There was once a little Korean girl called Pear Blossom, and when her mother died, her father was remarried to a widow with a daughter Pear Blossom's age. Both the stepmother and her daughter hated housework and left it all to Pear Blossom. She had to clean the rice, cook the meals, wash and scrub, in fact she had to do everything while they did nothing. They were most unkind towards her. She was never included in the festivities of the town. She had no pretty clothes to wear. To make matters worse, they made fun of her and called her Pigling. She was very unhappy. Pigling knew it was useless to complain to her father because he was always too busy. He smoked his pipe and played draughts by the hour. Indeed he seemed to care more about his long white coat, which Pigling kept starched and clean, than about her happiness. Day and night she had to work. Now there was to be a great festival in the city, so for many days preparations were made to get everything ready. Pigling's father and stepmother liked to wear their finest clothes on such occasions, and so did the stepsister. Only Pigling was left out. She wanted to go with them, but when she'd helped them all to dress, her stepmother told her that before she went out, she must husk all the rice and fill the water container from the well. What a task! To husk three bushels of rice and fill a leaky water container! Pigling wept bitterly. How could she manage to do these before going to the festival? Sadly, she started to open the straw sack and spread the rice out on the mats. She heard a whirr and a rush of wings, and saw a flock of pigeons fly down. First, they lighted on her head and shoulder, then hopping onto the ground they began, with beak and claw, carefully to husk the rice. In a few minutes the rice lay in a heap, clean, white and glistening. Then with a great chattering and cooing, the flock was off and away. Pigling was amazed, and she was so happy she didn't know what to do. Then she remembered there was still the water container to fill. So she lifted the bucket to take it to the well, when a tiny man crept out of a hole. I will help you, said he. I will mend the container and fill it with water for you. He stopped up the cracks and poured dozens of buckets full of water from the well into it so that it was full to the brim. Then the tiny man bowed and vanished down the hole before she had time to thank him. So Pigling had time to wash and dress herself in the best clothes she had, and go to the festival. As she returned home before her family, they did not know that she had left the house, and she didn't tell them where she'd been. One day, her stepmother planned a picnic party for her daughter and her friends. Food was prepared, and Pigling had to work hard starching and ironing clothes for the party. She worked so hard that she nearly dropped with tiredness, but her stepmother did not thank her. Instead, she gave Pigling orders to pull up every weed from the garden and every blade of grass from the stone pathway. As Pigling watched the others leave in their fine clothes and carrying baskets of good food for a day of merrymaking, she wept with disappointment. She was weeping so hard that she did not see a black cow come and look at her with kind brown eyes before moving into the garden, where, to her amazement, it ate up all the weeds in ten mouthfuls. Then it walked toward the pathway, and with its hoofs and mouth cleared the grass between the stones. Pigling dried her tears and followed the cow out of the garden, across the green field and into a shady wood. She followed the black cow to a place where there were the most delicious nuts and fruits she had ever seen, and soft green grass to sit on. Birds fluttered above her and sang, while gentle little animals played near her. Never had she been so happy, and she did not go home until the sun had gone down behind the trees. By this time, her stepmother and sister had already arrived home and were curious to know where Pigling had been and how she had managed to do all the weeding before she left. When Pigling told them of the black cow and the wonderful fruits in the wood, the stepsister was determined to go and see for herself some time. And so, when the next festival day arrived, she gave Pigling her money to spend at the fair, and she stayed at home so she could enjoy the nuts and fruit in the wonderful wood. Shortly afterward, the black cow came along, but it took one look at the stepsister and hurried off. The stepsister followed it, but it went so fast that before she had realised what was happening, she was in a marsh full of sharp thorn bushes, and the cow was nowhere to be seen. The stepsister had hoped for delicious fruits and nuts, but all she found were thistles and thorn bushes that tore her clothes and scratched her legs and hands and face. Muddy and bedraggled, she had last made her way home. Her clothes were in rags, her beauty gone, her mother was very angry and blamed Pigling for her daughter's misfortune. Meanwhile, Pigling was at the festival, enjoying herself for once. The marketplace was full of activity. There were conjurers performing tricks, tightrope walkers, singing girls with castanets, strolling musicians with drums and flutes. Everyone looked happy. Pigling treated herself to roasted chestnuts and candied orange. She was as happy as a queen. In fact, she looked so round and rosy that a handsome young man named Su Wen from the south immediately fell in love with her. Next day, Su Wen went to Pigling's father and asked if he could marry her. When her father heard that he was a gentleman from a good and wealthy family, he readily agreed to the marriage. Her stepmother and her daughter were not at all pleased, but there was nothing they could do about it. It was a grand wedding. Pear Blossom, for she was no longer called Pigling, wore a beautiful dress of white silk embroidered with silver thread, and her red kid shoes turned upward at the toe. She looked as lovely as a princess. As for Su Wen, he was most elegant in his black and white silken robes with a silver studded girdle embroidered with flying cranes, and his horsehair cap and headdress denoting his rank. After the celebrations, Pear Blossom went with Su Wen to his home in the south, and she took with her only one small black cow made out of earthenware to remind her of her old home, and a flock of pigeons that liked to fly about the pear tree in her garden.