It was as if the peacock had flown away with the color in their faces, they were so pale. In a moment the peacock had disappeared. All they could do was to stare with dull eyes at the spot in the empty sky where they had last sighted the peacock and all their precious jewels.

A brewing storm broke just as the peacock was about to arrive home. The sky became dark and twisted around itself. Hail as big as jujube berries fell. The wind released all its fury, and if you don’t know about the wind’s fury, well, it’s better not to ask.

That peacock was doing pretty badly by then.

He pounded at the eldest sister’s door: “Hey! Open up! Your old friend the peacock is about to be pummeled to death in this hailstorm!”

She just sat inside her warm, cozy home: “What? Open the door?” She paused to adjust the coals on the hearth. “Why, when have you ever gone out of your way for me?”

So the peacock went on to the next sister’s house. And she replied to his cries the same way. So he went to the next and to the next, pounding and yelling through their doors. But they never bothered to get up, much less let him inside.

By the time he had reached the youngest sister’s house, he was shivering with cold. He slumped against the door and called to her in a weak voice: “Oh, my dear friend, please open the door. It’s me, the peacock, out here about to die in this storm.”

She had hardly heard his words when she rushed fluttering and spluttering to open the door. She brought him in and wrapped his trembling body in a thick, warm blanket. After a few minutes of sitting in her house, he came back to life.

Then he lifted his throbbing foot off the floor and said: “Oh, friend, please pull this splinter out.”

No sooner had the request left his mouth than she had taken his aching foot into her lap and pulled the splinter out with her slender, henna-kissed fingers.

Then the peacock said, “Oh, my friend, make up a bed, will you?” and immediately she laid out a fresh mattress and sheet.