much to his wife’s relief, no one accepted the villager’s invitation or accepted food from his house.