Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (473 page)

‘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.’

12

‘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’ll
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 excitement. He went on till he had drawn this. (13.)

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 we won’t do any more to-day. We’ve got
shu-ya
all right, haven’t we? but this
las
is a teaser.
La-la-la!’
and he waved his shark-tooth.

‘There’s the hissy-snake at the end and the carp-mouth before the snake —
as-as-as
. We only want
la-la
,’ said Taffy.

‘I know it, but we have to make la-la. And we’re the first people in all the world who’ve ever tried to do it, Taffimai!’

‘Well,’ said Taffy, yawning, for she was rather tired. ‘
Las
means breaking or finishing as well as ending, doesn’t it?’

‘So it does,’ said Tegumai. ‘
Yo-las
means that there’s no water in the tank for Mummy to cook with — just when I’m going hunting, too.’

‘And
shi-las
means that your spear is broken. If I’d only thought of
that
instead of drawing silly beaver pictures for the Stranger!’

‘
La! La! La!
’ said Tegumai, waving his stick and frowning. ‘Oh bother!’

‘I could have drawn
shi
quite easily,’ Taffy went on. ‘Then I’d have drawn your spear all broken — this way!’ And she drew. (14.)

14

15

16

‘The very thing,’ said Tegumai. ‘That’s
la
all over. It isn’t like any of the other marks, either.’ And he drew this. (15.)

‘Now for
ya
. Oh, we’ve done that before. Now for
maru
.
Mum-mum-mum
.
Mum
shuts one’s mouth up, doesn’t it? We’ll draw a shut mouth like this.’ And he drew. (16.)

‘Then the carp-mouth open. That makes
Ma-ma-ma!
But what about this
rrrrr
-thing, Taffy?’

‘It sounds all rough and edgy, like your shark-tooth saw when you’re cutting out a plank for the canoe,’ said Taffy.

17

‘You mean all sharp at the edges, like this?’ said Tegumai. And he drew. (17.)

‘‘Xactly,’ said Taffy. ‘But we don’t want all those teeth: only put two.’

18

‘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.’ And he drew. (18.)

‘
Now
we’ve got it,’ said Tegumai, standing on one leg. ‘I’ll draw ‘em all 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, 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.

19

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