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

‘I’ll only put in one,’ said Tegumai. ‘If this game of ours is going to be what I think it will, the easier we make our sound-pictures the better for everybody[234].’ And he drew. (18)

‘Now we’ve got it,’ said Tegumai, standing on one leg. ‘I’ll draw ’em in a string like fish.’

‘Hadn’t we better put a little bit of stick or something between each word, so’s they won’t rub up against each other and jostle[235], same as if they were carps?’

‘Oh, I’ll leave a space for that,’ said her Daddy. And very incitedly he drew them all without stopping, on a big new bit of birch-bark. (19)

‘Shu-ya-las-ya-maru,’ said Taffy, reading it out sound by sound.

‘That’s enough for today,’ said Tegumai. ‘Besides, you’re getting tired, Taffy. Never mind, dear. We’ll finish it all tomorrow, and then we’ll be remembered for years and years after the biggest trees you can see are all chopped up for firewood[236].’

So they went home, and all that evening Tegumai sat on one side of the fire and Taffy on the other, drawing ya’s and ya’s and shu’s and shi’s in the smoke on the wall and giggling together till her Mummy said, ‘Really, Tegumai, you’re worse than my Taffy.’

‘Please don’t mind,’ said Taffy. ‘It’s only our secret-s’prise, Mummy, dear, and we’ll tell you all about it in the very minute it’s done; but please don’t ask me what it is now, or else I’ll have to tell.’

So her Mummy most carefully didn’t; and bright and early next morning Tegumai went down to the river to think about new sound-pictures, and when Taffy got up she saw Ya-las [water is ending or running out] chalked on the side of the big stone water-tank, outside the Cave.

‘Um’ said Taffy. ‘These picture-sounds are rather a bother! Daddy’s just as good as come here himself and told me to get more water for Mummy to cook with.’ She went to the spring at the back of the Cave and filled the tank from a bark bucket, and then she ran down to the river and pulled her Daddy’s left ear – the one that belonged to her to pull when she was good.

‘Now come along and we’ll draw all the leftover sound-pictures[237],’ said her Daddy, and they had a most inciting day of it, and a beautiful lunch in the middle, and two games of romps[238]. When they came to T, Taffy said that as her name, and her Daddy’s, and her Mummy’s all began with that sound, they should draw a sort of family group of themselves holding hands. That was all very well to draw once or twice; but when it came to drawing it six or seven times, Taffy and Tegumai drew it scratchier and scratchier, till at last the T-sound was only 2 thin long Tegumai with his arms out to hold Taffy and Teshumai. You can see from these three pictures partly how it happened. (20, 21, 22)

Many of the other pictures were much too beautiful to begin with, especially before lunch; but as they were drawn over and over again on birch-bark, they became plainer and easier, till at last Tegumai said he could find no fault with them. They turned the hissy-snake the other way round for the Z-sound, to show it was hissing backwards in a soft and gentle way (23); and they just made a twiddle for E, because it came into the pictures so often (24); and they drew pictures of the sacred Beaver of the Tegumais for the B-sound (25, 26, 27, 28); and because it was a nasty, nosy noise, they just drew noses for the N-sound, till they were tired (29); and they drew a picture of the big lake-pike’s[239] mouth for the greedy Ga-sound (30); and they drew the pike’s mouth again with a spear behind it for the scratchy, hurty Ka-sound (31); and they drew pictures of a little bit of the winding Wagai river for the nice windy-windy Wa-sound (32, 33); and so on and so forth and so following[240] till they had done and drawn all the sound-pictures that they wanted, and there was the Alphabet, all complete.

And after thousands and thousands and thousands of years, and after Hieroglyphics, and Demotics, and Nilotics, and Cryptics, and Cufics, and Runics, and Dorics, and Ionics, and all sorts of the other ricks and tricks (because the Woons, and the Neguses, and the Akhoonds, and the Repositories of Tradition[241] would never leave a good thing alone when they saw it), the fine old easy, understandable Alphabet – A, B, C, D, E, and the rest of ’em – got back into its proper shape again for all Best Beloveds to learn when they are old enough.

But I remember Tegumai Bopsulai, and Tafimai Metallumai and Teshumai Tewindrow, her dear Mummy, and all the days gone by. And it was so – just so – a long time ago – on the banks of the big Wagai!