"When they asked him what it was he said that it was Bahgung; and he told them that while they slept Bahgung stole out of the cave and went on long expeditions and had great adventures. The children loved these tales of the doings of Bahgung, and so my husband made many tales of Bahgung and his adventures.
"I wanted to warn him that the children could not discriminate between fact and fiction and might believe these tales, but I was dumb and could say nothing.
"When my dear husband saw the worry in my eyes he guessed the cause and said: 'When they get older, I will explain to them that these are only fairy tales and they will forget them.'
"But he did not explain, and went on making up more and yet more tales of the might and prowess of the wooden carved Bahgung. If the children were naughty, he told them that Bahgung would punish them, and when they were good he told them that Bahgung would award them.
"One day when I came quietly into the cave I saw my little girl kneeling before Bahgung, and she was talking to him and beseeching him to cause her brother give back a pretty shell which he had taken from her. I was worried at all this, but being dumb I could say nothing.
"It was a few days later that my dear husband was eaten by a crocodile while he was fishing. There being no remains we had a modest private funeral, none but the family being present; and I took up as best I could the duties of providing for my children.
"After their father's death the children talked still more to Bahgung and told him all their troubles. They seemed to love the idol and yet to fear him, and to believe he was alive though they could see him before them as only a carved wooden thing.
"So much they worshiped Bahgung that I feared to destroy him, and I therefore allowed the wooden idol to stand on the mantle over the old horsehair sofa that we had brought with us from another world.
"I still supposed that when the children grew up they would forget this miserable idol of carven wood. But alas! they did not. I did not dare destroy the idol, for the children adored it more than they did me who had brought them into the world of my own flesh and blood. I wanted also to explain to them that Bahgung was only a wooden idol and as dead and worthless as any rotten stick, but being dumb I could say nothing.
"When my children left home, they would come back on pilgrimages, and to me it seemed that they came back more to worship Bahgung than to see their old mother. So in my desire to see my children the more I permitted Bahgung to stand on the mantle above the horsehair sofa in the cave.