Just so stories
A grassy track to-day it is
An hour out of Guildford town,
Above the river Wey it is.
Here, when they heard the horse-bells ring,
The ancient Britons dressed and rode
To watch the dark Phoenicians bring
Their goods along the Western Road.
And here, or hereabouts, they met
To hold their racial talks and such--
To barter beads for Whitby jet,
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 Broadstone brook
And made a swamp where Bramley stands:
And bears from Shere would come and look
For Taffimai where Shamley stands.
The Wey, that Taffy called Wagai,
Was more than six times bigger then;
And all the Tribe of Tegumai
They cut a noble figure then!
HOW THE ALPHABET WAS MADE
THE week after Taffimai 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 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 two deerskins--soft ones with
fringes--to the Stranger-man for the things we did to him.’
‘We didn’t do anything,’ said Taffy. ‘It was Mummy and the other
Neolithic ladies--and the mud.’
‘We won’t talk about that,’ said her 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 she said, ‘Daddy, I’ve thinked of a secret surprise. You make a
noise--any sort of noise.’
‘Ah!’ said Tegumai. ‘Will that do 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 part of my
secret-surprise-think. Do say ah, Daddy, and keep your mouth open at
the end, and lend me that tooth. I’m 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 s’prise. 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 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!’ 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.)
‘That’s not bad,’ said Tegumai, and scratched on his own piece of bark
for himself; but you’ve forgotten the feeler that hangs across his
mouth.’
‘But I can’t draw, Daddy.’
‘You needn’t draw anything of him except just the opening of his mouth
and the feeler across. Then we’ll know he’s a carp-fish, ‘cause the
perches and trouts haven’t got feelers. Look here, Taffy.’ And he drew
this. (2.)
‘Now I’ll copy it.’ said Taffy. ‘Will you understand this when you see
it?’
‘Perfectly,’ said her Daddy.
And she drew this. (3.) ‘And I’ll be quite as s’prised when I see it
anywhere, as if you had jumped out from behind a tree and said ‘“Ah!”’
‘Now, make another noise,’ said Taffy, very proud.
‘Yah!’ said her Daddy, very loud.
‘H’m,’ said Taffy. ‘That’s a mixy noise. The end part is
ah-carp-fish-mouth; but what can we do about the front part? Yer-yer-yer
and ah! Ya!’
‘It’s very like the carp-fish-mouth noise. Let’s draw another bit of the
carp-fish and join ‘em,’ said her Daddy. He was quite incited too.
‘No. If they’re joined, I’ll forget. Draw it separate. Draw his tail.
If he’s standing on his head the tail will come first. ‘Sides, I think I
can draw tails easiest,’ said Taffy.
‘A good notion,’ said Tegumai. ‘Here’s a carp-fish tail for the
yer-noise.’ And he drew this. (4.)
‘I’ll try now,’ said Taffy. ‘’Member I can’t draw like you, Daddy. Will
it do if I just draw the split part of the tail, and the sticky-down
line for where it joins?’ And she drew this. (5.)
Her Daddy nodded, and his eyes were shiny bright with ‘citement.
‘That’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Now make another noise, Daddy.’
‘Oh!’ said her Daddy, very loud.
‘That’s quite easy,’ said Taffy. ‘You make your mouth all around like an
egg or a stone. So an egg or a stone will do for that.’
‘You can’t always find eggs or stones. We’ll have to scratch a round
something like one.’ And he drew this. (6.)
‘My gracious!’ said Taffy, ‘what a lot of noise-pictures we’ve
made,--carp-mouth, carp-tail, and egg! Now, make another noise, Daddy.’
‘Ssh!’ said her Daddy, and frowned to himself, but Taffy was too incited
to notice.
‘That’s quite easy,’ she said, scratching on the bark.
‘Eh, what?’ said her Daddy. ‘I meant I was thinking, and didn’t want to
be disturbed.’
‘It’s a noise just the same. It’s the noise a snake makes, Daddy,
when it is thinking and doesn’t want to be disturbed. Let’s make the
ssh-noise a snake. Will this do?’ And she drew this. (7.)
‘There,’ she said. ‘That’s another s’prise-secret. When you draw a
hissy-snake by the door of your little back-cave where you mend
the spears, I’ll know you’re thinking hard; and I’ll come in most
mousy-quiet. And if you draw it on a tree by the river when you are
fishing, I’ll know you want me to walk most most mousy-quiet, so as not
to shake the banks.’
‘Perfectly true,’ said Tegumai. And there’s more in this game than you
think. Taffy, dear, I’ve a notion that your Daddy’s daughter has hit
upon the finest thing that there ever was since the Tribe of Tegumai
took to using shark’s teeth instead of flints for their spear-heads. I
believe we’ve found out the big secret of the world.’
‘Why?’ said Taffy, and her eyes shone too with incitement.
‘I’ll show,’ said her Daddy. ‘What’s water in the Tegumai language?’
‘Ya, of course, and it means river too--like Wagai-ya--the Wagai river.’
‘What is bad water that gives you fever if you drink it--black
water--swamp-water?’
‘Yo, of course.’
‘Now look,’ said her Daddy. ‘S’pose you saw this scratched by the side
of a pool in the beaver-swamp?’ And he drew this. (8.)
‘Carp-tail and round egg. Two noises mixed! Yo, bad water,’ said Taffy.
‘’Course I wouldn’t drink that water because I’d know you said it was
bad.’
‘But I needn’t be near the water at all. I might be miles away, hunting,
and still--’
‘And still it would be just the same as if you stood there and said,
“G’way, Taffy, or you’ll get fever.” All that in a carp-fish-tail and
a round egg! O Daddy, we must tell Mummy, quick!’ and Taffy danced all
round him.
‘Not yet,’ said Tegumai; ‘not till we’ve gone a little further. Let’s
see. Yo is bad water, but So is food cooked on the fire, isn’t it?’ And
he drew this. (9.)
‘Yes. Snake and egg,’ said Taffy ‘So that means dinner’s ready. If you
saw that scratched on a tree you’d know it was time to come to the Cave.
So’d I.’
‘My Winkie!’ said Tegumai. ‘That’s true too. But wait a minute. I see
a difficulty. SO means “come and have dinner,” but sho means the
drying-poles where we hang our hides.’
‘Horrid old drying-poles!’ said Taffy. ‘I hate helping to hang heavy,
hot, hairy hides on them. If you drew the snake and egg, and I thought
it meant dinner, and I came in from the wood and found that it meant I
was to help Mummy hang the two hides on the drying-poles, what would I
do?’
‘You’d be cross. So’d Mummy. We must make a new picture for sho. We must
draw a spotty snake that hisses sh-sh, and we’ll play that the plain
snake only hisses ssss.’
‘I couldn’t be sure how to put in the spots,’ said Taffy. ‘And p’raps
if you were in a hurry you might leave them out, and I’d think it was
so when it was sho, and then Mummy would catch me just the same. No! I
think we’d better draw a picture of the horrid high drying-poles their
very selves, and make quite sure. I’ll put them in just after the
hissy-snake. Look!’ And she drew this. (10.)
‘P’raps that’s safest. It’s very like our drying-poles, anyhow,’
said her Daddy, laughing. ‘Now I’ll make a new noise with a snake and
drying-pole sound in it. I’ll say shi. That’s Tegumai for spear, Taffy.’
And he laughed.
‘Don’t make fun of me,’ said Taffy, as she thought of her picture-letter
and the mud in the Stranger-man’s hair. ‘You draw it, Daddy.’
‘We won’t have beavers or hills this time, eh?’ said her Daddy, ‘I’ll
just draw a straight line for my spear.’ and he drew this. (11.)
‘Even Mummy couldn’t mistake that for me being killed.’
‘Please don’t, Daddy. It makes me uncomfy. Do some more noises. We’re
getting on beautifully.’
‘Er-hm!’ said Tegumai, looking up. ‘We’ll say shu. That means sky.’
Taffy drew the snake and the drying-pole. Then she stopped. ‘We must
make a new picture for that end sound, mustn’t we?’
‘Shu-shu-u-u-u!’ said her Daddy. ‘Why, it’s just like the
round-egg-sound made thin.’
‘Then s’pose we draw a thin round egg, and pretend it’s a frog that
hasn’t eaten anything for years.’
‘N-no,’ said her Daddy. ‘If we drew that in a hurry we might mistake it
for the round egg itself. Shu-shu-shu! ‘I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll
open a little hole at the end of the round egg to show how the O-noise
runs out all thin, ooo-oo-oo. Like this.’ And he drew this. (12.)
‘Oh, that’s lovely! Much better than a thin frog. Go on,’ said Taffy,
using her shark’s tooth. Her Daddy went on drawing, and his hand shook
with incitement. He went on till he had drawn this. (13.)
‘Don’t look up, Taffy,’ he said. ‘Try if you can make out what that
means in the Tegumai language. If you can, we’ve found the Secret.’
‘Snake--pole--broken--egg--carp--tail and carp-mouth,’ said Taffy.
‘Shu-ya. Sky-water (rain).’ Just then a drop fell on her hand, for the
day had clouded over. ‘Why, Daddy, it’s raining. Was that what you meant
to tell me?’
‘Of course,’ said her Daddy. ‘And I told it you without saying a word,
didn’t I?’
‘Well, I think I would have known it in a minute, but that raindrop made
me quite sure. I’ll always remember now. Shu-ya means rain, or “it is
going to rain.” Why, Daddy!’ She got up and danced round him. ‘S’pose
you went out before I was awake, and drawed shu-ya in the smoke on the
wall, I’d know it was going to rain and I’d take my beaver-skin hood.
Wouldn’t Mummy be surprised?’
Tegumai got up and danced. (Daddies didn’t mind doing those things in
those days.) ‘More than that! More than that!’ he said. ‘S’pose I wanted
to tell you it wasn’t going to rain much and you must come down to the
river, what would we draw? Say the words in Tegumai-talk first.’
‘Shu-ya-las, ya maru. (Sky-water ending. River come to.) what a lot of
new sounds! I don’t see how we can draw them.’
‘But I do--but I do!’ said Tegumai. ‘Just attend a minute, Taffy, and