7
'Eh, what?' said her Daddy. 'I meant I was thinking, and didn't want to be disturbed.'
'It's a noise just the same. It's the noise a snake makes, Daddy, when it is thinking and doesn't want to be disturbed. Let's make the ssh-noise a snake. Will this do?' And she drew this. (7.)
'There,' she said. 'That's another s'prise-secret. When you draw a hissy-snake by the door of your little back-cave where you mend the spears, I'll know you're thinking hard; and I'll come in most mousy-quiet. And if you draw it on a tree by the river when you're fishing, I'll know you want me to walk most most mousy-quiet, so as not to shake the banks.'
'Perfectly true,' said Tegumai. 'And there's more in this game than you think. Taffy, dear, I've a notion that your Daddy's daughter has hit upon the finest thing that there ever was since the Tribe of Tegumai took to using shark's teeth instead of flints for their spear-heads. I believe we've found out the big secret of the world.'
'Why?' said Taffy, and her eyes shone too with incitement.
'I'll show,' said her Daddy. 'What's water in the Tegumai language?'
'Ya, of course, and it means river too—like Wagai-ya—the Wagai river.'
8