XIII
LAKSHMI'S GIFT
IN a certain village in Bengal there lived a poor Brahmin widow and her son, without any ostensible means of subsistence. The young Brahmin was only a boy, and not old enough to obtain work. Fasting became habitual to both mother and son, begging being a profession that fails in course of time. One day, the Brahmini, no longer able to bear the pangs of hunger and the sight of her son's sad face, left home to drown herself in an adjacent river. When she had gone about half the distance, a dog asleep on the side of the road rose up at the sound of her steps, and shook a cowrie from its head in front of her. Out of curiosity, she took it up and proceeded on her sad journey. But she was not destined to put an end to her life, for a fierce tiger suddenly appeared in front of her, and frightened her so that she stepped backwards. He could, if he had liked, have made a meal of her, but he did not seem intent on so doing. He acted rather as a father frightening away his child from running into danger, and the more the Brahmini moved backwards towards her house, the closer was she followed by her new friend, until she quite forgot her intention of drowning herself and reached her own home again, trembling in every limb.
The tiger was indeed her friend, for he was no other than Nandi,[1] whom Annapurna[2] had borrowed of her husband, and sent to befriend the poor woman by first saving her life,
