One day a man took his blow-gun15and his dog and went to the forest to hunt. As he was making his way through the thick woods he chanced upon a young cocoanut tree growing in the ground.
It was the first tree of this kind that he had ever seen, and it seemed so peculiar to him that he stopped to look at it.
When he had gone some distance farther, his attention was attracted by a noisy bird in a tree, and he shot it with his blow-gun. By and by he took aim at a large monkey, which mocked him from another treetop, and that, too, fell dead at his feet.
Then he heard his dog barking furiously in the distant bushes, and hastening to it he found it biting a wild pig. After a hard struggle he killed the pig, and then, feeling satisfied with his success, he took the three animals on his back and returned to the little plant.
“I have decided to take you home with me, little plant,” he said, “for I like you and you may be of some use to me.”
He dug up the plant very carefully and started [205]home, but he had not gone far when he noticed that the leaves had begun to wilt, and he did not know what to do, since he had no water. Finally, in despair, he cut the th............