ho-ought-to-be-spanked! You?'

'Taffy dear, I'm afraid we're in for a little trouble,' said her Daddy,
and put his arm round her, so she didn't care.

'Explain! Explain! Explain!' said the Head Chief of the Tribe of
Tegumai, and he hopped on one foot.

'I wanted the Stranger-man to fetch Daddy's spear, so I drawded it,'
said Taffy. 'There wasn't lots of spears. There was only one spear. I
drawded it three times to make sure. I couldn't help it looking as if it
stuck into Daddy's head--there wasn't room on the birch-bark; and those
things that Mummy called bad people are my beavers. I drawded them to
show him the way through the swamp; and I drawded Mummy at the mouth of
the Cave looking pleased because he is a nice Stranger-man, and _I_
think you are just the stupidest people in the world,' said Taffy. 'He
is a very nice man. Why have you filled his hair with mud? Wash him!'

Nobody said anything at all for a long time, till the Head Chief
laughed; then the Stranger-man (who was at least a Tewara) laughed; then
Tegumai laughed till he fell down flat on the bank; then all the Tribe
laughed more and worse and louder. The only people who did not laugh
were Teshumai Tewindrow and all the Neolithic ladies. They were very
polite to all their husbands, and said 'idiot!' ever so often.

Then the Head Chief of the Tribe of Tegumai cried and said and sang, 'O
Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked, you've hit
upon a great invention!'

'I didn't intend to; I only wanted Daddy's black-handled spear,' said
Taffy.

'Never mind. It _is_ a great invention, and some day men will call it
writing. At present it is only pictures, and, as we have seen to-day,
pictures are not always properly understood. But a time will come, O
Babe of Tegumai, when we shall make letters--all twenty-six of 'em,--and
when we shall be able to read as well as to write, and then we shall
always say exactly what we mean without any mistakes. Let the Neolithic
ladies wash the mud out of the stranger's hair.

'I shall be glad of that,' said Taffy, 'because, after all, though
you've brought every single other spear in the Tribe of Tegumai, you've
forgotten my Daddy's black-handled spear.'

Then the Head Chief cried and said and sang, 'Taffy dear, the next time
you write a picture-letter, you'd better send a man who can talk our
language with it, to explain what it means. I don't mind it myself,
because I am a Head Chief, but it's very bad