When I was a very young girl in Mochudi, I listened to stories just like the ones in this book. They were told to me by my father's aunt, who was very old then and who is now late. She was a very kind woman, and she knew many stories, which she had told to my father, Obed Ramotswe, when he was a small boy. That is how these stories are remembered in Botswana, and in many other countries in Africa.

When I hear these stories, they make me sad. That is not because they are stories of sad things that have happened; it is because they remind me of the Africa of my childhood and of all the good things that there were then. Everybody feels a little bit sad when they think of their childhood, because the world we knew then seems so far away. Looking back is like looking through a window which is covered with dust: you can just make out the faces, but nothing is very clear.

But then you hear these old stories—the stories that you heard so many times—and suddenly everything comes back. You are there again, sitting with your aunt outside her house, and it is quiet, and the sky is empty and the sun is on the land. And you think: I am a lucky person to be here, to be listening to these things that happened in another place, just round the corner, in the days when the animals could speak. And the sadness goes away and your heart is full again.

I shall put this book on my desk and read it when there is nothing much to be done in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. And I shall choose one of the stories and ask my assistant, Mma Makutsi, whether she remembers it. And she will laugh, and say yes, and we shall think about that story while the kettle is boiling and we are preparing our tea. That is what we shall do.

Precious Ramotswe No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Behind Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, Tlokweng Road Gaborone, Botswana

A rich man like Mzizi, who had many cattle, would normally be expected to have many children. Unhappily, his wife, Pitipiti, was unable to produce children. She consulted many people about this, but although she spent much on charms and medicines that would bring children, she remained barren.

Pitipiti loved her husband and it made her sad to see his affection for her vanishing as he waited for the birth of children. Eventually, when it was clear that she was not a woman for bearing a child, Pitipiti's husband married another wife. Now he lived in the big kraal with his new young wife, and Pitipiti heard much laughter coming from the new wife's hut. Soon there was a first child, and then another.

Pitipiti went to take gifts to the children, but she was rebuffed by the new wife.

"For so many years Mzizi wasted his time with you," the new wife mocked. "Now in just a short time I have given him children. We do not want your gifts."

She looked for signs in her husband's eyes of the love that he used to show for her, but all she saw was the pride that he felt on being the father of children. It was as if she no longer existed for him. Her heart cold within her, Pitipiti made her way back to her lonely hut and wept. What was there left for her to live for now—her husband would not have her and her brothers were far away. She would have to continue living by herself and she wondered whether she would be able to bear such loneliness.

Some months later, Pitipiti was ploughing her fields when she heard a cackling noise coming from some bushes nearby. Halting the oxen, she crept over to the bushes and peered into them. There, hiding in the shade, was a guinea fowl. The guinea fowl saw her and cackled again.

"I am very lonely," he said. "Will you make me your child?"

Pitipiti laughed. "But I cannot have a guinea fowl for my child!" she exclaimed. "Everyone would laugh at me."

The guinea fowl seemed rather taken aback by this reply, but he did not give up.

"Will you make me your child just at night?" he asked. "In the mornings I can leave your hut very early and nobody will know."

Pitipiti thought about this. Certainly this would be possible: if the guinea fowl was out of the hut by the time the sun arose, then nobody need know that she had adopted it. And it would be good, she thought, to have a child, even if it was really a guinea fowl.

"Very well," she said, after a few moments' reflection. "You can be my child."

The guinea fowl was delighted, and that evening, shortly after the sun had gone down, he came to Pitipiti's hut. She welcomed him and made him an evening meal, just as any mother would do with her child. They were both very happy.

Still the new wife laughed at Pitipiti. Sometimes she would pass by Pitipiti's fields and jeer at her, asking her why she grew crops if she had no mouths to feed. Pitipiti ignored these jibes, but inside her every one of them was like a small sharp spear that cuts and cuts.

The guinea fowl heard these taunts from a tree in which he was sitting, and he cackled with rage. For the new wife, though, these sounds were just the sound of a bird in a tree.

"Mother," the guinea fowl asked that night, "why do you bear the insults of that other woman?"

Pitipiti could think of no reply to this. In truth there was little that she could do. If she tried to chase away the new wife, then her husband would be angry with her and might send her away altogether. There was nothing she could do.

The bird, however, thought differently. He was not going to have his mother insulted in this way, and the following day he arose early and flew to the highest tree that overlooked the fields of the new wife. There, as the sun arose, he called out a guinea fowl song:

Copyright © 1989, 1999, 2004 by Alexander McCall Smith