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outside the 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.)

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.

And after thousands and thousands and thousands of years, and
after Hieroglyphics and Demotics, and Nilotics, and Cryptics, and
Cufics, and Runics, and Dorics, and Ionics, and all sorts of
other ricks and tricks (because the Woons, and the Neguses, and
the Akhoonds, and the Repositories of Tradition would never leave
a good thing alone when they saw it), the fine old easy,
understandable Alphabet--A, B, C, D, E, and the rest of 'em--got
back into its proper shape again for all Best Beloveds to learn
when they are old enough.

But I remember Tegumai Bopsulai, and Taffimai Metallumai and
Teshumai Tewindrow, her dear Mummy, and all the days gone by.

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