Just so stories
twisting and straining Slow-and-Solid actually managed to curl up a
tiddy wee bit.
‘Excellent!’ said Stickly-Prickly; ‘but I shouldn’t do any more just
now. It’s making you black in the face. Kindly lead me into the water
once again and I’ll practice that side-stroke which you say is so easy.’
And so Stickly-Prickly practiced, and Slow-Solid swam alongside.
‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid. ‘A little more practice will make you
a regular whale. Now, if I may trouble you to unlace my back and front
plates two holes more, I’ll try that fascinating bend that you say is so
easy. Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’
‘Excellent!’ said Stickly-Prickly, all wet from the turbid Amazon. ‘I
declare, I shouldn’t know you from one of my own family. Two holes, I
think, you said? A little more expression, please, and don’t grunt quite
so much, or Painted Jaguar may hear us. When you’ve finished, I want
to try that long dive which you say is so easy. Won’t Painted Jaguar be
surprised!’
And so Stickly-Prickly dived, and Slow-and-Solid dived alongside.
‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid. ‘A leetle more attention to holding
your breath and you will be able to keep house at the bottom of the
turbid Amazon. Now I’ll try that exercise of putting my hind legs round
my ears which you say is so peculiarly comfortable. Won’t Painted Jaguar
be surprised!’
‘Excellent!’ said Stickly-Prickly. ‘But it’s straining your back-plates
a little. They are all overlapping now, instead of lying side by side.’
‘Oh, that’s the result of exercise,’ said Slow-and-Solid. ‘I’ve noticed
that your prickles seem to be melting into one another, and that
you’re growing to look rather more like a pinecone, and less like a
chestnut-burr, than you used to.’
‘Am I?’ said Stickly-Prickly. ‘That comes from my soaking in the water.
Oh, won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’
They went on with their exercises, each helping the other, till morning
came; and when the sun was high they rested and dried themselves. Then
they saw that they were both of them quite different from what they had
been.
‘Stickly-Prickly,’ said Tortoise after breakfast, ‘I am not what I was
yesterday; but I think that I may yet amuse Painted Jaguar.
‘That was the very thing I was thinking just now,’ said Stickly-Prickly.
‘I think scales are a tremendous improvement on prickles--to say nothing
of being able to swim. Oh, won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised! Let’s go
and find him.’
By and by they found Painted Jaguar, still nursing his paddy-paw that
had been hurt the night before. He was so astonished that he fell three
times backward over his own painted tail without stopping.
‘Good morning!’ said Stickly-Prickly. ‘And how is your dear gracious
Mummy this morning?’
‘She is quite well, thank you,’ said Painted Jaguar; ‘but you must
forgive me if I do not at this precise moment recall your name.’
‘That’s unkind of you,’ said Stickly-Prickly, ‘seeing that this time
yesterday you tried to scoop me out of my shell with your paw.’
‘But you hadn’t any shell. It was all prickles,’ said Painted Jaguar. ‘I
know it was. Just look at my paw!’
‘You told me to drop into the turbid Amazon and be drowned,’ said
Slow-Solid. ‘Why are you so rude and forgetful to-day?’
‘Don’t you remember what your mother told you?’ said Stickly-Prickly,--
‘Can’t curl, but can swim--
Stickly-Prickly, that’s him!
Curls up, but can’t swim--
Slow-Solid, that’s him!’
Then they both curled themselves up and rolled round and round Painted
Jaguar till his eyes turned truly cart-wheels in his head.
Then he went to fetch his mother.
‘Mother,’ he said, ‘there are two new animals in the woods to-day, and
the one that you said couldn’t swim, swims, and the one that you said
couldn’t curl up, curls; and they’ve gone shares in their prickles, I
think, because both of them are scaly all over, instead of one being
smooth and the other very prickly; and, besides that, they are rolling
round and round in circles, and I don’t feel comfy.’
‘Son, son!’ said Mother Jaguar ever so many times, graciously waving her
tail, ‘a Hedgehog is a Hedgehog, and can’t be anything but a Hedgehog;
and a Tortoise is a Tortoise, and can never be anything else.’
‘But it isn’t a Hedgehog, and it isn’t a Tortoise. It’s a little bit of
both, and I don’t know its proper name.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Mother Jaguar. ‘Everything has its proper name. I
should call it “Armadillo” till I found out the real one. And I should
leave it alone.’
So Painted Jaguar did as he was told, especially about leaving them
alone; but the curious thing is that from that day to this, O Best
Beloved, no one on the banks of the turbid Amazon has ever called
Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid anything except Armadillo. There are
Hedgehogs and Tortoises in other places, of course (there are some in
my garden); but the real old and clever kind, with their scales lying
lippety-lappety one over the other, like pine-cone scales, that lived on
the banks of the turbid Amazon in the High and Far-Off Days, are always
called Armadillos, because they were so clever.
So that; all right, Best Beloved. Do you see?
I’VE never sailed the Amazon,
I’ve never reached Brazil;
But the Don and Magdelana,
They can go there when they will!
Yes, weekly from Southampton,
Great steamers, white and gold,
Go rolling down to Rio
(Roll down--roll down to Rio!)
And I’d like to roll to Rio
Some day before I’m old!
I’ve never seen a Jaguar,
Nor yet an Armadill
O dilloing in his armour,
And I s’pose I never will,
Unless I go to Rio
These wonders to behold--
Roll down--roll down to Rio--
Roll really down to Rio!
Oh, I’d love to roll to Rio
Some day before I’m old!
HOW THE FIRST LETTER WAS WRITTEN
ONCE upon a most early time was a Neolithic man. He was not a Jute or an
Angle, or even a Dravidian, which he might well have been, Best Beloved,
but never mind why. He was a Primitive, and he lived cavily in a Cave,
and he wore very few clothes, and he couldn’t read and he couldn’t write
and he didn’t want to, and except when he was hungry he was
quite happy. His name was Tegumai Bopsulai, and that means,
‘Man-who-does-not-put-his-foot-forward-in-a-hurry’; but we, O Best
Beloved, will call him Tegumai, for short. And his wife’s name
was Teshumai Tewindrow, and that means,
‘Lady-who-asks-a-very-many-questions’; but we, O Best Beloved, will
call her Teshumai, for short. And his little girl-daughter’s name
was Taffimai Metallumai, and that means,
‘Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked’; but I’m
going to call her Taffy. And she was Tegumai Bopsulai’s Best Beloved and
her own Mummy’s Best Beloved, and she was not spanked half as much as
was good for her; and they were all three very happy. As soon as
Taffy could run about she went everywhere with her Daddy Tegumai, and
sometimes they would not come home to the Cave till they were hungry,
and then Teshumai Tewindrow would say, ‘Where in the world have you two
been to, to get so shocking dirty? Really, my Tegumai, you’re no better
than my Taffy.’
Now attend and listen!
One day Tegumai Bopsulai went down through the beaver-swamp to the Wagai
river to spear carp-fish for dinner, and Taffy went too. Tegumai’s spear
was made of wood with shark’s teeth at the end, and before he had caught
any fish at all he accidentally broke it clean across by jabbing it down
too hard on the bottom of the river. They were miles and miles from home
(of course they had their lunch with them in a little bag), and Tegumai
had forgotten to bring any extra spears.
‘Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!’ said Tegumai. ‘It will take me half
the day to mend this.’
‘There’s your big black spear at home,’ said Taffy. ‘Let me run back to
the Cave and ask Mummy to give it me.’
‘It’s too far for your little fat legs,’ said Tegumai. ‘Besides, you
might fall into the beaver-swamp and be drowned. We must make the best
of a bad job.’ He sat down and took out a little leather mendy-bag, full
of reindeer-sinews and strips of leather, and lumps of bee’s-wax and
resin, and began to mend the spear.
Taffy sat down too, with her toes in the water and her chin in her
hand, and thought very hard. Then she said--‘I say, Daddy, it’s an awful
nuisance that you and I don’t know how to write, isn’t it? If we did we
could send a message for the new spear.’
‘Taffy,’ said Tegumai, ‘how often have I told you not to use slang?
“Awful” isn’t a pretty word, but it could be a convenience, now you
mention it, if we could write home.’
Just then a Stranger-man came along the river, but he belonged to a
far tribe, the Tewaras, and he did not understand one word of Tegumai’s
language. He stood on the bank and smiled at Taffy, because he had
a little girl-daughter Of his own at home. Tegumai drew a hank of
deer-sinews from his mendy-bag and began to mend his spear.
‘Come here, said Taffy. ‘Do you know where my Mummy lives?’ And the
Stranger-man said ‘Um!’ being, as you know, a Tewara.
‘Silly!’ said Taffy, and she stamped her foot, because she saw a shoal
of very big carp going up the river just when her Daddy couldn’t use his
spear.
‘Don’t bother grown-ups,’ said Tegumai, so busy with his spear-mending
that he did not turn round.
‘I aren’t, said Taffy. ‘I only want him to do what I want him to do, and
he won’t understand.’
‘Then don’t bother me, said Tegumai, and he went on pulling and
straining at the deer-sinews with his mouth full of loose ends. The
Stranger-man--a genuine Tewara he was--sat down on the grass, and Taffy
showed him what her Daddy was doing. The Stranger-man thought, this is a
very wonderful child. She stamps her foot at me and she makes faces. She
must be the daughter of that noble Chief who is so great that he won’t
take any notice of me.’ So he smiled more politely than ever.
‘Now,’ said Taffy, ‘I want you to go to my Mummy, because your legs are
longer than mine, and you won’t fall into the beaver-swamp, and ask for
Daddy’s other spear--the one with the black handle that hangs over our
fireplace.’
The Stranger-man (and he was a Tewara) thought, ‘This is a very, very
wonderful child. She waves her arms and she shouts at me, but I don’t
understand a word of what she says. But if I don’t do what she wants, I
greatly fear that that haughty Chief, Man-who-turns-his-back-on-callers,
will be angry.’ He got up and twisted a big flat piece of bark off a
birch-tree and gave it to Taffy. He did this, Best Beloved, to show that
his heart was as white as the birch-bark and that he meant no harm; but
Taffy didn’t quite understand.
‘Oh!’ said she. ‘Now I see! You want my Mummy’s living-address? Of
course I can’t write, but I can draw pictures if I’ve anything sharp to
scratch with. Please lend me the shark’s tooth off your necklace.’
The Stranger-man (and he was a Tewara) didn’t say anything, So Taffy
put up her little hand and pulled at the beautiful bead and seed and
shark-tooth necklace round his neck.
The Stranger-man (and he was a Tewara) thought, ‘This is a very, very,
very wonderful child. The shark’s tooth on my necklace is a magic
shark’s tooth, and I was always told that if anybody touched it without
my leave they would immediately swell up or burst, but this
child doesn’t swell up or burst, and that important Chief,
Man-who-attends-strictly-to-his-business, who has not yet taken any
notice of me at all, doesn’t seem to be afraid that she will swell up or
burst. I had better be more polite.’
So he gave Taffy the shark’s tooth, and she lay down flat on her tummy