Once upon a time there lived, in a little straw hut, a poor cheese-maker and his wife. They made good cheeses, and sold them whenever they could; but they lived in a lonely spot, and few people passed by that way, so that they made but a slender living. Now it chanced one day that when the good wife came to count the cheeses she found that there were six missing, although she had not sold any or given them away.

So she said to her husband,—

“Some thief has stolen six cheeses in the night.”

“Good!” said the husband.

“Bad!” said the wife.

“Good, I tell you!” cried the husband. “We will watch to-night and catch the thief, and to-morrow we will take him before the judge and ask that he be forced to pay us twice the value of the cheeses.”

“Good!” said the wife. “What a clever fellow you are!”

“Oh! I have not a pumpkin on my shoulders!” said the husband, chuckling.

Accordingly, the husband and wife concealed themselves under the bed the next night, and watched to see what would happen. About midnight the door opened softly, and in came a large brown monkey. He looked all about, and seeing no one, he went to the cheese cupboard, took three of the finest cheeses, and made off. The wife was for following him, but the husband said, “No! let us wait and see if he comes again.”

So they waited, and sure enough the monkey returned in a few minutes, and taking three more cheeses went off again. This time the man followed him. Holding the cheeses carefully in his arms, the monkey took his way through the woods till he came to the mouth of a cave, into which he ran. The cheese-maker slipped noiselessly after him. They went through a dark, winding passage, which led to a vaulted chamber hollowed in the solid rock. Here the monkey entered, while the man concealed himself behind a point of rock and peeped after him. The room was full of monkeys; and at the farther end sat the Monkey King, on a throne made of a huge mass of gold. The cheese-maker stared at that, for he had never seen such a sight. When the Monkey King saw the cheese, he howled with delight, seized the largest one, and gobbled it up.

When the cheese-maker saw that, he turned about and went home again, for he needed to see no more, having a head on his shoulders, and not a pumpkin.

“How now?” asked his wife. “You come back without the cheeses?”

“Hold your tongue, good wife!” he said. “Knowledge is better than cheese.”

“Truly!” said the wife, scornfully. “It must be a fine knowledge to be worth six of my best cheeses.”

The next night the man hid himself behind the door of the hut, and when the monkey-thief appeared, he sprang out and caught him by his long tail.

“Here, wife!” he cried, “bring me your shears, that I may cut off this fellow’s tail for a rope to beat him with.”

“Ai, ai!” screamed the monkey. “Do not cut off my handsome tail! Spare me, and I will give you whatever you wish.”

“Do you mean it?” asked the cheese-maker, giving the tail a twist.

“Ai, ai!” said the monkey, “I swear it, upon my honour!”

“Then,” said the cheese-maker, “go and bring me a lump of gold from the king’s throne as big as my fist, and you shall have your freedom and a cheese besides.”

The monkey, glad to escape so easily, hastened away, and soon returned with the lump of gold.

“What do you want of this yellow stuff?” he asked. “It is only fit to make chairs of.”

“Well, I may want to make a chair some day,” replied the cheese-maker. “The door will be locked after this,” he added; “but whenever your master wants cheese, you know how to get it.”

It happened, in this way, that the cheese-maker and his wife grew very rich; for the monkeys constantly came to buy cheese, and they always paid for it with heavy lumps of gold. Soon the straw hut disappeared, and in its stead rose a stately house of stone, with gardens and terraces about it. The cheese-maker wore a velvet coat, and his wife flaunted about in a satin gown; but still they never failed to make their cheeses twice a week.

“Why do you still make cheese?” asked the fine visitors who came to see them, rolling in gilded coaches. But the cheese-maker had one answer for them all: “Because I have a head on my shoulders, and not a pumpkin.”