reached home the women were still crying. He said to Fatima, "Are you not ashamed to sit here crying and talking of your lost son Ali? You have no son; you are a young girl. You should be ashamed to be so foolish, and to cry aloud about your son Ali." His words had no effect upon Fatima, who continued to weep and cry aloud. At last the brother drove her out of the house, saying, "You shall not longer live in my house, you foolish girl, who sit crying about your son Ali."
Fatima, weeping, went away to one of the neighbors, with whom she stayed two days. Then she came back, begging her brother's forgiveness, asking to be allowed to come back to her home, and promising that she would be quiet and gentle as before. She said, "I am sorry that I was so foolish. I did not know what I was about. I hope you will forgive me." This he did, and they lived in peace forever after.
I see a small basket coming down from heaven. In it there are twelve pomegranates, five for me, one for you, Josephine, one for you, Pailoun, one for you, Arousyak, one for you, Diran, one for you, Augustina, one for you, Naomi, and one for you, George.
The Armenian story-teller often ends the tale with some such formula as the above, always keeping the larger share of the fruit for himself, and doling out the rest to each one of the listeners to whom he points. The narrator looks up suddenly at the end of the tale and lifts his hands as if he sees the fruit descending. When he finishes, the audience clap their hands and laugh. Of course the kind of fruit and the number varies according to the pleasure of the narrator. The tales are often told by the old people, by family servants, or by the children themselves, while a number of people, either children or grown people, are gathered about a brazier on winter evenings; or during summer nights, when the family have gone to their beds on the roof-tops, where they sleep during the hot months spent in the vineyards, some one tells a story while the others sit or lie on their beds looking up at the star-lit sky. Another favorite time for telling old tales is when the peasants are removing the cotton from the pod. This work is often done in the evening. Sometimes the workers sit out of doors, keeping a little fire from some of the dried pods of the cotton, or perhaps if it is quite cool they gather about a fire indoors.
Fanny D. Bergen.
