," answered the parrot. "But first let me put a small
banana stalk and two pieces of sugar-cane with it, and then I shall
carry it safely to its grandmamma."

The parrot relieved the queen of her child, and flew through the air,
screeching merrier than before, and in a short time had laid the little
princess, her banana stalk, and two pieces of sugar-cane in the lap of
the grandmamma, who was sitting at the door of her house, and said--

"This bundle contains a gift from your daughter, wife of Gumbi. She
bids you be careful of it, and let none out of your own family see it,
lest she should be slain by the king. And to remember this day, she
requests you to plant the banana stalk in your garden at one end, and at
the other end the two pieces of sugar-cane, for you may need both."

"Your words are good and wise," answered granny, as she received the
babe.

On opening the bundle the old woman discovered a female child,
exceedingly pretty, plump, and yellow as a ripe banana, with large black
eyes, and such smiles on its bright face that the grandmother's heart
glowed with affection for it.

Many seasons came and went by. No stranger came round to ask questions.
The banana flourished and grew into a grove, and each sprout marked the
passage of a season, and the sugar-cane likewise throve prodigiously as
year after year passed and the infant grew into girlhood. When the
princess had bloomed into a beautiful maiden, the grandmother had become
so old that the events of long ago appeared to her to be like so many
dreams, but she still worshipped her child's child, cooked for her,
waited upon her, wove new grass mats for her bed, and fine grass-cloths
for her dress, and every night before she retired she washed her dainty
feet.

Then one day, before her ears were quite closed by age, and her limbs
had become too weak to bear her about, the parrot who brought the child
to her, came and rested upon a branch near her door, and after piping
and whistling its greeting, cried out, "The time has come. Gumbi's
daughter must depart, and seek her father. Furnish her with a little
drum, teach her a song to sing while she beats it, and send her forth."

Then granny purchased for her a tiny drum, and taught her a song, and
when she had been fully instructed she prepared a new canoe with food--
from the bananas in the grove, and the plot of sugar-cane, and she made
cushions from grass-cloth bags stuffed with silk-cotton floss for