Favorite Children's Stories from China & Tibet. Lotta Carswell-Hume

      In a few years the old woman died. While the friends were assembled in the great hall of her new house, the tiger walked in and roared its lamentations, then walked quietly away. The next day while her relatives were standing round the grave, out rushed the tiger again, but this time the mourners, who did not know him, ran away in fear. But the tiger merely went up to the burial mound, and, after roaring like a clap of thunder, disappeared into the forest and was never seen again.

      Then the people of that place built a shrine in honor of the Faithful Tiger, and it remains there to this day.

      The Story or the Fairy Boat

       _{Central China}

      Once upon a time there was a little boy whose name was Ho Lai. But little Ho Lai did not have a mother; he had only a cruel stepmother who was very horrid to him. Every day she sent him out with a basket on his arm to gather up frogs.

      One day Ho Lai went out to the fields as usual, but while he was hunting frogs to appease his cruel stepmother, he came across a bag filled with coins. Not knowing to whom the money belonged, the boy decided to sit down and guard the bag, in hopes that the owner would return to claim it.

      Nearly all day he sat there and watched. At last a man appeared, hunting for his lost money. He was so pleased to discover that Ho Lai had kept it for him that he offered the boy half the bag's contents. But little Ho Lai said that he did not wish for a reward, as he had done no more than his duty.