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"Try if you can make out what that means in the Tegumai language. If you can, we've found the Secret."
"Yes. Snake and egg," said Taffy. So is food cooked on the fire, isn't it?"
"Of course," said her Daddy. "And I told you it without saying a word, didn't I?"
Taffy got up and danced round her Daddy. Tegumai got up and danced. (Daddies didn't mind doing those things in those days.)
4. "And we're the first people in all the world who've ever tried to do it, Taffimai!"
"That's enough for to-day," said Tegumai. "Besides, you're getting tired, Taffy. Never mind, dear. We'll finish it all tomorrow, and then we'll be remembered for years and years after the biggest trees you can see are all chopped up for firewood."
So they went home, and all that evening Tegumai sat on one side of the fire and Taffy on the other, drawing ya's and yo's in the smoke on the wall and giggling together till her Mummy said, "Really, Tegumai, you're worse than my Taffy."
"Please don't mind," said Taffy. "It's only our secret-surprise, Mummy dear, and we'll tell you all about it the very minute it's done; but please don't ask me what it is now, or else I'll have to tell."
So her Mummy most carefully didn't; and bright and early next morning Tegumai went down to the river to think about new sound-pictures, and when Taffy got up she ran down to the river and pulled her Daddy's left ear — the one that belonged to her to pull when she was good.
"Now come along and we'll draw all the left-over sound-pictures," said her Daddy, and they had a most funny day of it, and a beautiful lunch in the middle and so on till they had done and drawn all the sound-pictures that they wanted, and there was the Alphabet, all complete.
And after thousands and thousands and thousands of years, the fine old easy, understandable Alphabet — А, В, C, D, E, and the rest of them — got into its proper shape again for all Best Beloveds to learn when they are old enough.
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