The Baboons Who Went This Way and That by Alexander McCall Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

respectfully by the grave while people walked past and put money into a box which one of the friends had with him. Then, crying loudly to show how sad they were, they walked back to the house of one of them.
    “I shall keep the money here until it is counted,” said the friend whose house it was. “Then one day you may come and claim your half share.”
        
    The next day, the friend returned to the house of the friend who had kept the money. That friend’s wife greeted him sadly and told him that his friend was unfortunately very ill and would have to stay in his bed for a long time.
    “He will not be able to give you your money,” she said. “He is too ill to do that.”
    “Then I shall wait,” said the other friend. “I shall wait by his bedside until he is better.”
     
    “That may not be for a few years,” said the wife. “He says that he is very ill.”
    “I can wait that long,” said the friend.
    The wife could not persuade him to go away and so she had to show him into the friend’s room. The ill friend was lying under a blanket, his face covered and only his toes showing at the end.
    “I am here to wait,” the friend said. “When you are better we shall be able to divide the money that those people gave us.”
    The friend in bed said nothing.
       
    As the day wore on, it became hotter and hotter. The friend under the blanket began to feel as if he were in an oven, and then, at last, he had to throw the blanket aside to let cool air in.

     
    “I am glad that you are better,” his friend said to him. “Now we shall be able to divide the money.”
    Reluctantly, because he knew that there was nothing else he could do, the friend retrieved the box and gave his friend his share of the money. The friend thanked him and said how pleased he was that his friend had recovered from his illness.
    “You are fortunate to get better in two hours rather than two years,” he said. “Perhaps it is the good hot air that cured you so quickly.”
       
    The friend who had pretended to be ill buried his share of the money in a tin box. Unfortunately for him, the box had a hole in it and when he dug it up the following month the ants had eaten all the money. His wife told him that this is what happened to people who obtained money through tricks.

     
    “The ants like to play tricks too,” she said. “It is your own fault for being such a wicked trickster.”
    The other friend fell into a large hole on his way home from collecting the money. He was unable to get himself out of it and so he was very pleased when he saw some people walking by. These people were the people who had been under the tree.
    “Please pull me out,” the friend called. “I shall die if I am left down here.”
    The people from under the tree looked down on the friend and agreed to pull him out. They would only do so, though, if he gave them money. The friend asked how much money they needed and they replied that they would want all his money. In this way the friend in the hole had to give the people from under the treenot only his share of the money he had got by trickery, but also his own money, which he had been carrying with him. In this way, too, the people from under the tree got back exactly that amount which they had given at the burial of the chief. If the chief had been alive to see all this happening he would have said that this was the right outcome.
     
     
     
     
     

     

 
    11
How A Strange Creature
Took The Place Of A
Girl And Then Fell Into
A Hole
    The daughter of the chief of some people near Kezi was one of the most beautiful girls in the whole of Matabeleland. The chief knew that there would be no difficulty in getting a good husband for her, but he did not want to leave anything to chance. Calling on a powerful witchdoctor, he asked him to provide charms that would be sure to attract a handsome man to the house.
    The witchdoctor told the chief that this was not a difficult thing to do. The best way of