Atondido Stories
"H'm," said the young burgomaster, dryly. Then he asked:
"What answers does the shepherd make?"
The shepherd bowed politely and said:
"The swiftest thing in the world is thought for thought can
run any distance in the twinkling of an eye. The sweetest thing
of all is sleep for when a man is tired and sad what can be sweet-
er? The richest thing is the earth for out of the earth come all the
riches of the world."
"Good!" the burgomaster cried. "Good! The heifer goes to the
shepherd!"
Later the burgomaster said to the shepherd:
"Tell me, now, who gave you those answers? I'm sure they
never came out of your own head."
At first the shepherd tried not to tell, but when the burgo-
master pressed him he confessed that they came from his daugh-
ter, Manka. The burgomaster, who thought he would like to
make another test of Manka's cleverness, sent for ten eggs. He
gave them to the shepherd and said:
"Take these eggs to Manka and tell her to have them hatched
out by tomorrow and to bring me the chicks."
When the shepherd reached home and gave Manka the bur-
gomaster's message, Manka laughed and said: "Take a handful
of millet and go right back to the burgomaster. Say to him: 'My
daughter sends you this millet. She says that if you plant it,
grow it, and have it harvested by tomorrow, she'll bring you the
ten chicks and you can feed them the ripe grain.'"
When the burgomaster heard this, he laughed heartily.
"That's a clever girl of yours," he told the shepherd. "If she's
as comely as she is clever, I think I'd like to marry her. Tell her to
come to see me, but she must come neither by day nor by night,
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