Just so stories
a delicate greyish-fawn, and it ought to be Zebra; but it is covered
all over with black and purple stripes. What in the world have you been
doing to yourself, Zebra? Don’t you know that if you were on the High
Veldt I could see you ten miles off? You haven’t any form.’
‘Yes,’ said the Zebra, ‘but this isn’t the High Veldt. Can’t you see?’
‘I can now,’ said the Leopard. ‘But I couldn’t all yesterday. How is it
done?’
‘Let us up,’ said the Zebra, ‘and we will show you.
They let the Zebra and the Giraffe get up; and Zebra moved away to some
little thorn-bushes where the sunlight fell all stripy, and Giraffe
moved off to some tallish trees where the shadows fell all blotchy.
‘Now watch,’ said the Zebra and the Giraffe. ‘This is the way it’s done.
One--two--three! And where’s your breakfast?’
Leopard stared, and Ethiopian stared, but all they could see were stripy
shadows and blotched shadows in the forest, but never a sign of Zebra
and Giraffe. They had just walked off and hidden themselves in the
shadowy forest.
‘Hi! Hi!’ said the Ethiopian. ‘That’s a trick worth learning. Take a
lesson by it, Leopard. You show up in this dark place like a bar of soap
in a coal-scuttle.’
‘Ho! Ho!’ said the Leopard. ‘Would it surprise you very much to know
that you show up in this dark place like a mustard-plaster on a sack of
coals?’
‘Well, calling names won’t catch dinner, said the Ethiopian. ‘The long
and the little of it is that we don’t match our backgrounds. I’m going
to take Baviaan’s advice. He told me I ought to change; and as I’ve
nothing to change except my skin I’m going to change that.’
‘What to?’ said the Leopard, tremendously excited.
‘To a nice working blackish-brownish colour, with a little purple in
it, and touches of slaty-blue. It will be the very thing for hiding in
hollows and behind trees.’
So he changed his skin then and there, and the Leopard was more excited
than ever; he had never seen a man change his skin before.
‘But what about me?’ he said, when the Ethiopian had worked his last
little finger into his fine new black skin.
‘You take Baviaan’s advice too. He told you to go into spots.’
‘So I did,’ said the Leopard. I went into other spots as fast as I
could. I went into this spot with you, and a lot of good it has done
me.’
‘Oh,’ said the Ethiopian, ‘Baviaan didn’t mean spots in South Africa. He
meant spots on your skin.’
‘What’s the use of that?’ said the Leopard.
‘Think of Giraffe,’ said the Ethiopian. ‘Or if you prefer stripes,
think of Zebra. They find their spots and stripes give them per-feet
satisfaction.’
‘Umm,’ said the Leopard. ‘I wouldn’t look like Zebra--not for ever so.’
‘Well, make up your mind,’ said the Ethiopian, ‘because I’d hate to
go hunting without you, but I must if you insist on looking like a
sun-flower against a tarred fence.’
‘I’ll take spots, then,’ said the Leopard; ‘but don’t make ‘em too
vulgar-big. I wouldn’t look like Giraffe--not for ever so.’
‘I’ll make ‘em with the tips of my fingers,’ said the Ethiopian.
‘There’s plenty of black left on my skin still. Stand over!’
Then the Ethiopian put his five fingers close together (there was plenty
of black left on his new skin still) and pressed them all over the
Leopard, and wherever the five fingers touched they left five little
black marks, all close together. You can see them on any Leopard’s skin
you like, Best Beloved. Sometimes the fingers slipped and the marks got
a little blurred; but if you look closely at any Leopard now you will
see that there are always five spots--off five fat black finger-tips.
‘Now you are a beauty!’ said the Ethiopian. ‘You can lie out on the bare
ground and look like a heap of pebbles. You can lie out on the naked
rocks and look like a piece of pudding-stone. You can lie out on a leafy
branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you
can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in
particular. Think of that and purr!’
‘But if I’m all this,’ said the Leopard, ‘why didn’t you go spotty too?’
‘Oh, plain black’s best for a nigger,’ said the Ethiopian. ‘Now come
along and we’ll see if we can’t get even with Mr. One-Two-Three Where’s
your Breakfast!’
So they went away and lived happily ever afterward, Best Beloved. That
is all.
Oh, now and then you will hear grown-ups say, ‘Can the Ethiopian change
his skin or the Leopard his spots?’ I don’t think even grown-ups would
keep on saying such a silly thing if the Leopard and the Ethiopian
hadn’t done it once--do you? But they will never do it again, Best
Beloved. They are quite contented as they are.
I AM the Most Wise Baviaan, saying in most wise tones,
‘Let us melt into the landscape--just us two by our lones.’
People have come--in a carriage--calling. But Mummy is there....
Yes, I can go if you take me--Nurse says she don’t care.
Let’s go up to the pig-sties and sit on the farmyard rails!
Let’s say things to the bunnies, and watch ‘em skitter their tails!
Let’s--oh, anything, daddy, so long as it’s you and me,
And going truly exploring, and not being in till tea!
Here’s your boots (I’ve brought ‘em), and here’s your cap and stick,
And here’s your pipe and tobacco. Oh, come along out of it--quick.
THE ELEPHANT’S CHILD
IN the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no
trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he
could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up things
with it. But there was one Elephant--a new Elephant--an Elephant’s
Child--who was full of ‘satiable curtiosity, and that means he asked
ever so many questions. And he lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa
with his ‘satiable curtiosities. He asked his tall aunt, the Ostrich,
why her tail-feathers grew just so, and his tall aunt the Ostrich
spanked him with her hard, hard claw. He asked his tall uncle, the
Giraffe, what made his skin spotty, and his tall uncle, the Giraffe,
spanked him with his hard, hard hoof. And still he was full of ‘satiable
curtiosity! He asked his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, why her eyes were
red, and his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, spanked him with her broad,
broad hoof; and he asked his hairy uncle, the Baboon, why melons tasted
just so, and his hairy uncle, the Baboon, spanked him with his hairy,
hairy paw. And still he was full of ‘satiable curtiosity! He asked
questions about everything that he saw, or heard, or felt, or smelt, or
touched, and all his uncles and his aunts spanked him. And still he was
full of ‘satiable curtiosity!
One fine morning in the middle of the Precession of the Equinoxes this
‘satiable Elephant’s Child asked a new fine question that he had never
asked before. He asked, ‘What does the Crocodile have for dinner?’ Then
everybody said, ‘Hush!’ in a loud and dretful tone, and they spanked him
immediately and directly, without stopping, for a long time.
By and by, when that was finished, he came upon Kolokolo Bird sitting
in the middle of a wait-a-bit thorn-bush, and he said, ‘My father has
spanked me, and my mother has spanked me; all my aunts and uncles have
spanked me for my ‘satiable curtiosity; and still I want to know what
the Crocodile has for dinner!’
Then Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry, ‘Go to the banks of the
great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees,
and find out.’
That very next morning, when there was nothing left of the Equinoxes,
because the Precession had preceded according to precedent, this
‘satiable Elephant’s Child took a hundred pounds of bananas (the little
short red kind), and a hundred pounds of sugar-cane (the long purple
kind), and seventeen melons (the greeny-crackly kind), and said to all
his dear families, ‘Goodbye. I am going to the great grey-green, greasy
Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to find out what the
Crocodile has for dinner.’ And they all spanked him once more for luck,
though he asked them most politely to stop.
Then he went away, a little warm, but not at all astonished, eating
melons, and throwing the rind about, because he could not pick it up.
He went from Graham’s Town to Kimberley, and from Kimberley to Khama’s
Country, and from Khama’s Country he went east by north, eating melons
all the time, till at last he came to the banks of the great grey-green,
greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, precisely as
Kolokolo Bird had said.
Now you must know and understand, O Best Beloved, that till that very
week, and day, and hour, and minute, this ‘satiable Elephant’s Child had
never seen a Crocodile, and did not know what one was like. It was all
his ‘satiable curtiosity.
The first thing that he found was a Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake curled
round a rock.
‘’Scuse me,’ said the Elephant’s Child most politely, ‘but have you seen
such a thing as a Crocodile in these promiscuous parts?’
‘Have I seen a Crocodile?’ said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, in a
voice of dretful scorn. ‘What will you ask me next?’
‘’Scuse me,’ said the Elephant’s Child, ‘but could you kindly tell me
what he has for dinner?’
Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake uncoiled himself very quickly
from the rock, and spanked the Elephant’s Child with his scalesome,
flailsome tail.
‘That is odd,’ said the Elephant’s Child, ‘because my father and my
mother, and my uncle and my aunt, not to mention my other aunt, the
Hippopotamus, and my other uncle, the Baboon, have all spanked me for my
‘satiable curtiosity--and I suppose this is the same thing.
So he said good-bye very politely to the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake,
and helped to coil him up on the rock again, and went on, a little warm,
but not at all astonished, eating melons, and throwing the rind about,
because he could not pick it up, till he trod on what he thought was
a log of wood at the very edge of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo
River, all set about with fever-trees.
But it was really the Crocodile, O Best Beloved, and the Crocodile
winked one eye--like this!
‘’Scuse me,’ said the Elephant’s Child most politely, ‘but do you happen
to have seen a Crocodile in these promiscuous parts?’
Then the Crocodile winked the other eye, and lifted half his tail out of
the mud; and the Elephant’s Child stepped back most politely, because he
did not wish to be spanked again.
‘Come hither, Little One,’ said the Crocodile. ‘Why do you ask such
things?’
‘’Scuse me,’ said the Elephant’s Child most politely, ‘but my father has
spanked me, my mother has spanked me, not to mention my tall aunt, the
Ostrich, and my tall uncle, the Giraffe, who can kick ever so hard, as
well as my broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, and my hairy uncle, the Baboon,
and including the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, with the scalesome,
flailsome tail, just up the bank, who spanks harder than any of them;
and so, if it’s quite all the same to you, I don’t want to be spanked
any more.’
‘Come hither, Little One,’ said the Crocodile, ‘for I am the Crocodile,’
and he wept crocodile-tears to show it was quite true.
Then the Elephant’s Child grew all breathless, and panted, and kneeled
down on the bank and said, ‘You are the very person I have been looking
for all these long days. Will you please tell me what you have for
dinner?’
‘Come hither, Little One,’ said the Crocodile, ‘and I’ll whisper.’
Then the Elephant’s Child put his head down close to the Crocodile’s
musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose,
which up to that very week, day, hour, and minute, had been no bigger
than a boot, though much more useful.
‘I think, said the Crocodile--and he said it between his teeth, like
this--‘I think to-day I will begin with Elephant’s Child!’