The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

A sharp prodding in the neck aroused him abruptly to an awareness of himself. And, wheeling about in anger as fierce as it was sudden, he was confronted by the sparkling, roguish glance of Yonyo.

Then, while he stood glaring at her in speechless rage, she waved a pointed twig derisively in his face, and exclaimed: "The Sparrow-Hearted has need of something to wake him up! What was the Sparrow-Hearted dreaming about?"

For a moment he did not reply. His impulse was to strike back as one strikes back when dealt a brutal blow—to seize her in furious arms, and crush her till she begged for mercy. And no doubt it was thus that Kuff the Bear-Hunter or Woonoo the Hot-Blooded would have disposed of her; but Ru, alas! was not Kuff or Woonoo, and could do no more than glower ineffectively at her.

"What was the Sparrow-Hearted dreaming about?" she repeated, growing impatient at his silence.

"About things you could never understand!" he declared, fiercely.

"What is there I could not understand?" demanded the incredulous Yonyo. And seeing those large black eyes bent upon him half laughingly and half inquiringly, he felt his wrath slipping from him and an old strange emotion returning.

As his anger died away, it occurred to him to try to make her share that which he felt.

"Shall I tell you, Yonyo?" he asked, while side by side they began to jog along the forest path, their feet noiselessly pressing the carpet of dead leaves. "Shall I tell you?"

Receiving a mumbled affirmative in reply, he launched straightway into his explanation.

"I was wondering," he continued, slowly, while reflecting how marvelous was the light in the gaze of the Smiling-Eyed, "whether, after all, the wise men of our tribe can know all things. I was wondering whether the world was really made by the magic of a fire-god that lived in a cave as big as a whole mountain, as the old stories tell us; and whether there may not be other gods than the fire-god and the sun-god and the gods of the caves and woods and winds. Why were we born, Yonyo, and why do we live, and why—"