stop. So he waited, and one of them said: “We don’t have to bother about fetching this and fetching that. You see that big pitcher. Well, we get all our food and everything else we want out of it.
We just have to wish as we put our hands in, and there it is. It’s a magic pitcher—the only one there is in the whole wide world. You get the food you would like to have first, and then we’ll tell you what we want.” Subha Datta could hardly believe his ears when he heard that. Down he threw his axe, and hastened to put his hand in the pitcher, wishing for the food he was used to.
He loved curried rice and milk, lentils, fruit and vegetables, and very soon he had a beautiful meal spread out for himself on the ground. Then the fairies called out, one after the other, what they wanted for food, things the woodcutter had never heard of or seen, which made him quite discontented with what he had chosen for himself. . What would you have wished for if you had had a magic pitcher?
. Would it be a good thing, do you think, to be able to get food without working Unit- - - - - for it or paying for it? CHAPTER V The next few days passed away like a dream, and at first Subha Datta thought he had never been so happy in his life. The fairies often went off together leaving him alone, only coming back to the clearing when they wanted something out of the pitcher.
The woodcutter got all kinds of things he fancied for himself, but presently he began to wish he had his wife and children with him to share his wonderful meals. He began to miss them terribly, and he missed his work too. It was no good cutting trees down and chopping up wood when all the food was ready cooked and sometimes he thought he would slip off home when the fairies were away, but when he looked