My friend nods again. “Of course we do, we . . .” Yugi pauses and lifts a finger to his mouth. He has always been a quick thinker. “But those guns were also first owned by the white men.”

“And . . .?” I say.

“And when we first saw guns and heard them being fired, we thought it was thunder and that those new weapons were magic.”

“Good,” I say. “Now let me ask you this question. Have we been told that the talking leaves belong only to the white men?”

Yugi pauses this time before he replies. But in the end he nods his head. “Yes,” he says, more slowly but still in agreement.

I hold up my fist and then unfold my little finger. “The horse,” I say. I unfold the next finger. “The gun.” I unfold the third finger. “The book.”

“Ah,” Yugi says. “But we are getting the book now. We are being taught how to read and write English.”

“Yes,” I agree. “But is that the best way for us to use those talking leaves? My father does not think so. He thinks we should make talking leaves of our own without having to use any English at all.”

I take out the piece of charcoal I took from our fireplace and put into my pocket. “Look.” With it I begin to draw shapes on top of that flat stone.

“This,” I say, “is how my father kept track of the things bought from him on credit at his store. Such as wagon wheels and cheeses.” I draw the larger and smaller circles that stand for those things.

“I can see that,” my friend says.

“Now here,” I say, “is how he remembered the name of each person.” I try to draw a small picture of two animals. My drawing is not very good, but I hope Yugi can see what I intend.

“What are these?” I ask.

“Two squirrels,” Yugi replies after studying them for a while. “Ah, so that would mean someone named Two Squirrels.”

“Yes. And who would this be?” I ask as I draw a nail.

“Yugi,” he says, smiling for the first time as he does so. “Nail. That would be me.”

“So,” I say, “you see how pictures can speak. And that was my father’s first idea. He would make a picture for every word. Then people could just look at those pictures and read the message.”

Yugi strokes his chin. “That makes sense,” he says. “But how many pictures would you have to draw?”

“Too many,” I say. “My father tried to do just that. It took him years. He is very stubborn.”

Yugi chuckles. “I know someone else like that.”

I am not sure what he means, but I press on, pleased that his confusion has turned to amusement.