Once upon a time, there had a boy who lost his father. His mother married with another man so he had step father. The boy had to come with his mother and live with the man because he didn’t have any relative. The stepfather was grumpy he always thought that the boy and his mother were freeloaders. Especially the boy who didn’t know making money was most hated. The boy was beaten everyday.
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But the stepfather was not a rich man, he only a poor man that he had to be a woodcutter to live. The woman when she was the first day living with the man had to brought cut wood to the market to sale.
Unfortunately, this year crop failures was failed. Rice became so rare, of course, wood became so cheap that they had to sell few days for a meal. The boy still didn’t have any jobs so he became a thorn in step father’s eyes.
“This superfluous boy only makes our lives more difficultly” he said to his wife. He said to his wife that they should have sold the boy but the woman didn’t agree. She said that although she was died because of hunger she didn’t sell her boy. So the man had an idea, planed to kill the boy. The scarcity of food was more serious that large load of fire wood didn’t changed a bowl of rice.
A day, when his wife was out of home he said to the boy:
“Do you want to go to the forest with me? Do you want to pick some guava? Go with me boy. A lot of interesting things were in the forest waiting for you.”
The boy was interested insisted to come with him.
The forest had many strange things that made the boy had enough power to go deeply in the forest. The man, after leading the boy to guava trees, said:
“Here, guava and this is your bowl of rice. Wait for me here, I will come back.”
Then he left the boy lonely and disappeared silently. He went to collect wood. But when he came back home in the evening he felt very surprised as he saw the boy had been at home.
The boy when was wandering in the forest had met some people who went to dig potatoes, led him come home.
After hearing boy’s words, the man was angry. He pretended as though he worried about him, he said:
“I had taken so much time to find you. Do you know I had been frightened because of you?”
Another time, he took the boy went to the forest. That time he tried to led the boy went deepest where nobody dared to collect wood. After hid himself from boy’s sight he was sure that the boy would died because of hunger or maybe losing.
The boy, in the evening, didn’t see the man he cried loudly but nobody could hear his voice. He only heard the echo of his voice. He sprinted to every direction but he didn’t see anyone. Tired and hungry he went to find the bowl of rice which the man had left. He took the bowl but when he just had a piece he realized that only was rice above and sand underneath. He spitted grains of sand out of his mouth and picked remaining grains of rice to eat. Still hungry he only knew running around and shouting
“Father, oh father, a sand bowl an eggplant! a sand bowl an eggplant!” (Cha ghẻ ơi, Bát cát quả cà! Bát cát quả cà!)
Then the boy died, transformed into a bird which always called: “a sand bowl an eggplant! a sand bowl an eggplant!” (Bát cát quả cà! Bát cát quả cà! Which was pronounced like the voice of partridge in vietnamese)
Waited her boy came home but the woman had never seen. She knew that her son was harmed by his step father. She cried and forced him to go and find her son or she would talk everyone his crime. Had no choice he went to forest to find the boy. When he was deep in the forest, suddenly, he heard a voice.
“Bát cát quả cà! Bát cát quả cà!”
But you know he didn’t see the boy. He thought that boy’s soul came tho show his crime. He ran but the voice was still after him. He continued running until fell and fainted.
Few days later, some woodcutter saw he had died at side of forest.
THE END
"Translated by Hung Nguyen"
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