“What shall we do now, when the bear comes?” cried the woodman. “It is all your fault, wife, for suggesting that the bear would eat it all.”
“My fault! my fault, indeed!” shrieked the wife. “You suggested that we begin to eat before the bear came in, and you ate twice as much as I did!”
“No, I did not!”
“Yes, you did so, and you know it!”
“Well, there is no good in quarrelling about it now,” said the woodman. “The bear will be here in a few moments and he will be furious when he finds the khichri all gone. He is very large and very hungry and he may eat us when he finds that we have gone back on our word.”
“Nonsense!” said the woman. “What a coward you are! All you think about is saving yourself! I do not care whether he is angry or not. I want to get that wood from him.”
“He will never give it to you, when he finds no dinner,” said the man. “Of course not, you stupid,” scolded the woman, “but I have thought of a plan. We must lock up everything in the house and leave the khichri pot by the fire, to look as though we were keeping it hot for him and then we must hide in the garret. When the bear comes and does not see us, he will think that we have gone out and left his dinner for him; then he will throw down his wood and come in. When he finds that the pot is empty, he will rampage about a little, but he cannot do very much damage. He will never bother to carry all that wood away again, for bears are as lazy as they are greedy.”
Now all this time the bear had been working hard in the forest and it took him much longer than he had expected to gather all that wood. However, at last he dragged half a cord of wood to the house of the old woodman. Seeing the brass khichri pot standing by the fire, he threw down his pile of wood and went at once for his dinner. And then when he saw that there was not even a grain of rice left in the pot, Me-oh-my! wasn’t he angry? He growled and he roared and he poked his head ’way down into the pot and licked the sides of it. But not even a tiny bit of pulse could he taste, though all the time he could smell how savory that khichri had been.
He sat on the floor and cried in his rage and disappointment, “Grr-rr! Grr! Grr-rr-rr! That is a fine way to keep a promise! Well, since you have eaten all the khichri, I will find something else to eat!” Then he upset everything in the house, but no food could he find.
“Grr! Grr-rr! Grr-rr!” growled the bear. “I will take all of this wood back to the forest again. They broke their bargain with me and they shall not have one of my sticks to burn.”