Page 76 - Moral Stories Vol 5

master for payment. “I don’t have any rice right now. Come and see me in the autumn after the new harvest, then you will receive your bag of rice,” the rich man said, hoping that by then he would find a way to get out of paying his young worker.
Poor Shen was very hungry but soon after the first green shoots appeared there were onions and radishes to eat. As always, his vegetables were the very best and best of all were the peppers, which hung on their stems like giant luscious red drops, much bigger and sweeter than the little pepper whose seeds they grew from.
The young farmer was overjoyed. “Such wonderful peppers are not just fit for seasoning, why, they are delicious all by themselves!” Before long Shen heard that his old master was selling rice at the market, so he gathered his peppers and set off for town. No sooner did the rich man catch sight of his young worker than he thought up an excuse for not paying his debt. “We agreed that I would pay you with last year’s rice, and there isn’t any left,” he said, but then he noticed the luscious2 peppers in Shen’s basket and made an offer.
“Well now then, perhaps I could give you a bag of rice in exchange for your basket of peppers. What would one person do with so much pepper? One huge pepper like that is enough to spice up the food of an entire family for a year.”
“I don’t think so” the young man replied. “I can eat a whole pepper in a single meal.”
“Humph, what a liar you are! You’d set your mouth on fire! Tell you what, for every one of those peppers you can eat in a single sitting I’ll give you a bag of rice,” the rich man said slyly3, hoping to make a fool of the trusting young man.
Imagine his surprise when Shen began to calmly tuck back one huge pepper after another! After the tenth one the rich man could bear it no
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