How the First Letter was Written by Rudyard Kipling. Short summary

5 seconds

The primitive hunter Tegulai went fishing with his daughter Tuffy. The man’s spear broke and Tuffy decided to send the stranger’s mother a letter. The girl asked for a new spear, but her mother didn’t understand the drawings and beat the stranger.

1 minute

There lived in the world a primitive man named Tegulai Bopsulaya, which means «a man who takes his time.» One day Tegulai and his daughter Taffy went fishing. There the man broke his spear and began to repair it.

Just then a stranger from another tribe came up to them and started smiling. He did not know the local language. Taffy began to ask the stranger to go to her mother and ask for a spare spear. On a piece of birch bark she drew a long letter telling her about the broken spear.

When the hunter’s wife saw the incomprehensible drawings, she thought the stranger had pierced her husband with the spear and intimidated her daughter. Tegulay’s wife and other women rushed at the poor man and began to beat him.

Then the whole tribe gathered and decided to cut off the stranger’s head. But first he had to show them where he put Tegulai’s body. The stranger led them to the river where Tegulai was fishing. Tuffy admitted that she had given the stranger the picture, and he had done nothing wrong. She explained what she had drawn in the picture and everyone laughed.