How a Quarrel Begins

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · May 5, 1904

How a Quarrel Begins

ONCE upon a time a farmer said to his wife, “Suppose we keep a buffalo.”

“Very good,” said the wife; “only it were wise to count up the necessary cost before buying it. If we get a buffalo, we must get a peg to tie her to.”

“Yes,” said the farmer, “and a rope to tie her with.”

“And a cask to feed her in.”

“And a blanket to keep her warm.”

“And a pail to milk her into.”

“And a churn.”

“And a butter paddle,” said the wife, “and I think that is all, except that we might get a second pail so that I might give my mother half the buttermilk.”

“What!” shouted the farmer, “you feed your mother on my buffalo’s buttermilk!”

“And why not, pray? If my mother hadn’t fed me, you would have had no wife to churn your buttermilk for you!”

“And a good thing that would have been for me. If my mother hadn’t been inveigled into promising me to you—who knows?—I might have married a princess!”

“Well, since you are so grieved you got me instead of your grand princess—who couldn’t milk a buffalo if you had her—I’ll go back whence I came!”

Then in their overmastering anger the couple scold and shout both together, neither waiting to hear what the other is saying, until they are purple in the face, the veins of their necks stand out like whip-cord, and at last the throat of each ‘sits down’—as the picturesque Hindustani idiom has it—and refuses to work longer.

Then the husband, still whispering, because he has no voice with which to talk, goes out to his plowing. The wife, also whispering, gathers together a bundle of clothes, and goes away to her mother’s house. There she abides for the space of three months.

When the wife’s brothers see that so long a time has elapsed, and that the farmer has not come in contrition begging his wife to come home, they realize that the matter is serious, and that something must be done, or their sister will be left on their hands, and the ‘face’ of their family will be ‘black’ before the whole world. So, arming themselves with a stick apiece, they go to the farmer’s house. Failing to find him there, they go to his field, and find him working among the corn. Then they fall upon him, and beat him soundly, saying:—

“Your buffalo has ruined our fields!”

“Impossible,” says the farmer, “since I have no buffalo.”

“No buffalo! Why our sister, you said, fed our mother on your buffalo’s milk. So it must have been your buffalo that ruined our fields, and we want satisfaction.”

“But I have no buffalo.”

“Indeed,” say the brothers, “you have, for it is your buffalo who for the past three months has been feeding at our expense. Come, take her away.”

So the farmer goes and gets his wife, and indeed he is glad enough to have her help again. And the wife is glad enough to get back without having to apologize. Therefore, it is a lesson to both.

So the quarrel is cured—until next time.—Hindu Folk-Lore.