Igiri went on gathering the mushrooms and putting them in her basket, until at last she came across a very large mushroom which was fat and white. Then Igiri said, “How I do wish that this mushroom would turn into a boy baby, which we want so badly.”
The mushroom, who was kind-hearted, then took pity on Igiri, and turned itself into a boy baby, much to the joy of the woman, who at once picked the baby up and placed him in her basket with the mushrooms.
Without troubling to look for any more mushrooms, she put the basket on her head and called out to her husband, saying she was going home at once, and that he was to follow.
When she reached the house, she was so pleased at having got the baby, that she asked Inkang to help her down with the basket. At this he was rather surprised, as, although it is the custom for anyone near to help the women to put down their heavy loads when they come in from the farm, this would not be done with a light load like mushrooms.
Inkang therefore said to his wife, “What have you put in the basket to make it so heavy that you want me to help you down with it? Is it not mushrooms you have there?”
His wife replied, “Only help me with the basket, and you shall then see what I have got.”
Inkang’s curiosity was immediately aroused, so he went to his wife and helped her to place the basket carefully on the ground. Then they opened the basket together, and, to the chief’s intense surprise and joy, he saw a fat little baby boy lying smiling in the bottom of the basket, half covered with mushrooms. He then embraced his wife, who told him all that had happened in the forest.
Inkang then said, “We must hide the boy in the house until he grows up, so that the people will not know what we have got.”
Igiri took great care of the child for the next six years, and he grew up a strong boy.
When the planting season came round, which is towards the end of the dry season, the chief and his wife used to go off every morning early to their farm, returning in the evening. The boy was always left at home, but the woman prepared food for him and placed it high up over the fireplace, and showed the boy how to get at it by standing on a native-made box.