A miserly man married a miserly woman and they had a little son. They were such misers that they wouldn’t eat a betel nut; they would carefully suck on one and wipe it and put it away. They ate meals only because they needed to eat to keep alive. Still they complained and asked God why he had to make a stomach that they had to fill every day so many times.
They had a secret grain pit in the gods’ room, and their life’s ambition was to fill it with money by the time their little son grew up. The wife complained about the size of the cucumbers in their backyard: if only they could have been twice the size, the family could have dined on them for two more days. When her husband asked her to wear the one or two pieces of jewelry she had received at her wedding, she would say, “Are you crazy? If I wear them, I’ll wear them out. Who’s the loser then? You and me!” The husband would beam at his wife’s wisdom.
For years, no guest had ever entered their house for a drink of water or a morsel of food. One rainy season, the couple had shut all the doors when suddenly they heard someone banging on their door. The husband opened it and in came a holy man, grumbling, “What a terrible rain, what a terrible rain!” As soon as he came in, he shut the door behind him and praised them.
“You are such good people. I’d have caught cold in that rain and died. You took me in and saved my life.”
As he had come in like a wet dog, he wet the whole house with his drippings. The wife said, “That’s all very well. You’ve dripped water all over the house.”
