Part 37 (1/2)

But not many to-morrows after, when the tortoise arrived with his usual question: 'Well, how are you getting on?' he received no answer, for the fox was lying in his hole quite still, dead of hunger.

By this time the tortoise was grown up, and was looked up to throughout the forest as a person to be feared for his strength and wisdom. But he was not considered a very swift runner, until an adventure with a deer added to his fame.

One day, when he was basking in the sun, a stag pa.s.sed by, and stopped for a little conversation. 'Would you care to see which of us can run fastest?' asked the tortoise, after some talk. The stag thought the question so silly that he only shrugged his shoulders. 'Of course, the victor would have the right to kill the other,' went on the tortoise.

'Oh, on that condition I agree,' answered the deer; 'but I am afraid you are a dead man.'

'It is no use trying to frighten me,' replied the tortoise. 'But I should like three days for training; then I shall be ready to start when the sun strikes on the big tree at the edge of the great clearing.'

The first thing the tortoise did was to call his brothers and his cousins together, and he posted them carefully under ferns all along the line of the great clearing, making a sort of ladder which stretched for many miles. This done to his satisfaction, he went back to the starting place.

The stag was quite punctual, and as soon as the sun's rays struck the trunk of the tree the stag started off, and was soon far out of the sight of the tortoise. Every now and then he would turn his head as he ran, and call out: 'How are you getting on?' and the tortoise who happened to be nearest at that moment would answer: 'All right, I am close up to you.'

Full of astonishment, the stag would redouble his efforts, but it was no use. Each time he asked: 'Are you there?' the answer would come: 'Yes, of course, where else should I be?' And the stag ran, and ran, and ran, till he could run no more, and dropped down dead on the gra.s.s.

And the tortoise, when he thinks about it, laughs still.

But the tortoise was not the only creature of whose tricks stories were told in the forest. There was a famous monkey who was just as clever and more mischievous, because he was so much quicker on his feet and with his hands. It was quite impossible to catch him and give him the thras.h.i.+ng he so often deserved, for he just swung himself up into a tree and laughed at the angry victim who was sitting below.

Sometimes, however, the inhabitants of the forest were so foolish as to provoke him, and then they got the worst of it. This was what happened to the barber, whom the monkey visited one morning, saying that he wished to be shaved. The barber bowed politely to his customer, and begging him to be seated, tied a large cloth round his neck, and rubbed his chin with soap; but instead of cutting off his beard, the barber made a snip at the end of his tail. It was only a very little bit, and the monkey started up more in rage than in pain.

'Give me back the end of my tail,' he roared, 'or I will take one of your razors.' The barber refused to give back the missing piece, so the monkey caught up a razor from the table and ran away with it, and no one in the forest could be shaved for days, as there was not another to be got for miles and miles.

As he was making his way to his own particular palm-tree, where the cocoa-nuts grew, which were so useful for pelting pa.s.sers-by, he met a woman who was scaling a fish with a bit of wood, for in this side of the forest a few people lived in huts near the river.

'That must be hard work,' said the monkey, stopping to look; 'try my knife--you will get on quicker.' And he handed her the razor as he spoke. A few days later he came back and rapped at the door of the hut. 'I have called for my razor,' he said, when the woman appeared.

'I have lost it,' answered she.

'If you don't give it to me at once I will take your sardine,' replied the monkey, who did not believe her. The woman protested she had not got the knife, so he took the sardine and ran off.

A little further along he saw a baker who was standing at the door, eating one of his loaves. 'That must be rather dry,' said the monkey, 'try my fish'; and the man did not need twice telling. A few days later the monkey stopped again at the baker's hut. 'I've called for that fish,' he said.

'That fish? But I have eaten it!' exclaimed the baker in dismay.

'If you have eaten it I shall take this barrel of meal in exchange,'

replied the monkey; and he walked off with the barrel under his arm.

As he went he saw a woman with a group of little girls round her, teaching them how to dress hair. 'Here is something to make cakes for the children,' he said, putting down his barrel, which by this time he found rather heavy. The children were delighted, and ran directly to find some flat stones to bake their cakes on, and when they had made and eaten them, they thought they had never tasted anything so nice.

Indeed, when they saw the monkey approaching not long after, they rushed to meet him, hoping that he was bringing them some more presents. But he took no notice of their questions, he only said to their mother: 'I've called for my barrel of meal.'

'Why, you gave it to me to make cakes of!' cried the mother.

'If I can't get my barrel of meal, I shall take one of your children,'

answered the monkey. 'I am in want of somebody who can bake me bread when I am tired of fruit, and who knows how to make cocoa-nut cakes.'

'Oh, leave me my child, and I will find you another barrel of meal,'

wept the mother.

'I don't _want_ another barrel, I want _that_ one,' answered the monkey sternly. And as the woman stood wringing her hands, he caught up the little girl that he thought the prettiest and took her to his home in the palm tree.