Rudyard Kipling

“ 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. ”

“ But Balkis the Most Beautiful never quarrelled with Suleiman-bin-Daoud. She loved him too much. She sat in her rooms in the Golden Palace, or walked in the Palace garden, and was truly sorry for him.
Of course if he had chosen to turn his ring on his finger and call up the Djinns and the Afrits they would have magicked all those nine hundred and ninety-nine quarrelsome wives into white mules of the desert or greyhounds or pomegranate seeds; but Suleiman-bin-Daoud thought that that would be showing off. ”

“ If we had waited till Pau Amma had gone out of Pusat Tasek and come home, the water would have carried us there by itself.’
‘You are lazy,’ said the Eldest Magician. ‘So your children shall be lazy. They shall be the laziest people in the world. They shall be called the Malazy—the lazy people;’ and he held up his finger to the Moon and said, ‘O Fisherman, here is the Man too lazy to row home. Pull his canoe home with your line, Fisherman.’
‘No,’ said the Man. ‘If I am to be lazy all my days, let the Sea work for me twice a day for ever. ”

“ Then they went up to the Palace and lived happily ever afterwards.
But wasn’t it clever of Balkis?
THERE was never a Queen like Balkis, From here to the wide world’s end; But Balkis talked to a butterfly As you would talk to a friend. There was never a King like Solomon, Not since the world began; But Solomon talked to a butterfly As a man would talk to a man. ”

“ A Hedgehog curls himself up into a ball and his prickles stick out every which way at once. By this you may know the Hedgehog.'
'I don't like this old lady one little bit,' said Stickly-Prickly, under the shadow of a large leaf. 'I wonder what else she knows?'
'A Tortoise can't curl himself up,' Mother Jaguar went on, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail. 'He only draws his head and legs into his shell. By this you may know the Tortoise.'
'I don't like this old lady at all—at all,' said Slow-and-Solid Tortoise. 'Even Painted Jaguar can't forget those directions. ”

“ And Pau Amma? You can see when you go to the beach, how all Pau Amma's babies make little Pusat Taseks for themselves under every stone and bunch of weed on the sands; you can see them waving their little scissors; and in some parts of the world they truly live [193] on the dry land and run up the palm trees and eat cocoa-nuts, exactly as the girl-daughter promised. But once a year all Pau Ammas must shake off their hard armour and be soft—to remind them of what the Eldest Magician could do. ”

“ When I draw a carp-fish with his mouth open in the smoke at the back of our Cave—if Mummy doesn’t mind—it will remind you of that ah-noise. Then we can play that it was me jumped out of the dark and s’prised you with that noise—same as I did in the beaver-swamp last winter.’
‘Really?’ said her Daddy, in the voice that grown-ups use when they are truly attending. ‘Go on, Taffy.’
‘Oh bother!’ she said. ‘I can’t draw all of a carp-fish, but I can draw something that means a carp-fish’s mouth. Don’t you know how they stand on their heads rooting in the mud? ”

“ If you choose, I will make a Magic and I will give you this pair of scissors, very sharp and strong, so that you and your children can eat cocoa-nuts like this all day long when you come up from the Sea to the land; or you can dig a Pusat Tasek for yourself with the scissors that belong to you when there is no stone or hole near by; and when the earth is too hard, by the help of these same scissors you can run up a tree.’
And Pau Amma said, ‘I do not choose yet, for, all soft as I am, these gifts would not help me. ”

“ As he rose up through the branches of the Wonderful Tree he tore off one of the great twin-fruits—the magic double-kernelled nuts that make people young,—and the little girl-daughter saw it bobbing alongside the canoe, and pulled it in and began to pick out the soft eyes of it with her little golden scissors. ”

“ Stamp!’ Balkis saw the four vast Djinns stoop down to the four corners of the gardens with the Palace in the middle, and she clapped her hands softly and said, ‘At last Suleiman-bin-Daoud will do for the sake of a Butterfly what he ought to have done long ago for his own sake, and the quarrelsome Queens will be frightened!’
The the butterfly stamped. The Djinns jerked the Palace and the gardens a thousand miles into the air: there was a most awful thunder-clap, and everything grew inky-black. The Butterfly’s Wife fluttered about in the dark, crying, ‘Oh, I’ll be good! ”

“ Give me back my shell, O Eldest Magician, and then I will play your play.'
And the Eldest Magician said, 'I will give it back, Pau Amma, for eleven months of the year; but on the twelfth month of every year it shall grow soft again, to remind you and all your children that I can make magics, and to keep you humble, Pau Amma; for I see that if you can run both under the water and on land, you will grow too bold; and if you can climb trees [190] and crack nuts and dig holes with your scissors, you will grow too greedy, Pau Amma.'
Then Pau Amma thought a little and said, 'I have made my choice. ”

“ Cat grew very angry and said, 'Has Wild Dog told tales of me?'
Then the Woman laughed and said, 'You are the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to you. You are neither a friend nor a servant. You have said it yourself. Go away and walk by yourself in all places alike.'
Then Cat pretended to be sorry and said, 'Must I never come into the Cave? Must I never sit by the warm fire? Must I never drink the warm white milk? You are very wise and very beautiful. You should not be cruel even to a Cat.'
Woman said, 'I knew I was wise, but I did not know I was beautiful. ”

“ THE Camel’s hump is an ugly lump Which well you may see at the Zoo; But uglier yet is the hump we get From having too little to do. Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo, If we haven’t enough to do-oo-oo, We get the hump— Cameelious hump— The hump that is black and blue! We climb out of bed with a frouzly head And a snarly-yarly voice. We shiver and scowl and we grunt and we growl At our bath and our boots and our toys; And there ought to be a corner for me (And I know there is one for you) When we get the hump— Cameelious hump— The hump that is black and blue! ”

“ Speckly Jaguar is looking over the edge, with his paddy-paw carefully tied up by his mother, because he pricked himself scooping the Hedgehog. He is much surprised to see what the Tortoise is doing, and his paw is hurting him. The snouty thing with the little eye that Speckly Jaguar is trying to climb over is the Armadillo that the Tortoise and the Hedgehog are going to turn into when they have finished bending and swimming. It is all a magic picture, and that is one of the reasons why I haven't drawn the Jaguar's whiskers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ There was only one spear. I drawded it three times to make sure. I couldn’t help it looking as if it stuck into Daddy’s head—there wasn’t room on the birch-bark; and those things that Mummy called bad people are my beavers. I drawded them to show him the way through the swamp; and I drawded Mummy at the mouth of the Cave looking pleased because he is a nice Stranger-man, and I think you are just the stupidest people in the world,’ said Taffy. ‘He is a very nice man. Why have you filled his hair with mud? ”

“ ONCE upon a most early time was a Neolithic man. He was not a Jute or an Angle, or even a Dravidian, which he might well have been, Best Beloved, but never mind why. He was a Primitive, and he lived cavily in a Cave, and he wore very few clothes, and he couldn’t read and he couldn’t write and he didn’t want to, and except when he was hungry he was quite happy. His name was Tegumai Bopsulai, and that means, ‘Man-who-does-not-put-his-foot-forward-in-a-hurry’; but we, O Best Beloved, will call him Tegumai, for short. ”

“ Up jumped Nqong from his bath in the salt-pan and shouted, 'Yes, I will!'
Nqong called Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo—always hungry, dusty in the sunshine, and showed him Kangaroo. Nqong said, 'Dingo! Wake up, Dingo! Do you see that gentleman dancing on an ashpit? He wants to be popular and very truly run after. Dingo, make him so!'
Up jumped Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo—and said, 'What, that cat-rabbit?'
Off ran Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo always—hungry, grinning like a coal-scuttle,—ran after Kangaroo.
Off went the proud Kangaroo on his four little legs like a bunny. ”

“ And there’s more in this game than you think. Taffy, dear, I’ve a notion that your Daddy’s daughter has hit upon the finest thing that there ever was since the Tribe of Tegumai took to using shark’s teeth instead of flints for their spear-heads. I believe we’ve found out the big secret of the world.’
‘Why?’ said Taffy, and her eyes shone too with incitement. ”

“ You know what men-folk are like.’
And the Queen Balkis, the Wise Balkis of Sheba, put her hand to her lips to hide a smile and said, ‘Little sister, I know.’
‘They get angry,’ said the Butterfly’s Wife, fanning herself quickly, ‘over nothing at all, but we must humour them, O Queen. They never mean half they say. If it pleases my husband to believe that I believe he can make Suleiman-bin-Daoud’s Palace disappear by stamping his foot, I’m sure I don’t care. ”

“ The Woman laughed and said, 'Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, go back to the Woods again, for I have braided up my hair, and I have put away the magic blade-bone, and we have no more need of either friends or servants in our Cave.'
Cat said, 'I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. ”

“ 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. ”