“Where's that corn, Cyril?”
“Oh, missus!” sighed Cyril, sad, but not surprised, “somebody tief him all.”
And his was the common lot.
Near one of the big towns there was a man who, having a crop of roots from which he expected great things, took the trouble to sit up and watch by night with a shot-gun in his hand. He concealed himself, of course, and in the uncertain light of the early morning he saw a big figure stooping over his precious roots, and, aiming low, let fly. The dark figure scuffled away promptly, and the owner of the land was satisfied, because when the daylight came he found blood on the ground.
“Now,” he said to himself, “when I hear some man got sick in de laigs den I know who tief my yams.”
For a day or two nothing happened, and then it began to be rumoured that a well-known man, a man in quite a decent position in the community, had a curious swelling in his legs.
“No can put foot to groun',” and the owner of the yams smiled.
The sick man went to the hospital at last, though he stood off as long as he could, and those inconsiderate doctors, instead of applying the proper remedies, insisted upon enquiring into the cause of the trouble, which he felt was no business of theirs.
“What were you doing?” asked the inquisitive leeches.
“Cuttin' bush,” said the patient ruefully, “an' me fall backwards into makra with bad thorn,” and further investigation revealed the fact that at the bottom of every makra thorn wound there was a large pellet such as would come out of a shot-gun!