sharply. "What a wasteful child! Seven grains of rice are quite enough."

Grandmother," replied the girl, "I know how

to cook a pot of rice, but I don't know how to cook seven grains of rice alone."

The old woman spoke up sharply. "Obey orders when your elders command you, and ask no questions."

Abashed at the sharp tone of the old woman, the girl counted out seven kernels, and the old woman approached the pot with mystic passes, and the pot became full.

At seven grains to a meal, Po Khai saw that the rice he had purchased was amply sufficient for his wants, and knew that a good power had stepped in to save him.

When the news of the daily miracle reached the clan, they assembled and claimed Pee Bee Yaw as their guest on the ground of prior discovery.

Pee Bee Yaw refused to go with them, reminding them that they had forfeited their right as the first finders by their refusal to cut her loose from the creepers. Of course this refusal laid the foundation of much hatred towards Po Khai and his sister.

When it came time to cut the toungya (hill

garden), Pee Bee Yaw told Po Khai to clear the jungle from seven hills and prepare them for planting.

"How can I clear seven hills?" asked Po Khai.

"Ask no questions when your elders order you," was the old lady's sharp reply.

Just as he was leaving the house, Pee Bee Yaw gave him a dah, with orders to try it.

When he reached the chosen spot, Po Khai raised his dah against a huge tree. It fell without even waiting for the blow. "Well, that's the sharpest dah I ever used," blurted out Po Khai, as he watched the crash of the huge tree.

Of course the seven hills were all cleared off before breakfast.

Po Khai wondered how this huge field was ever to be planted and reaped and the grain thrashed, but he dared ask no questions, as Pee Bee Yaw always rebuked so harshly. He went on in blind faith in the old woman's power. At the sowing season, Pee Bee Yaw danced over the whole field, and a perfect shower of paddy started from her fingers and toes and from every fold of her clothing, and so the field was well filled with grain. The crop prospered splendidly, and soon the bending ears, over a foot in length and filled to the very

extremity with golden grain, gave promise of such a bountiful harvest as had never been known before.

Po Khai wondered how this grain could ever be harvested, but still dared not ask.

The clansmen, wild with rage at the boundless wealth which they had just missed, and which had gone to Po Khai, now summoned all the clans within a day's march to join them in stealing Po Khai's paddy. Men, women, and even children joined the raid. Some reaped, others carried the bundles. Some threshed and winnowed, while others carried home the paddy. After a most laborious night's work of many hundreds, all of Po Khai's grain was carried off. Fancy the looks of Po Khai when he found nothing but trampled stubble where he had left waving grain!

Following the trail of the thieves, he picked up seven sheaves dropped by the way. On reporting to Pee Bee Yaw that these seven bundles were all that was left of their crop, she coolly told him to build seven huge paddy bins. Po Khai did so with the unquestioning obedience which had become a habit with him. When the bins were completed, but not roofed, a sheaf was put in each, and Pee Bee Yaw commenced dancing among the bins

and singing a call to the grain, wherever it was, to return to its proper owner. At once the paddy came flying through the air and fell in a perfect shower, till not a single grain was left with the thieves.

A solemn council of all the clans was then held, and their indignation knew no bounds. "We thought to ruin Po Khai, and we have been made nothing but his coolies, and even worse; nothing is left us even for our wages." So they arranged to steal the paddy again, from the bins. this time.

Po Khai spent the day, by Pee Bee Yaw's orders, in cutting a huge pile of clubs and making a large number of cords.

When they went home in the evening, Pee Bee Yaw said, "Ropes tie and sticks beat." When the clansmen came to steal the paddy, the ropes bound each to a tree and the clubs began to beat a rattat-too on their unlucky backs. To entreat the deaf cords and clubs was, of course, useless. Next morning Po Khai found his tormentors in his power, and half dead with the terrible beating they had received.

They readily took the oath, considered by hill men to be inviolable, never to molest him more.

Pee Bee Yaw then said she must return to her abode in the skies, to wash down her house there, as the hens had surely filled it with dust. To enable her to do so, she told Po Khai to raise the two beams by which the native plough or harrow is dragged, into a perpendicular position. She then took the form of a cricket, crept up to the yoke, and flew away.

(The custom of raising the yoke in air and placing a cricket on the perpendicular poles that support it is still followed by the Karens. It is considered a very good omen if the cricket crawls upwards and takes flight from the top.)

During Pee Bee Yaw's absence, Po Khai married a young and beautifui wife. His great wealth, obtained from the sale of his crop, made him a great match. Unfortunately, he did not tell his bride the secret of Pee Bee Yaw's help in raising so large a quantity of grain, but took the credit to himself. When Pee Bee Yaw returned with the planting season, she took up her abode in the toungya, so as to watch over the growing grain.

Po Khai's wife was curious to discover the secret of her husband's great success in paddy cultivation, and so went out one day to the field. Po Khai

H