“Oh, I have only five centavos; and if I give them all to you, I shall have no money to buy rice with. So please let me have the fish for three!” said the wood-cutter. But the tendera refused to sell the fish for three centavos; and the wood-cutter was obliged to give all his money for it, for the fish was so fine and fat that he could not leave it.
When he went home and opened the fish to clean it, what do you suppose he found inside? Why, no other thing than the precious ring he had lost in the lake! He was so rejoiced at getting back his treasure, that he walked up and down the streets, talking out loud to his ring:—
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!
I have found you now;
You are here, and nowhere else.”
When his neighbors who had stolen his bags of money from him heard these words, they thought that the wood-cutter had found out that they were the thieves, and was addressing these words to them. They ran up to him with all the bags of money, and said, “O wood-cutter! pardon us for our misdoings! Here are all the bags of money that we stole from you.”
With his money and the ring, the wood-cutter soon became the richest man in his town. He lived happily with his wife the rest of his days, and left a large heritage to his children.
So Mahirap, with five centavos only, succeeded in making the wood-cutter rich.
Lucas the Rope-maker.
Narrated by Elisa Cordero, a Tagalog from Pagsanjan, Laguna. Miss Cordero says that the story is well known and is old.