Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/151

Rh said, "Come to-morrow night and wait. I will tell him to set a trap for a mouse in the verandah and when you come I will call to him and tell him that a mouse is caught, then you can catch him." He came that night and the Mother called to the Picanin and said, "A mouse is caught in your trap, come out and get it." The Picanin said, "When I hear the sound of the trap acting three times over then I will come out." The Tiger made a noise like the snare acting three times over. The Picanin said, "I will not come out, for I only set one trap. It would not go off three times."

Then the Tiger was angry and he said to the woman, "How can I eat your child?" She said, "Come again to-morrow, and I will tie you up loosely in a bundle of thatch; and I will tell the Picanin to carry in the bundle, and then you can jump out and catch him easily." Next day she said to the boy, "I have left a bundle of thatch behind in the road; it was too heavy for me to carry; go and fetch it." So he went (but not very near to the bundle), and said, "When the bundle stands up and lies down three times I will take it up and carry it." The Tiger heard him from inside the bundle; so he stood up on his hind legs and lay down three times over. The boy ran away. The Mother said, "What is the matter?" He said, "The bundle stood up and lay down; thatch cannot do that. I shall not carry it."

The Tiger came to her again and said, "How am I to eat your child?" She said, "All right; I shall send him to get fruit in my garden, and you can hide under the bushes and catch him." The Tiger hid himself in the bushes and she gave the boy a basket and told him to go and collect fruit. He left the basket outside the garden and turned himself into a bee and pretended to sip honey from the flowers; but really he was gathering the fruit, which he put in his basket and took home.

The Tiger did not see him and so it did not catch him. Then the Mother said, "All right; I will send him to