V. Karmu and Dharmu.

There were once two brothers Karmu and Dharmu.  Karmu was a farmer and Dharmu was a trader; once when Dharmu was away from home Karmu gave a religious feast and did not invite Dharmu’s household; when Dharmu returned and learnt this, he told his wife that he also would perform the ceremonies in his house, so they set to work and were employed in cooking rice and vegetables far into the night; and Karam Gosain came down to see what preparations Dharmu was making in his honour, and he watched from the back of the house.

Just then Dharmu strained off the water from the cooked rice and threw it out of the window, and it fell on Karam Gosain and scalded him, and as the flies and insects worried the wound, Karam Gosain went off to the Ganges and buried himself in the middle of the stream.  As he had thus offended Karam Gosain, all Dharmu’s undertakings failed and he fell into deep poverty, and had not even enough to eat, so he had to take service with his brother Karmu.  When the time for transplanting the rice came, Dharmu used to plough and dig the ditches and mend the gaps along with the day labourers.  Karmu told him not to work himself but act as overseer of the other labourers, and the labourers also told him that it was not suitable for him to work as a labourer himself, but Dharmu said that he must earn his wages and insisted on working; and in the same way Dharmu’s wife might have acted as overseer of the women, but she was ashamed not to work too.

One day they were transplanting the rice and Karmu brought out breakfast for the labourers; he told Dharmu and his wife to wash their hands and come and eat; but they answered that they belonged to the household and that the hired labourers should be fed first, so the labourers ate and they ate up all the rice and there was nothing left for Dharmu and his wife.  When the midday meal was brought the same thing happened, Dharmu and his wife got nothing; but they hoped that it would be made up to them when the wages were paid, and worked on fasting.  At evening when they came to pay the wages in kind, Dharmu’s name was called out first, but he told his brother to pay the labourers first, and in doing this the paddy was all used up and there was nothing left for Dharmu and his wife; so they went home sorrowfully and their children cried for food and they had nothing to give them.  In the night Dharmu’s wife said “They promised to pay us for merely looking after the work and instead, we worked hard and have still got nothing.  We will not work for them anymore; come, let us undo the work we did to-day, you cut down the embankments you repaired, and I will uproot the seedlings which I planted.”  So they went out into the night to do this.  But whenever Dharmu raised his spade a voice called out “Hold, hold!” And whenever his wife put out her hand to pull up the rice a voice called out “Hold, hold!” Then they said