"What a joke! What a joke!" screamed the Puralkas, flapping her with their wings. They spun round and round her, their long legs dancing madly, and their wings quivering and fluttering. Then they suddenly mounted into the air, circled about her once or twice, and flew away through the trees. The sound of their wicked laughter grew fainter and fainter until it died away.
Kari sat down and put her head down on the ground. After a while she got up and tried to fly, but the little stumps of her wings would not raise her an inch from the earth, and very soon she ceased to try. She sat down again.
Later on, she stood up and began to try to dance as the Puralkas had done. She moved her great feet in the same way, and tried to sway about; but it was useless. She looked so comical, hopping round on her thick legs, that the Jackass, which had all the time sat in the gum-tree overhead, broke into a great shout of laughter, and all the Bush rang with the sound. "Ha-ha-ha-ha!—ho-ho-ho-ho!" screamed the Jackass. "Kari is trying to dance—look at her! There never was anything half so funny—ha-ha-ha! ho-ho-ho!"
Then Kari knew that she had lost her wings for nothing; that she could never dance like the Puralkas, and that—worst of all—she could never go back to her nest in the clouds. She could not bear the harsh laughter of the Jackass, and so she ran away, her long legs taking great strides, crashing into the undergrowth of the Bush. Then the Jackass flew away, still chuckling to himself that anyone could be so stupid. Soon the little green patch of grass was quite deserted; until the sun set, when the cruel Puralkas came flying back to it and danced again. But Kari never came to it.
So the Emu lives on earth, and has forgotten all about the nest she once had in the drifting clouds. She has no friends among the birds, for though she is a bird herself, she has no wings, and cannot fly. She has taught herself to run very fast, and to kick with her big feet, so that it is not wise to make her angry. Because she used to live in the clouds and had no proper training, she will eat the most extraordinary things—stones, and nails, and pieces of iron and glass, which the blacks have brought into the Bush—but they never seem to disagree with her. She is not a very happy bird, for all the time she keeps hoping that her wings will grow long again and that she will be able to fly back to find her cloud-nest. But they never grow.
Always since then, Merkein, the Jackass, has been able to laugh. He is called the Laughing Jackass, because of this. He has been a merry fellow ever since he sat on the gum-tree and watched Kari trying to dance, after the cruel Puralkas had robbed her of her wings and left her far away from her nest in the white clouds.
IV
BOORAN, THE PELICAN
CHAPTER I
Long ago, black people were scattered all over the earth, and the forests and plains were full of them. But a great flood came. For weeks it rained all day and all night, until nearly all the plains were great swamps. Then the snow was washed from the hills, and the rivers and creeks overflowed their banks, and swept over the country. There was scarcely anything to be seen except the tops of the tallest trees sticking out of the waters that covered the land. All the camps were washed away, and nearly all the people were drowned.