Dongeng Bahasa Inggris tentang Dongso dan Sepetak Sawah
(The Little Sawah)
A STARVING BOY went wearily from village to village. His
name was Dongso and he had been dismissed by a rich widow for whom he had
worked, because the harvest had been so poor.
The widow was known throughout the land as the owner of
the most fruitful acres, but after Dongso had come the harvest had been so
meager that he alone ate more rice than the fields produced. It happened not
once, but twice. The widow herself had seen how well Dongso had prepared the
sawah and tended the young rice shoots, but when they had grown tall and ready
to be harvested, the stalks were empty of kernels and hung limp in the sun.
After the second harvest, the village people began to
whisper that the young man might be a bad spirit. Perhaps he had been sent to
earth by Allah to punish the widow because she was so stingy and made such
meager offerings to the village-spirit and the sawah-spirit.
The widow, of course, heard these whisperings, and in
anger she dismissed Dongso, without paying him.
Weak with hunger Dongso came one evening to the outskirts
of a village and knocked at the door of the first house he saw. It was a little
hut in the midst of a small sawah owned by a poor old woman, Randa Derma. When
Dongso knocked, she opened the door to him and he fell across the threshold.
"Please," he said feebly, "give me a
handful of rice. I am starving."
"Why do you have to beg?" she asked him.
"You look strong and you are young. Why don't you earn your rice? Why
don't you work for your food?'*
But she was a goodhearted woman and she pulled her
unexpected guest into the room without waiting for his answer. She set rice and
coffee in front of him. "Eat and drink, my son/' she said. "And then
tell me why you beg rather than
work."
The boy began to eat without a word, trying to make up
for the many days he had gone hungry. When at last he was satisfied, he told
the old woman his story. "I did my best/' he said. "I worked hard all
the time I took care of the widow's sawahs. And truly I could not help it, it
was not my fault, that the ears were almost always empty. I think," he
said slowly, "it was because she did not make offerings to the protecting
spirits and they were punishing her. And how could I force them to make the
ears full of grain?"
"No, of course you couldn't/' the old woman agreed.
"But if you will stay with me and work my little sawah, I will give you
one fifth of the harvest yield. The trouble is, I have no buffalo. But the
field isn't very big. . . ."
"It won't matter/' Dongso said. His eyes shone with
gratitude for her offer. "I'll do my best for you."
Early the next morning, he started for the sawah, with
only a spade. He turned the earth as if he had a fine plow and a strong buffalo
working for him. When the time came for the sowing he did that, too, with speed
and skill. Now he must wait with patience for the ripening. Then he would be
able to harvest full, fine ears of rice! It was almost as if his wishes were
coming true, for the rice stalks grew tall and straight, and the ears turned a
beautiful golden yellow.
But then the worst happened, the same thing that had
happened when he was working in the fields of the rich widow. The fine-looking
stalks carried only empty ears, with not a grain of rice in them! He asked
himself, in despair, "Can it be that this woman, too, has made no offering
to the spirits? Or can it be that I am the one who brings bad luck to
people?"
He couldn't bear to tell the old woman what was troubling
him. She would find out for herself soon enough, when she went into the field
for the harvest.
As the day drew near Dongso grew sadder and sadder. The
night before the harvest he couldn't sleep a wink. He lay on his mat, tossing
from side to side, thinking of the empty ears of rice in the field and how
unhappy the old woman would be. The more he thought about it, the more he felt
that he could
not face her disappointment when she opened the ears of
rice that had been cut. Very early, long before sunup, he would leave the
village; he would steal away as he had come, and beg from door to door till he
found work again.
As quietly as a mouse he crept out of the hut next
morning and started for the road. But before he left the village for good, he
had to look once more at the little sawah where he had labored so long and
faithfully. Walking sadly between the tall stalks, he looked again at the
golden-yellow, empty ears. Idly he plucked one off and opened it. As he had
thought, there were no rice grains in it.
Then his mouth fell open and he looked again, hardly
believing what he saw. There were no grains of rice, but there were grains of
gold, pure, glittering gold! He was dazed with astonishment. This couldn't be.
Maybe in one ear, but surely not Dongso picked another one, and still another
one, and yet another one, and each ear was filled with kernels of gold.
He ran back to the little hut, and found the old woman
busy with her weaving. She looked up at him in astonishment. "Why are you
so happy, Dongso?"
Dongso almost told her. But he wanted her to see the
amazing sight herself. He wanted her to find the kernels of gold as he had
found them. So he said, "Because today we are going to give a wonderful
harvest feast, Randa Derma!"
The old woman's wrinkled face puckered sadly when he said
that "No, Dongso/'. she said with a sigh, "I'm sorry, but we can't do
that. We can only make a simple meal. I spent the last of my money on offerings
to the spirits of the village and of the sawah so that they might bless the
har-
vest. . . ."
"And so they have!" he shouted. "Wait till
you see how they have blessed the harvest!" He took her by the hand and
led her to the sawah. The old woman stumbled in her haste to follow his quick
steps as he hurried her to the place where he had made the amazing discovery.
Dongso tore off a stalk and gave it to her. "Look
inside, Little Mother/' he urged, and he watched as she opened the ear and
found the golden kernels. He laughed when she shrieked with joy. "What did
I tell you? What did I tell you?"
But the old woman pulled herself together quickly.
"Now Allah be praised/' she said, bowing her head. "My little rice
field has brought forth more than a hundred great sawahs could bring forth.
Allah be praised!"
She had promised Dongso a fifth of the harvest and she
gave him a fifth of the harvest. Now he was rich. He could buy himself a sawah,
he could buy buffaloes, as many as he needed, as many as he wanted. But Dongso
bought neither a rice field nor buffaloes. He was faithful to the old woman who
had befriended him, and he took care of the many spreading sawahs she bought
with the same zeal that he had taken care of her tiny sawah. And he did to
others who came to help him as she had done to him he gave them one fifth of
the
crop of the lush acres.
It has been so from that day to this: One fifth of each
sawah's harvest is divided among the helpers. From that day to this, too, there
has never been want or poverty in that district. The people of Derma have lived
in peace and plenty all these years.
That's what the village was named Derma, after the old
woman who had befriended Dongso and who had been so poor that she could not
even offer a harvest feast. But the Javanese do not believe the village's
well-being came from the fruitfulness of the countryside. They believe the good
fortune of the village and its people is due to the lovely temple Dongso built
to the memory of his benefactor, after she died, on the very spot where once
the little sawah had been.
Contribution for humanity and for this blog
Bank bri unit kajuara watampone
at sintia aulia
Rek no. 5102-01-000005-52-8
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