Just So Stories for Little Children / Просто сказки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

‘I wanted the Stranger-man to fetch Daddy’s spear, so I drawded[201] it,’ said Taffy. ‘There wasn’t lots of spears. There was only one spear. I drawded it three times to make sure. I couldn’t help it looking as if it stuck into Daddy’s head – there wasn’t room on the birch-bark; and those things that Mummy called bad people are my beavers. I drawded them to show him the way through the swamp; and I drawded Mummy at the mouth of the Cave looking pleased because he is a nice Stranger-man, and I think you are just the stupidest people in the world,’ said Taffy. ‘he is a very nice man. Why have you filled his hair with mud? Wash him!’

Nobody said anything at all for a long time, till the Head Chief laughed; then the Stranger-man (who was at least a Tewara) laughed; then Tegumai laughed till he fell down flat on the bank; then all the Tribe laughed more and worse and louder. The only people who did not laugh were Teshumai Tewindrow and all the Neolithic ladies. They were very polite to all their husbands, and said ‘Idiot!’ ever so often.

Then the Head Chief of the Tribe of Tegumai cried and said and sang, ‘O Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked, you’ve hit upon a great invention!’[202]

‘I didn’t intend[203] to; I only wanted Daddy’s black-handled spear,’ said Taffy.

‘Never mind. It is a great invention, and some day men will call it writing. At present it is only pictures, and, as we have seen today, pictures are not always properly understood. But a time will come, O Baby of Tegumai, when we shall make letters – all twenty-six of ’em, – and when we shall be able to read as well as to write, and then we shall always say exactly what we mean without any mistakes. Let the Neolithic ladies wash the mud out of the stranger’s hair!’

This is the story of Tafimai Metallumai carved on an old tusk a very long time ago by the Ancient Peoples. If you read my story, or have it read to you, you can see how it is all told out on the tusk. The tusk was part of an old tribal trumpet that belonged to the Tribe of Tegumai. The pictures were scratched on it with black wax, but all the dividing lines and the five little rounds at the bottom were filled with red wax. When it was new there was a sort of network of beads and shells and precious stones at one end of it; but now that has been broken and lost – all except the little bit that you see. The letters round the tusk are magic – Runic magic – and if you can read them you will find out something rather new. The tusk is of ivory – very yellow and scratched. It is two feet long and two feet round, and weighs eleven pounds nice ounces.

‘I shall be glad of that,’ said Taffy, ‘because, after all, though you’ve bought every single other spear in the Tribe of Tegumai, you’ve forgotten my Daddy’s black-handled spear.’

Then the Head Chief cried and said and sang, ‘Taffy, dear, the next time you write a picture-letter, you’d better send a man who can talk our language with it, to explain what it means. I don’t mind it myself, because I am a Head Chief, but it’s very bad for the rest of the Tribe of Tegumai, and, as you can see, it surprises the stranger.’

Then they adopted the Stranger-man (a genuine Tewara of Tewar) into the Tribe of Tegumai, because he was a gentleman and did not make a fuss[204] about the mud that the Neolithic ladies had put into his hair. But from that day to this (and I suppose it is all Taffy’s fault), very few little girls have ever liked learning to read or to write. Most of them prefer to draw pictures and play about with their Daddies – just like Taffy.