“What you have done I can do, too,” said the neighbor, and he hastened home, planted a piece of ground with corn and melons, and waited for the monkeys to feast there.
Everything came to pass as he had hoped. When the corn and melons ripened, great numbers of monkeys visited the garden and feasted. One day they found the owner lying in the garden apparently dead. Their gratitude prompted them to give him a worthy burial, and they carried him to the place where the two roads met. Here they disputed as to whether they should place the man in the cave of silver or the cave of gold.
Meanwhile the man was thinking: “As soon as I am alone in the cave I will begin gathering up the gold, and I will make a basket of bamboo so I can carry home a much larger amount than my neighbor brought away.”
Presently the head monkey said, “Put him in the cave of silver.”
That was such a disappointment to the man that he forgot he was supposed to be dead, and he exclaimed, “No, put me in the cave of gold!”
At once the monkeys dropped him and fled in great fright, and the man, bruised and disappointed, crept sorrowfully home.
BLUEBEARD
ONCE upon a time there was a man who lived in a splendid house, and had dishes of gold and silver, chairs and sofas covered with flowered satin, and curtains of the richest silk. But alas! this man was so unlucky as to have a blue beard, which made him look so frightfully ugly that all the women and girls ran away from him.
His nearest neighbor was a lady of quality who had two beautiful daughters, and he wished to marry one of them. He was even willing to let the lady decide which of the two it should be. Neither of the daughters, however, would have him, and the lady sighed to think of her children’s obstinacy in refusing to become the mistress of such a magnificent mansion. But they were not able to make up their minds to marry a man with a blue beard. Their aversion was increased by the fact that he had already had several wives, and no one knew surely what had become of them, though he made all sorts of excuses to account for their disappearance.