“Where can Sosee be during this flood?” soliloquized Koree, as he started again on his way; “and will she escape the rage of all these beasts?” He remembered, however, her agility in climbing trees, and her repeated escapes from greater dangers; so that his fears were soon calmed in his confidence, and the thought of meeting her again made him quickly forget the great forces of nature and animals which he had just seen in their struggles.
CHAPTER XVI.
When Koree returned with his charge to the Ammi, these were engaged in one of their sports, which consisted in throwing cocoanuts, and the rush of all to get them, much as their descendants now play football. Some of the younger ones amused themselves by racing up and down the trees trying to catch one another, and occasionally shaking each other from the branches. One little girl had caught a skunk which she was trying to feed with figs, to the great disgust of the skunk. All had apparently forgotten the absent ones; for the memory of our first ancestors was short, not having yet been exercised on history.
“I told you to drop that skunk,” said an old woman, “and had you minded me you would not now be sneezing and spitting so violently. Go down to the spring and wash yourself.”
Just then a cocoanut flying through the air, struck the woman in the eye, and for a moment she did not know whether it was the odor from the skunk, or a ball from the players that knocked her down.
“I told you to be careful with your cocoanuts,” she said, “and had you minded me you would not get this shaking;” at which she seized the nearest player by the hair and administered several pulls and scratches.
Finally Koree made his appearance, leading Orlee by the hand. His first anxiety was to know whether Sosee had returned, whom he was alarmed not to see among the players. The mother of Orlee ran franticly to receive her child, which she fondled with an incoherent chattering.