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300
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
OCTOBER, 1895.
day sumptuously. Must not two souls eat? And must not my mother-in-law be fed p', replied she.
The patience of the busband was exhausted. However much he might have excused her for her foolishness, the waste of all the food touched him to the quick.
"May you and your mother-in-law go to hell !" roared he, and, kicking the wooden image first, he dealt the same punishment to his wife. The wife did not feel herself insulted in any way, but she felt acutely the sufferings of her mother-in-law.
" You have kicked her down. May the gods curse yon! You have kicked your own mother. How will the gods excuse you? O my mother-in-law, my dear mother-in-law. In your old age to be thus kicked! What a great shock you must have received by your fall ?" wept Vatsalâ, and, disregarding her husband's blows, she flew to the fallen image, took it up in her hands, and protected it from further injury from Patanibhagya.
The husband could contain himself no more. He drove his wife with her precious mother-in-law out of the house. Not that she cared : for she had still her mother-in-law, and could go with her where sbe pleased and live comfortably. For is not a mother-in-law a goddess to daughters-in-law ? Thus arguing with herself, Vatsalâ left the village that very evening, carrying on her shoulders her poor mangled mother-in-law, and walked through a forest. The sun had just set. Darkness covered the world. Vatsalî, notwithstanding the charm of a goddess on her shoulders, was a little afraid to pursue her way through the forest all alone. She wanted to rest somewhere for the night; and where else could she rest but on a tree? So she climbed up a tree and with her mother-in-law in her hands sat there for the night.
The tree on which Vatsalá sat was in the middle of a thick forest, and was a large and broad one ; and it was the tree under which the robbers of the forest used to assemble to divide among themselves the plunders of the night. Just at the last watch of the night nearly a dozen robbers came, and were engaged in separating their plunder into several groups as the share for each. Vatsalâ had no sleep the whole night and now she heard the horrible conversation of the robbers. The counting of coins jingled on her ears. Her whole frame trembled, and down fell the wooden mother-in-law as the first effect of her fears, just as the robbers were proceeding to take possession of their respective shares. They knew that the Raja's men had been watching them for a long time, ånd so in the twinkling of an eye most of them ran away. After her mother-in-law down came Vatsald with a horrible crash, and those that remained imagined her to be the very Rajd himself. So away they rap, and the wood was cleared of the robbers. Vatsalâ fell down senseless, but after a time she recovered her senses. The morning bad now dawned and she perceived the heaps of coin with her wooden mother-in-law in their midst. She fell down before her goddess and worshipped her.
“What will your son that son who kicked you last evening - say now, when I return to him with these hoards of money ? O my goddess ! O my holy mother-in-law !"
So saying, Vatsala collected everything in haste and returned home. Meanwhile, Patani. bhagya, after the excitement of the moment, was very sorry for his cruelty to his poor wife, for it was a settled fact that she was an idiot. So he waited for the morning to go out in search of her; and great was his joy when she herself returned to him with so much money! In her own fashion, she told the story about the money, and how her mother-in-law had given it to replace the exhausted store at home, and preached to her husband that he must be more kind to such a kind mother! The sight of the money consoled him much, though at beart he laughed at his wife's theory, and was not blind to the true cause of the acquisition. And what is lost in hamouring an idiotic and stupid, but for all that, a good wife ? So Patanibhagya stored up all the money, and told his wife that all the good fortune was due to her devotion to her mother-in-law.
