21.  What would you have thought about this wonderful supply of food, if you had been one of the woodcutter’s children?

22.  Was it a good thing for those children to have all this food without working for it?  If not, why was it not a good thing?

CHAPTER XII

Life was now, of course, completely changed for the family in the forest.  Subha Datta no longer went to cut wood to be sold, and the boys also left off doing so.  Every day their father fetched food for them all, and the greatest desire of each one of the family was to find out where it came from.  They never could do so, for Subha Datta managed to make them afraid to follow him when he went forth with his basket.  The secret he kept from the wife to whom he used to tell everything soon began to spoil the happiness of the home.  The children who had no longer anything to do quarrelled with each other.  Their mother got sadder and sadder, and at last decided to tell Subha Datta that, unless he would let her know where the food came from, she would go away from him and take her little girls with her.  She really did mean to do this, but something soon happened to change everything again.  Of course, the neighbours in the wood, who had bought the fuel from the boys and helped them by giving them fruit and rice, heard of the return of their father and of the wonderful change in their lot.  Now the whole family had plenty to eat every day, though none of them knew where it all came from.  Subha Datta was very fond of showing off what he could do, and sometimes asked his old friends amongst the woodcutters to come and have a meal with him.  When they arrived they would find all sorts of good things spread out on the ground and different kinds of wines in beautiful bottles.

This went on for some months, Subha Datta getting prouder and prouder of all that he could do, and it seemed likely that his secret would never be discovered.  Everybody tried to find it out, and many followed him secretly when he set forth into the woods; but he was very clever at dodging them, hiding his treasure constantly in a new place in the dead of the night.  If he had only been content with getting food out of his pitcher and drinking pure water, all would most likely have been well with him.  But that was just what he could not do.  Till he had his pitcher he had never drunk anything but water, but now he often took too much wine.  It was this which led to the misfortune of losing his beloved pitcher.  He began to boast of his cleverness, telling his friends there was nothing they wanted that he could not get for them; and one day when he had given them a very grand feast, in which were several rare kinds of food they had asked for, he drank too much wine—­so much that he no longer knew what he was saying.