Page:Papuan Fairy Tales.djvu/135

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WHERE THE COCONUT CAME FROM
93

ate taro upon which no coconut milk had been poured. Yet not knowing how good is the coconut, they were content that it should be so.

Now in those days there was a certain village, and the men who dwelt there were for ever fishing. They went forth in the morning, and came back in the evening with the fish they had caught in long strings. And when the taro was cooked they sat round the pots and ate until none was left for the morrow. But one man, when he went to fish, went always alone, and in the evening he ever returned with a basket full of fish, for they were too many to thread upon grass.

The men of the village wondered that this man should never return without many fish, and also that he always forbade any to follow him, and when he was not with them they talked much of it and took counsel together how they might discover what he did to capture so many fish. And it so chanced that a boy who listened to their talk thought of a plan. "When he sets out to-morrow," said the lad, "1 will creep behind him, and will watch from the long grass what he will do."

"Verily, that is well said," cried the men, and all were content that it should be so.

So it came to pass that on the morrow the boy did even as he had said. The man set out along the path, and the boy followed through the grass. And sometimes, in his desire to see what would come to pass, the boy crept too near, and the rustling of