Long ago, a widow with her three sons lived in a small village in China. She was famous for her brocades. One day, she went to the market to sell her brocades. At a stall, she saw a beautiful picture of a pretty white house surrounded by green fields. The widow loved the painting and bought it. She went home and showed the painting to her sons. “I wish we lived in such a place,” she sighed.
The elder sons laughed while the youngest one encouraged her to weave the design into her brocade, “Weave the image into brocade and it will be as good as living there.” She started working on the brocade and her sons chopped wood for living. The widow burned pine branches to work at night. The smoke caused tears to fall from her eyes and she wove the drops into the brocade.
