Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/112

102 I was a young boy, or else they would not have done such a thing." The king said: "Thou must not say so. I am here for all people, for the townfolk and for strangers also, to protect them and be a father to them." Kwaku Tse answered: "How canst thou say thou art a father to the stranger? Did not we come and ask thee for meat, and didst not thou tell us that thou hadst only meat for thine own household?" Spider said: "In this world in which we live it is not everybody that likes everybody, so it behooves every man to keep a little medicine to guide him. If the cows died of sickness then our medicine is spoiled, but if the cows were killed no great harm was done." The king said that the cows had died, and then Spider sang:

 My namesake, Kwaku, we are wearied, we are wearied. We are wearied without cause."

The king asked what this song might mean, and Spider said that the little medicine which they possessed was a medicine which forbade them even to pass by dead animals, and now the flesh of animals that had died had been thrown upon them. He said: "Had these two slaves killed one of us, instead of throwing the paunches upon us, it would have been better, because the one who lived would have mourned for the other, and that is something. As we are standing before thee now, O king, if war came upon thee we are thy men. And if war did come upon thee now, we should be the first to die in battle on account of what thy slaves have done." He said, "No son can be older than his father." Then the king asked what this proverb might mean, and Spider and Kwaku Tse showed each a medicine that was upon their loins, and said: "This medicine, when we were born it was not upon us. After we were born we made it, and if thou wilt help us we will make fresh medicine again, and let this matter rest, for thy sake." The king said, "Whatever it is ye want, say it," and they answered, "That which we want, perchance thou thyself will want it also." The king said, "As ye are strangers, ask for what ye wish, and, even though I want it, ye shall have it." Then they said that they wanted the two heads and the two hearts of the very cows whose paunches had spoiled their medicine, and hair from two of the king's own wives. The king answered that he would give them the cows' heads and the two hearts, but as for his wives' hair, that was too much to ask. Spider said, "If the cows were not thine own it would be different, but as the cows were thine own we must ask for the hair." Then the king said he would give them the hair according to their wish, but only a little; and Spider and Kwaku Tse said that a little would suffice.