Read Ebook: The Alo Man by Lamprey Louise Pratt Chadwick Mara L Mara Louise Crampton Rollin McNeil Illustrator

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Ebook has 659 lines and 36482 words, and 14 pages

"When you reach the river bank," said the old woman, "press the stone to your lips. Then throw it over your shoulder, and it will return to me."

The youngest sister did as the old woman told her, and very soon she reached the place where she lived with her two sisters. They looked with the greatest surprise at her beautiful dress and ornaments and asked where she had found them. When she told them an old woman had given them to her, they said, without waiting to hear the story, "We too will go to the old woman," and throwing their beads into the river they ran along the banks, calling to the waters to return them.

After so long a time they came to the hut where the old woman sat. The giant was no longer there, and the old woman was sitting crouched in the doorway as before.

"Do not laugh at me," said the old woman. "I am ugly now, but once I was young and beautiful as you are."

The two sisters laughed at this, and ridiculed the old woman, and called her all the jeering names they could think of.

"Will you not bind up my wounds and give me water to drink?" asked the old woman.

But the sisters said that they had never heard of such impudence.

"Where are the bracelets and beads you have to give away?" asked the elder sister.

"Where are your mantles and kirtles with fringe?" asked the younger. "We come for these, not to waste our time on you. We must make haste and go home."

"Indeed, I think you must," said the old woman, "for this place is the home of a giant who comes in the form of wind and rain, and I hear him coming now!"

Then the hut sank under the waters, and the maidens found themselves standing on the bank without even their own beads to deck themselves with. That very moment they heard the wind and the rain sweeping through the trees, and they turned and ran as fast as their feet would carry them, back to their own village, while the wind and the rain howled behind them and the giant pelted them with stones.

All the people laughed and shouted over the ill fortune of the two selfish sisters. Nkunda, where she lay curled up at her mother's side, fingered her beads and wondered if the youngest sister's beads from beneath the waterfall could have been any prettier than these. In the part where the giant came in, the story sent delightful shivers down all their backs, for they could every one remember storms in which the great wind had shaken the trees like an invisible giant and the rain had come pelting down like stones. Sometimes, after a storm, the path of the wind through the forest looked like the track of a huge giant who had gone walking up and down, twisting off boughs and rooting up trees merely to show what he could do. During one of these storms the temperature often falls from thirty to forty degrees in half an hour.

Nkunda had seen a silvery jackal skin and a copper-fringed robe among her mother's treasures, but one thing in the story puzzled her. "Mother," she said softly, "what is gold?"

The Alo Man heard her and smiled. "Have you never seen gold?" he asked.

The children shook their heads. Gold was not found in that part of the country.

Then the Alo Man explained that in the streams of other parts of the country the people found lumps of a shining yellow metal softer and more beautiful than iron, for which the traders would pay much cloth and many brass rods. When the headman heard what they were talking about, he showed the children a little bright round bangle on his arm, and told them that that was gold. It was really, though no one there knew it, a half-sovereign lost by some trader, or perhaps given in mistake for a sixpence, which is exactly the same size. The headman had kept it, first because of its beauty, and then because a trader had told him that it was worth as much as ten pounds of rubber, or more than a hundred pounds of palm kernels, or a load of palm oil, or about thirty-five pounds of coffee. Nkunda thought that the little piece of gold was rather like a magic stone.

THE LEOPARD AND THE DOG

On the third night of the Alo Man's stay in the village there was a great disturbance out near the goat pen. The frightened bleating of the goats was almost drowned by the barking and growling of dogs, and the angry snarl of some fierce animal.

Some of the hunters caught up their spears and ran to see what the matter was, and Mpoko, catching up his own little spear, raced after them, for he could hear the furious barking of his own dog in the pack. Even the baby brother, who could only just stand on his feet, lifted his head and listened, saying, "Mfwa! Mfwa!" Mpoko's dog was one of the family; he had played with the children ever since he was a little yellow-brown flop-eared puppy.

But the trouble was soon over. Before any one had had time to ask many questions, the hunters came back in triumph with the body of a big, fierce leopard. He had leaped upon the roof of the goat pen and tried to break in, but the dogs had found it out at once. They had set up such a baying and yelping that the robber was frightened, and he was trying to get away when the hunters arrived with their spears. They tied his paws together and slung him over a pole carried on their shoulders, and tomorrow he would be taken about to all the villages and exhibited. And the chief would have the skin.

Mpoko was very proud to be able to tell his sister that he had seen the leopard killed, and that his dog had been in the very thick of the fight. Moreover, he was sure that when he flung his own spear at the leopard it had gone through the skin somewhere, even if he could not point out the exact place.

"Mfwa! Mfwa!" said the baby, with his fat fists waving at the dog, and all the dogs strutted about, very proud of their night's work.

"I wonder why dogs hate a leopard so," said Nkunda, as the excitement quieted down.

"My dog belongs to me, and he knows the leopard is my enemy," said Mpoko.

"Cats and dogs hate each other too, and the cat is not my enemy," said Nkunda, trying to coax her pet cat down from the branch of a tree where she crouched, hissing at the dogs.

"Cats and dogs always hate each other," said Mpoko, and he seemed to think that that was reason enough.

"There is a good reason why the dog and the leopard do not like each other," said the Alo Man. Then he told the story of the Leopard and the Dog.

I often tell of the time when all the animals lived in a country by themselves, and the mother of leopards had two fine young cubs in her cave in the forest. As they grew older, she knew she must go out to find food for them, and she was afraid that if she left them alone, they would be stolen from her.

She began to look about among the animals to find some one to take care of her cubs while she went hunting.

"What will you give me to come and take care of your cubs?" asked the Hyena.

"I will give you a good home in my cave and plenty of food," said the Leopard.

"He-yah! he-yah! he-yah!" laughed the Hyena, in a loud, harsh voice that almost frightened the Leopard herself.

"Your voice is too loud," she said. "You would make such a noise that my cubs would be frightened to death."

The Hyena laughed again louder than before and went away to tell how he had scared the Leopard with his laughing.

"What will you give me to take care of your cubs?" called the Owl up in the tree top.

"I will give you a good home in my cave and plenty of food," said the Leopard.

"Hoo! hoo! hoo-oo!" hooted the Owl, glaring down at the Leopard with great round eyes that almost frightened the Leopard herself.

"Your eyes are too large and bright," said the Leopard. "My cubs would be frightened out of their wits when you stared at them."

The Owl hooted even louder than before and flew away to tell all the animals how he had frightened the Leopard by staring at her.

"What will you give me to take care of your cubs?" asked the Snake from the tall grass.

"I will give you a good home in my cave and plenty of food," said the Leopard.

"Tsz! tsz! tsz!" hissed the Snake, so loudly that the Leopard jumped and was almost frightened at the noise.

"I do not want you to take care of my cubs," said the Leopard. "If they heard you hiss like that, they would be frightened to death."

The Snake hissed again louder than before, and slid away through the tall grass to tell all the other animals how he had startled the Leopard by hissing at her.

"What will you give me to take care of your cubs?" asked the Dog.

"I will give you a good home in my cave and plenty of food," said the Leopard.

"Mfwa! Mfwa!" barked the Dog, wagging his tail as hard as he could, and grinning so that every one of his white teeth showed. The Leopard looked at him and was pleased.

The Leopard went to her cave, with the Dog trotting after her and sniffing at her tracks. She gave him a good supper of rabbit bones, and when she told him how to take care of the cubs he listened very carefully.

The next day the Leopard went out to hunt, and the Dog stayed in the cave and did exactly as he had been told. After a while the Leopard came back, dragging a fine Antelope.

"This is for my supper and the cubs' supper," she said, "and tomorrow you shall have the bones for your dinner."

The Dog thought of the good dinner he would have off those large bones, and he wagged his tail and grinned.

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