Once upon a time, in a terrible thunderstorm, a big Tiger crept for shelter close to the wall of an old woman’s hut. Now, this old woman was very poor. Her hut was a tumbledown old place, and the rain leaked through the holes in her roof.
“Drip-drip-drip,” fell the rain, and the poor old woman tried to drag her furniture away from the holes in the roof.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” she moaned. “What an awful storm! I’m sure I would not be nearly as afraid of a big tiger, or an elephant, or a lion, as I am of this perpetual dripping—dripping.” And she dragged her bed across the room to get it away from the dripping water.
The Tiger, crouching against the house, heard every word. “This perpetual dripping that frightens her more than a tiger, or an elephant, or a lion, must be very terrible,” he said. “What can this perpetual dripping be?”
And, then, as he heard her dragging the things about in the house, he said, “My, what a horrible noise! Surely that noise must be perpetual dripping.”
Now, at this moment, a Chattee-maker (potter) came down the road. The night was very cold. His donkey had strayed away, and the poor old man was so bewildered that he could not find the donkey. Suddenly there was a flash of lightning and the man saw a large beast lying by the wall of the old woman’s hut.
Mistaking the beast for his donkey, the Chattee-maker rushed at the Tiger, seized it by the ear and commenced beating and abusing it with all his might.
“You wretched old donkey, you, to run away and leave me to look for you in this frightful storm! Get up and carry me home, or I’ll break every bone in your lazy old body!” He kicked the poor beast and pounded him.
The Tiger did not know what to make of it. He was very much frightened. “This must be ‘Perpetual Dripping,’” he said to himself. “No wonder the old woman said she was more afraid of it than of a tiger, or an elephant, or a lion, for it gives so many hard blows.”