One thing leads to another

Long ago, a man climbed up a palm to pick the leaves. He wanted to make them into baskets and toys. While he was working, he said proudly, “First, I’ll sell my baskets. Then I’ll buy some clothes. Then I’ll buy a buffalo to plough my rice-field. I’ll tell him what to do. If he disobeys. I’ll kick him.”

As he said this, he kicked his

foot in the air and slipped, he almost fell out of the tree. But he caught hold of a branch just in time. He hung there, very frightened.

Just then, a man riding an elephant came along. The man in the tree cried out, “Elephant-rider! Elephant-rider! Help, help!”.

The elephant-rider looked at the man in the tree and said, “I don’t know what I can do.”

“Bring your elephant under the tree,” the man said. “Then stand up and catch hold of my feet.”

The elephant-rider did as he was told. He stood on his toes to catch hold of the man’s feet. But the elephant thought the rider was kicking him. So he walk away, leaving the rider behind. Now two men hung from the tree.

At that moment, four bald men walked past. They were looking for something to eat. When they came near, the man in the tree cried out. “Help, help. Please help us to get down. If you help us. We’ll be your servants forever.”

The four men looked up and thought. “we’ve worked hard for all these years and we’ve never had a servant. Now these two can work for us.” So they said, “What shall we do?.

“Friends,” said the man in the tree, “take a sarong. Then the four corners to your necks. Then come and stand below us. We’ll jump down into the sarong.”

The four men did as they were told. The two men in the tree jumped into the sarong. The four bald heads crashed together so hard that the four men died. The two men were very frightened.

A woman lived in a house quite near. Her husband was away. That night, the man took the four bodies secretly to her house. They hid the bodies under the house.

Next morning, the old woman came down from her house, as usual, to wash. When she saw the four dead bodies. She cried out, “Who has come here to die?” she took the bodies one by one  into the house. She wrapped each one in a white cloth. Then she took the first body outside. She cried out to her neighbours, “my dear husband is dead! Please take away his body and bury it.” The neighbours agreed. They buried the body and then went home.

The next morning the woman did the same thing. She took out the second body, and said to her neighbours. “My husband has come back from the land of the dead. Please bury him again.” So her neighbours helped her again. The same thing happened the next day, and the next. Now all four bodies were buried.

On the fourth day, the neighbours said to each other, “If the dead body comes back again. We’ll beat him.” And they waited for him on the road.

That night, the woman’s real husband came from the rice-field. The neghbour thought he was the dead body. They jumped on him and knocked him down. They shouted, “You’re dead. You’re dead. You’ve back three times already. You can’t come back again.”

They beat the old man so hard that he died.

Retyped by www.englishstory12.blogspot.com

Source: Favourite stories from Cambodia  by David Chandler