The Stone Axe of Burkamukk

by Mary Grant Bruce

Kur-bo-roo could not understand why his parents could not get up and go to find food. They lay in the wurley together, shivering under all the 'possum rugs and talking quickly in queer, high voices that he could not make out at all. They called often for water, and he brought it to them in his little tarnuk, or drinking-vessel, going backwards and forwards to the creek, and up and down its banks, until his little legs were very tired. Long after he was tired he kept on going for water. Then there came a time when they could not lift the tarnuk, and he tried to hold it to their lips, so that they could drink; but he was not very successful, and much of the water was spilt. You see, he was only a very little, afraid boy.

He woke up one morning, cold and hungry. There was no more food in the wurley, and no voices: only a great silence. He crept under the 'possum rug to his father and mother, but they were quite still, and when he called to them, they did not answer. He rubbed their cold faces with a shaking little hand, but no warmth came to them. Then he broke into loud, frightened crying, like any other lonely little boy.

Presently some of the blacks came to the wurley and pointed at the quiet bodies under the 'possum rug, and jabbered very hard, beckoning to others to come. Kur-bo-roo heard them say "tumble-down" a great many times, and he knew that it meant "dead"; but he did not know that his father and mother would never speak to him any more. Only when an old woman picked him up and carried him away he understood that a terrible thing had happened to him, and he cried more bitterly than ever, calling to his mother. She had always run to him when he called. But now she did not come.

CHAPTER II

After that, hard times came upon little Kur-bo-roo. There were none of his own family left, for the sickness had taken them all. His father and mother had been the last to die, and that made the blacks think that very probably Bori, the Evil Spirit, had been especially angry with Kur-bo-roo's family, because so many of them had died and the last terrible blow of the disease had fallen on their wurley. Indeed, for awhile they argued as to whether it would not be better to kill Kur-bo-roo too, so that so troublesome a family should be quite stamped out, with no further chance of annoying Bori and bringing trouble upon the tribe. They did not spare him out of any idea of pity; but because so many men and boys had died that the tribe had become seriously weakened, and it seemed foolish to kill a strong and healthy fellow like Kur-bo-roo. It was very important for a tribe to keep up its fighting strength, for there was always a chance that another band of blacks might come upon them and want to fight: in which case the weaker tribe might be swallowed up. So boy babies were thought a good deal of, and for that reason the blacks did not make an end of little Kur-bo-roo.

But he had a very bad time, for all that. No one wanted him. He was nobody's boy; and that hurts just the same whether a boy be black or white. Never was there so lonely a little fellow. The other children were half afraid of him, because the fear of Bori's anger yet hung about him; they would not let him join in their games, and took a savage delight in hunting him away from their wurleys. Another black family had taken possession of his father's wurley, and no home was left to him. He used to wander about miserably, often sleeping in the open air, curled up in the shadow of a bush, or in a hollow tree-stump. If it were cold or wet, he would creep noiselessly into a hut when he thought every one would be asleep—and quite often he was kicked out again.

He was always hungry now. His father and mother had taken such care of him, and had loved so much to keep him fed, that he had never learned how to find food for himself. He would wander about in the Bush, looking for such things as his mother had brought him, but he knew so little that often he ate quite the wrong things, which made him very sick. He learned a good deal about food in that way, but the learning was not pleasant work.

It was a bad year for food. Dry weather had come, and game was scarce; it was hard for the fighting-men to bring home enough for their own children, without having to provide for a hungry boy of six who belonged to nobody. Kur-bo-roo used to hang about the cooking-places in the hope of having scraps of food thrown to him, but not many came his way. When so many were hungry the food was quickly eaten up. Sometimes a woman, pitying the shrinking little lad, would hastily toss him a bone or a fragment of meat; and though you would not have cared for the way it was cooked, Kur-bo-roo thought that these morsels were the most delicious he had ever tasted.

You see, a wild blackfellow has not much to think about except food. He has no schools, no daily papers, no market days, or picture shows, or telephones. The wild Bush is his, and all he asks or expects of it is that it shall supply him with food. He knows that it means strength to him, and that strength means happiness, as a rule, when all that he has depends upon his own ability to keep it for himself. He does not reason things that way, for the blackfellow is simple, but he just eats as much as he can whenever he can get it, and that seems to agree with him excellently. That was the principle on which Kur-bo-roo had been brought up, and it had made him the round, black, shiny baby that he had been until his parents died.

He was not nearly so round and shiny now. His little body was thin and hard, and he did not look so strong as before. It was not altogether lack of food that had weakened him—the want of happiness had a great deal to do with it.