His joy now knew no bounds.
I thought that I caught a glimpse of a smile on the old baron’s tear-stained cheek, as his boy was borne to the veranda, more like an animated lump of earth than aught else, for the air had revived me. My eyes were not only wide open, but they were the only clean place on my whole body.
Utterly regardless of my filthy condition, my fond mother clasped me convulsively to her breast, and I verily believe that she would have pressed her lips upon my mud-covered head and face, had she not seen the baron’s broad palm held in suspicious proximity, while her mother’s heart was emptying itself out in words. A few basins of warm water, and I was myself again.
No, I was never myself again. My bath in the warm mud of Lâ-aah-chew-lâ effected a most remarkable change in me; it checked the growth of my body and turned all my strength upwards into my head and brain.
In one short month my head almost doubled in size.
My baby face and expression were gone!
And ere another moon had filled her horns I had grown to be a living wonder!
Not only was the size of my head something remarkable, but from my eyes beamed an astonishing intelligence.
The poor women of Lâ-aah-chew-lâ Land crouched in front of me as if I were a being from another world and then tapping their foreheads they approached my mother and whispered:
“Most gracious Chew-lâ-â-â-â-â-â the Great Spirit has made a mistake and put two souls in there instead of one!”