The Curious Book of Birds

by Abbie Farwell Brown

THE GROUND-PIGEON

NCE upon a time there was a little Malay maiden who lived in the forest with her father and mother and baby sister. They dwelt very happily together, until one day Coora's father decided to clear the ground on the edge of the forest and have a rice plantation, as many of his neighbors were doing.

So one morning early after breakfast he started out with his axe on his shoulder to cut down the trees and make a clearing.

"O Father, let me go with you!" begged Coora. "I do so want to see the plantation grow from the very beginning."

But her father said No, she must stay at home until the trees were felled.

"And after that may I go with you?" asked Coora. And her father promised that it should be so.

The days went by and at last the trees were all felled in the clearing. When Coora heard this she jumped up and down on her little bare brown feet until her anklets tinkled, and cried, "O Father! Now I may go with you to the clearing, may I not? For so you promised."

But again her father shook his head and said, "No, Coora, not yet. You must wait until the fallen timber has been burned off. Then you shall go with your mother and me to the planting of the rice."

Coora was very much disappointed, and the big tears stood in her eyes. But she only said, "Do you promise that I may help plant the rice, really and truly?"