Her husband answered her, "Your mother is a very bad person. One day she told me to drive away the wind from the maize, and I tried all day, and it was not possible. So I, too, wished to tell your mother to do something that was not possible; so I told her to spread out the gravy on the mat. I knew that she would be defeated, even as I was defeated."
XXIII
THE JACKAL, THE HARE AND THE COCK
ONCE upon a time there was a hare who was cunning with great guile. That hare went to the jackal and said, "I want to make friends with you, jackal. Our friendship will be that we walk about together and agree in every matter. Everything that I do you must do also, and everything that you do I must also do."
When the jackal heard those words of the hare he was very pleased, and he thought, "This will be very good to have the hare for a brother, for he is very clever."
So the jackal agreed to make friends with the hare, and they walked about together. Till one day the hare said to the jackal, "To-day, my brother, we will each take a knife and a spear, and we will go and kill our mothers. I will go and kill mine, and you, jackal, must go and kill yours."
So they each took a spear and a knife and went their ways to kill their mothers. The hare went to his mother and took her and hid her in a cave. Then he went to a tree which is called Mtumbati and smeared his knife and spear with the sap of that tree, which is red. Then he returned to the place at which he had agreed to meet the jackal.
Now the jackal was very grieved when he was told that he must kill his mother, and being without guile he said to himself, "I will stay away for a little while, and then say to my brother, the hare, that I have killed my mother."