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 house 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 left-over sound-pictures,' said
her Daddy, and they had a most inciting day of it, and a beautiful lunch
in the middle, and two games of romps. 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 a 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.)
[Illustration: 20]
[Illustration: 21]
[Illustration: 22]
[Illustration: 23]
[Illustration: 24]
[Illustration: 25]
[Illustration: 26]
[Illustration: 27]
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 even 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 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 till they had done and drawn all the sound-pictures that
they wanted, and there was the Alphabet, all complete.
[Illustration: 28]
[Illustration: 29]
[Illustration: 30]
[Illustration: 31]
[Illustration: 32]
[Illus
|