The Elephant's Child

In the High and Far-Off Times, my dear, the Elephant 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 insatiable curiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions.

He lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa with his questions. He asked his tall aunt, the Ostrich, why her tail feathers grew just so, and his tall aunt the Ostrich sighed and told him to hush. He asked his tall uncle, the Giraffe, what made his skin spotty, and his tall uncle the Giraffe sighed and told him to hush. He asked his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, why her eyes were red, and his broad aunt the Hippopotamus sighed and told him to hush. He asked his hairy uncle, the Baboon, why melons tasted just so, and his hairy uncle the Baboon sighed and told him to hush.

And still he was full of insatiable curiosity! He asked questions about everything he saw, and heard, and felt, and smelt, and touched, and everyone sighed and told him to hush.

One fine morning, this insatiable Elephant's Child asked a brand new question that he had never asked before. He asked, 'What does the Crocodile have for dinner?'

Then everybody said 'HUSH!' in a very loud and dreadful voice, and they told him at once to go and be quiet somewhere else.

By and by, he came upon a Kolokolo Bird sitting in the middle of a thorn bush. 'My father has told me to hush,' said the Elephant's Child, 'and my mother has told me to hush; all my aunts and uncles have told me to hush for my insatiable curiosity, and still I want to know what the Crocodile has for dinner!'

Then the 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.'

The very next morning, this insatiable Elephant's Child took a hundred pounds of bananas, and a hundred pounds of sugar-cane, and seventeen melons, and said to all his dear families, 'Good-bye. 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 off he went, a little warm but not at all astonished, eating melons as he went, and throwing the rind about because he could not pick it up.

He went from town to town and country to country, 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 the Kolokolo Bird had said.

Now you must know and understand, my dear, that up till that very hour and minute, this insatiable Elephant's Child had never seen a Crocodile, and did not know what one was like.

The first thing that he met was a Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake curled round a rock.

'Excuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but have you seen such a thing as a Crocodile in these parts?'

'Have I seen a Crocodile?' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, in a voice of dreadful scorn. 'What will you ask me next?'

'Excuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but could you kindly tell me what he has for dinner?'

The Python only sniffed and coiled up again.

So the Elephant's Child said good-bye very politely, and went on, until 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, my dear, and the Crocodile winked one eye, like this!

'Excuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but do you happen to have seen a Crocodile in these parts?'

Then the Crocodile winked the other eye, and lifted half his tail out of the mud.

'Come here, Little One,' said the Crocodile. 'Why do you ask such things?'

'Excuse me,' said the Elephant's Child most politely, 'but everybody has told me to hush, and I just want to know what you have for dinner.'

'Come here, 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 here, 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 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 today I will begin with Elephant's Child!'

At this the Elephant's Child was much annoyed, and he said, speaking through his nose, like this, 'Led go! You are hurtig be!'

Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake scuffled down from the bank and said, 'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather coat will jerk you into yonder river before you can say Jack Robinson.'

Then the Elephant's Child sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the Crocodile floundered into the water, making it all creamy with great sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled.

The Elephant's Child's nose kept on stretching; and the Elephant's Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching; and the Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant's Child's nose grew longer and longer, and it hurt him horribly!

Then the Elephant's Child felt his legs slipping, and he said through his nose, which was now nearly five feet long, 'This is too butch for be!'

Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself round the Elephant's Child's hind legs, and said, 'Pull, my young friend, pull!'

So he pulled, and the Elephant's Child pulled, and the Crocodile pulled; but the Elephant's Child and the Python pulled hardest; and at last the Crocodile let go of the Elephant's Child's nose with a POP that you could hear all up and down the Limpopo.

Then the Elephant's Child sat down most hard and sudden; but first he was careful to say 'Thank you' to the Python. And then he was kind to his poor pulled nose, and he wrapped it up in cool banana leaves, and hung it in the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo to cool.

The Elephant's Child sat there for three days waiting for his nose to shrink. But it never grew any shorter, for the Crocodile had pulled it out into a real, true trunk, the same as all elephants have today.

At the end of the third day a fly came and stung him on the shoulder, and before he knew what he was doing he lifted up his trunk and hit that fly dead with the end of it.

'Well done!' said the Python. 'You couldn't have done that with a plain old boot-nose. Try eating a little now.'

The Elephant's Child put out his trunk and plucked a large bundle of grass, dusted it clean against his fore-legs, and popped it into his mouth.

'Better and better!' said the Python. 'You couldn't have done that either.'

So the Elephant's Child went home across Africa, waving his trunk with pride. When he wanted fruit, he pulled fruit down from a tree, instead of waiting for it to fall. When he wanted grass, he plucked grass from the ground. When flies bit him, he broke off the branch of a tree and used it as a fly-swat.

At last things grew so interesting that his aunts and his uncles all went off, one by one, in a great hurry to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to borrow new noses from the Crocodile.

And when they came back, nobody ever again told anyone to hush; and ever since that day, my dear, all the Elephants you will ever see have trunks precisely like the trunk of the insatiable Elephant's Child.

(Freely retold for bedtime from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, 1902.)