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

There runs a road by Merrow Down —
A grassy track today it is —
An hour out of Guildford town,
Above the river Wey it is.

Here, when they heard the horse-bells ring,

The ancient[205] Britons dressed and rode
To watch the dark Phoenicians bring
Their goods[206] along the Western Road.

And here, or hereabouts, they met

To hold their racial talks and such —
To barter beads for Whitby jet[207],
And tin for gay shell torques and such.

But long and long before that time

(When bison used to roam on it)
Did Taffy and her Daddy climb
That down, and had their home on it.

Then beavers built in Broadstonebrook

And made a swamp where Bramly stands;
And bears from Shere would come and look
For Tafimai where Shamley stands.

The Wey, that Taffy called Wagai,

Was more that six times bigger then;
And all the Tribe of Tegumai
They cut a noble figure then!

Questions and tasks

1. Tell about Taffy.

2. What had happened before Tegumai caught any fish?

3. Tell about a Stranger-man.

4. What did Taffy want the Stranger Man to do?

5. What did Taffy draw in the picture?

6. What did the Strange-man was thinking of when he was waiting for Taffy’s picture be ready? Did Taffy want to draw exactly what he was thinking of?

7. What happened when the Stranger-man came to Teshumai and showed the picture?

8. Did the tribe do what Taffy asked “in the picture”?

9. What invention did Taffy hit upon?

10. What did the Head Chief suggest Taffy doing next time to avoid misunderstanding?

11. Retell the story in short.

How the Alphabet was Made

The week after Tafimai Metallumai (we will still call her Taffy, Best Beloved) made that little mistake about her Daddy’s spear and the Stranger-man and the picture-letter and all, she went carp-fishing again with her Daddy. Her Mummy wanted her to stay at home and help hang up hides to dry on the big drying-poles[208] outside their Neolithic Cave, but Taffy slipped away down to her Daddy quite early, and they fished. Presently she began to giggle, and her Daddy said, ‘Don’t be silly, child.’

‘But wasn’t it inciting!’ said Taffy. ‘Don’t you remember how the Head Chief puffed out his cheeks, and how funny the nice Stranger-man looked with the mud in his hair?’

‘Well do I,’ said Tegumai. ‘I had to pay[209] two deerskins – soft ones with fringes[210] – to the Stranger-man for the things we did to him.’

‘We didn’t do anything,’ said Taffy. ‘It was Mummy and other Neolithic ladies – and the mud.’

We won’t talk about that,’ said Daddy. ‘Let’s have lunch’.

Taffy took a marrow-bone and sat mousy-quiet for ten whole minutes, while her Daddy scratched on pieces of birch-bark with a shark’s tooth. Then he said, ‘Daddy, I’ve thinked[211] of a secret surprise. You make a noise – any sort of noise.’

‘Ah!’ said Tegumai. ‘Will that do[212] to begin with?’

‘Yes,‘ said Taffy. ‘you look just like a carp-fish with its mouth open. Say it again, please.’

‘Ah! ah! ah!’ said her Daddy. ‘Don’t be rude, my daughter.’

‘I’m not meaning rude, really and truly,’ said Taffy. ‘It’s a part of my secret-surprise-think. Do say ah[213], Daddy, and keep your mouth open at the end, and lend me that tooth. I am going to draw a carp-fish’s mouth wide-open.’

‘What for?’ said her Daddy.

‘Don’t you see?’ said Taffy scratching away on the bark. ‘That will be our little secret surprise. When I draw a carp-fish with his mouth open in the smoke at the back of our Cave – if Mummy doesn’t mind – it will remind you of that ah-noise. Then we can play that it was me jumped out of the dark and s’prised[214] you with that noise – same as I did in the beaver-swamp last winter.’

‘Really?’ said her Daddy, in the voice that grown-ups use when they are truly attending. ‘Go on, Taffy.’

‘Oh, bother![215]’ she said. ‘I can’t draw all of a carp-fish, but I can draw something that means a carp-fish’s mouth. Don’t you know how they stand on their heads rooting in the mud? Well, here’s a pretence carp-fish (we can play that the rest of him is drawn). Here’s just his mouth, and that means ah.’ And she drew this. (1)