Philippine Folk Tales
Mabel Cook Cole




"That is a good idea," replied the his wife. "How much capital have you?"

"I have twenty-five centavos," answered the man; "and I am going to buy rice and carry it to the mines, for I have heard that it brings a good price there."

So he took his twenty-five centavos and bought a halv-cavan of rice which he carried on his shoulder to the mine. Arriving there he told the people that he had rice for sale, and they asked eagerly how much he wanted for it.





"Oh, my wife," he answered, "it is a very good business. I could not take the rice off nmy shoulder before the people came to buy it."


The next morning the man bought a halv-cavan of rice the same as before and carried it to the mine and when they asked how much it would be, he said:

"It is the same as before - twenty-five centavos."

He received the money and went home.

"How is the business today?" asked his wife.


And so he went on with his business for a year, each day buying a halv-cavan of rice and selling it for the price he had paid for it. Then one day his wife said that htey would balance accounts, and she spread a mat on the floor and sat down on one side of it, telling her husband to sit on the opposite side. Whe she asked him for the money he had made during the year, he asked:

"What money?"



"Is that all you have received thsi year?" cried his wife angrily. "Haven't you said that rive brought a good price at the mines?"

"That is all," he replied.

"How much did you pay for the rice?"

"Twenty-five centavos."

"How much did you receive for it?"

"Twenty-five centavos."



Then the wife said, "Give me the twenty-five centavos, and I will try to make some money." So he handed it to her, and she said, "Now you go the field where the people are gathering hemp and buy twenty-five centavos worth for me, and I will weave it into cloth."

When Manusmanding returned with the hemp she spread it in the sun, and as soon as it was dry she tied it into a long thread and out it on the loom to weave. Night and day she worked on her cloth, and when it was finished she had eight varas. This she sold for twelve and a half centavos a vara, and with this money she bought more hemp. She continued weaving and selling her cloth, and her work was as good that people were glad to buy from her.

At the end of a year she again spread the mat on the floor and took her place on one side of it, while her husband sat on tzhe opposite side. Then she oured the money out of the blanket in which she kept it upon the mat. she held aside her capital, which was twenty-five centavos, and when she counted the remainder she found that she had three hundred pesos. Manusmandig was greatly ashamed when he remembered that he had not made a cent, and he leaned his again against the wall and thought. After a while the woman pitied him, so she gave him the mony and told him to by carabao.


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created: June 5, 1997
updated: June 5, 1997
APSIS Editor Johann Stockinger