Days passed, then weeks, then months. The scrawny old man and the scrawny old woman sat in the tree waiting for the neighbors to go away, and the neighbors sat under the tree waiting for them to come down. The scrawny old man and the scrawny old woman became very hungry. First they ate the fruit of the tree; then they ate the kernels; then they ate the young leaves; then they ate the old leaves; at last they stripped the bark off the branches and ate that. They grew scrawnier and scrawnier every day. Their eyes had sunk in their heads with sleeplessness. Their teeth grew long and sharp with cracking the kernels of the fruit and gnawing the bark from the tree. They almost forgot how to talk.
One day the scrawny old man held out his scrawny old hand and said, “See how tough the skin is!” And the scrawny old woman held out her scrawny old hand and said, “My hand is just as tough as yours!”
Then they looked at their feet and saw that the skin of their feet had grown tough also; and their toe nails and finger nails had grown long, like claws, with holding on so firmly to the branches of the tree.
“It is very strange,” said the scrawny old man.
“Indeed, it is very strange,” said the scrawny old woman.
Then the new year came with its heavy rains, and the scrawny old man and scrawny old woman shivered with cold. One morning the scrawny old man said to the scrawny old woman, “This is very strange. You are all covered with hair.”
And the scrawny old woman said to the scrawny old man, “It is surely very strange, but so are you.”
It really seemed as if they were not the same persons that they were when they climbed into the tree.
Then one morning the scrawny old man said to the scrawny old woman, “I have a very strange feeling at the end of my spine.”
“So have I!” said the scrawny old woman. “What can be going to happen now?”