“If you will bring a bucket here tomorrow, and put it under my mouth, I will fill it with gold for you.”
The next day the boy brought the bucket and put it under the lion’s mouth.
“You must be very careful to tell me when it is nearly full,” said the lion, “for if even one piece of gold should fall to the ground, great trouble would be in store for you.”
The boy was very careful to do exactly as the lion told him, and soon he was on his way home to his mother with a bucketful of gold.
They were so rich now that they bought a great, beautiful farm, and went there to live. Everything the boy undertook seemed to prosper. He worked hard, and grew strong; and before many years had passed he was old enough to marry, and bring a bride to the home. But the mother still lived with them, and they were all very contented and happy.
At last the hard-hearted brother heard of their prosperity. He too had married, and had a little son. So he took his wife and the little boy, and went to pay his younger brother a visit. It was not long before he had heard the whole story of their good fortune, and how the lion had given them all the gold.
“I will try that, too,” he said.
So he took his wife and child and went to the very same hut his brother had lived in, and there they passed the night.
The very next morning he started out with a bucket to visit the Stone Lion.
When he had told the lion his errand, the lion said: