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OCTOBER, 1895.)
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA ; No. 39.
299
Finding all reasoning to be vain, and, pitying his poor wife, who was so good and kind to him in everything, he went a little out of the ordinary way and promised to supply Vatsalá with a mother-in-law. He went to a carpenter and brought a wooden image, and, presenting it to his wife, addressed her thas:
"My dear Vatsalâ, you are dying for want of a mother-in-law. I have consulted several doctors and learned mon. They gave me a wooden mother-in-law for you. You can now be happy. You can worship this as yoar old mother-in-law. Consult this wooden image in household duties, and be thus in every way happy."
Vatsala's pleasure at the receipt of a substitute for her mother-in-law can be better imagined than described. She placed it in a prominent part of the verandah of the upper storey of her house. To her it was everything. She consulted it. She fed it twice a day with a sumptuous meal, and spent every minute that she could save from household duties to the care of the image. But how could the wood speak? How could the wood eat i These were plain questions with plain answers to Vatsala. For she devised the answers after putting the questions to the image, and imagined that the answers came from the mother-in-law herself, She would stand before the image and ask :
"My mother, what shall I prepare you for your dinner to-night! You have not been well to-day.”
After putting this question, she would herself answer :
“Yes, I understand you. Your order is that I should prepare pepper-water without dil. I shall do so."
Her simplicity was a source of general amusement. She would spread a large leaf before the image and serve on it the meal meant for her mother-in-law. Some mischievous relation would wait for an opportunity and take away all the meal, leaving the leaf clean. But Vatsalá thought that her mother-in-law had swallowed it all. Thas passed some days.
Patanibhagya had to go out on a mercantile tour with a neighbour for a few months. He supplied the house with grain and articles of food to last for six months, and started on his journey. His ueighbour did the same, and followed him. Other relations of Patanibhagya, too, had to go away, and thus Vatsalà was left alone in the house with her wooden mother-inlaw. She was very glad of this. Her only living friend was the wife of the neighbour who had accompanied Patanîbhagya on his tour. That their husbands were friends on tour was the great cause of this friendship, though they were of opposite natures. Vatsala was an idiot and a fool, but the other woman was the very type of intelligence and canning. Finding Vatsalê was a great fool, and it did not take much time to discover this, she wanted to profit by it. Whatever ill-health Vatsalî imagined in her wooden mother-in-law she would aggravate. She recoiamended sumptuous meals for the mother-in-law as the only cure for weakness, and Vatsala spent all her leisure in preparing rice of several kinds, puddings, muffins, etc., etc., to feed her, and all these were served twice and even thrice a day. Her friend took them all away secretly, and thus saved herself the trouble of kindling a fire-at her own home, growing fat at the expense of Vatsala. She saved all the articles stored up by her own husband. Vatsala did not care for the expense. If her mother-in-Inw was well it was all in all to her : and was she inproving? Yes; undoubtedly, at least to Vatsalâ she was, and her friend told her so every day. Thus things went on for soine montlis.
Their husbands returned from their tour. Patauibhagya examined his house, and discovered that he must supply his house again with food. lle asked his wife how it was that everything wos exhausted so soon, while she was the only soul at home to eat.
"My dear busband, how is it that you huve forgotten your mother, my mother-in-law ? Ever since you left us, she was always falling into weak health, and I had to feed her every
