, my little dear," said the mother of
Why-Why.

Many stories like this were told in the cave, but they found no credit
with Why-Why. When he was but ten years old, his inquiring spirit showed
itself in the following remarkable manner. He had always been informed
that a serpent was the mother of his race, and that he must treat
serpents with the greatest reverence. To kill one was sacrilege. In
spite of this, he stole out unobserved and crushed a viper which had
stung his little brother. He noticed that no harm ensued, and this
encouraged him to commit a still more daring act. None but the old men
and the warriors were allowed to eat oysters. It was universally held
that if a woman or a child touched an oyster, the earth would open and
swallow the culprit. Not daunted by this prevalent belief, Why-Why one
day devoured no less than four dozen oysters, opening the shells with a
flint spear-head, which he had secreted in his waist-band. The earth did
not open and swallow him as he had swallowed the oysters, and from that
moment he became suspicious of all the ideas and customs imposed by the
old men and wizards.

Two or three touching incidents in domestic life, which occurred when Why-
Why was about twelve years old, confirmed him in the dissidence of his
dissent, for the first Radical was the first Dissenter. The etiquette of
the age (which survives among the Yorubas and other tribes) made it
criminal for a woman to see her husband, or even to mention his name.
When, therefore, the probable father of Why-Why became weary of
supporting his family, he did not need to leave the cave and tramp
abroad. He merely ceased to bring in tree-frogs, grubs, roots, and the
other supplies which Why-Why's mother was accustomed to find concealed
under a large stone in the neighbourhood of the cave.

The poor pious woman, who had always religiously abstained from seeing
her lord's face, and from knowing his name, was now reduced to
destitution. There was no one to grub up pig-nuts for her, nor to
extract insects of an edible sort from beneath the bark of trees. As she
could not identify her invisible husband, she was unable to denounce him
to the wizards, who would, for a consideration, have frightened him out
of his life or into the performance of his duty. Thus, even with the aid
of Why-Why, existence became too laborious for her strength, and she
gradually pined away. As she lay in a half-fainting and almost dying
stat