Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/108

98 we will pass on our way, and we can find no meat to eat, but as we were coming hither to thee we saw two fine cows." The king answered, "The cows are mine, and they are not to kill." Spider asked, "Why should not the cows be to kill?" and the king answered, "They supply me with meat." Then Spider and Kwaku Tse asked the king if he could not give them even a small piece of meat, and the king refused.

They departed from the king and returned to the house in which they were lodging, and they told the owner of the house of all that they had said to the king, and how the king had refused to give them even a small piece of meat. They said to the man: "The king said that his two cows supplied him with beef, and that therefore he could not kill them." Spider said, "My name is Spider, and this man is my namesake Kwaku. Never before have I seen a cow that could supply meat and yet live. I came hither only to pass through and go upon my way, but now I will tarry here and see how it is that these cows can supply the king with meat." The owner of the house answered, "That thou wilt not be able to see, for they do it in the king's private yard." Spider said, "I am he who is called Kwaku Anansi, and anything in this world that I want to see or want to do and that I am not able to see or do, I have not yet found it." He said: "These two cows of the king, I will kill them and I will take their heads. I and my friend will do it; we will each kill one, and as for the heads of the cows, the king will cut them off and give them to us."

When Spider spake thus the owner of the house marveled greatly to hear such words, and he ran and called his neighbor and said to him, "Come and listen, for there is a great trouble which these strangers who have come to lodge with me are about to bring upon me." When the neighbor came the owner of the house told him, in the presence of Spider, what Spider had said, and Spider gave them a proverb, saying, "If the load on thy head is heavy, and it is something to eat, whilst thou art eating it thou art lightening it." Then Kwaku Tse said: "We have spoken this in thy house; it is no concern of any one else."

Then Spider and Kwaku Tse told the owner of the house that they were going out to see if they could not get the heads of the two cows and bring them there. And they departed and went to the king's yard, and it was night time, and they found the place wherein the cows used to sleep. Now they had with them a leaf that, when a person smelled it, it made him sneeze, and they rubbed the leaf upon the noses of the two cows. Then the cows at once looked as if they wanted to sneeze; they opened their mouths wide open, and Spider and Kwaku Tse turned themselves very small and each of them jumped into the mouth of a cow, and the