The Jungle Book, part 7 · page 21 2101I did wrong.102Baloo and thou are wounded.103It is just.”104Bagheera gave him half a dozen love-taps from a panther’s point of view (they would hardly have waked one of his own cubs), but for a seven-year-old boy they amounted to as severe a beating as you could wish to avoid.105When it was all over Mowgli sneezed, and picked himself up without a word.106“Now,” said Bagheera, “jump on my back, Little Brother, and we will go home.”107One of the beauties of Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores.108There is no nagging afterward.109Mowgli laid his head down on Bagheera’s back and slept so deeply that he never waked when he was put down in the home-cave.110Road-Song of the Bandar-Log111Here we go in a flung festoon, Half-way up to the jealous moon!112Don’t you envy our pranceful bands?113Don’t you wish you had extra hands?114Wouldn’t you like if your tails were--so-- Curved in the shape of a Cupid’s bow?115Now you’re angry, but--never mind, _Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!116_117Here we sit in a branchy row, Thinking of beautiful things we know; Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do, All complete, in a minute or two-- Something noble and wise and good, Done by merely wishing we could.118We’ve forgotten, but--never mind, _Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!119_120All the talk we ever have heard Uttered by bat or beast or bird-- Hide or fin or scale or feather-- Jabber it quickly and all together!121Excellent!122Wonderful!123Once again!124Now we are talking just like men!125Let’s pretend we are ... never mind, _Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!126_ This is the way of the Monkey-kind.127_Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines, That rocket by where, light and high, the wild grape swings.128By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make, Be sure, be sure, we’re going to do some splendid things!129_130“Tiger!131Tiger!”132What of the hunting, hunter bold?133Brother, the watch was long and cold.134What of the quarry ye went to kill?135Brother, he crops in the jungle still.136Where is the power that made your pride?checked by a teacher137Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.138Where is the haste that ye hurry by?139Brother, I go to my lair--to die.140Now we must go back to the first tale.141When Mowgli left the wolf’s cave after the fight with the Pack at the Council Rock, he went down to the plowed lands where the villagers lived, but he would not stop there because it was too near to the jungle, and he knew that he had made at least one bad enemy at the Council.142So he hurried on, keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley, and followed it at a steady jog-trot for nearly twenty miles, till he came to a country that he did not know.143The valley opened out into a great plain dotted over with rocks and cut up by ravines.144At one end stood a little village, and at the other the thick jungle came down in a sweep to the grazing-grounds, and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a hoe.145All over the plain, cattle and buffaloes were grazing, and when the little boys in charge of the herds saw Mowgli they shouted and ran away, and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian village barked.146Mowgli walked on, for he was feeling hungry, and when he came to the village gate he saw the big thorn-bush that was drawn up before the gate at twilight, pushed to one side.147“Umph!” he said, for he had come across more than one such barricade in his night rambles after things to eat.148“So men are afraid of the People of the Jungle here also.”149He sat down by the gate, and when a man came out he stood up, opened his mouth, and pointed down it to show that he wanted food.150The man stared, and ran back up the one street of the village shouting for the priest, who was a big, fat man dressed in white, with a red and yellow mark on his forehead.151The priest came to the gate, and with him at least a hundred people, who stared and talked and shouted and pointed at Mowgli.152“They have no manners, these Men Folk,” said Mowgli to himself.153“Only the gray ape would behave as they do.”154So he threw back his long hair and frowned at the crowd.155“What is there to be afraid of?” said the priest.156“Look at the marks on his arms and legs.157They are the bites of wolves.158He is but a wolf-child run away from the jungle.”159Of course, in playing together, the cubs had often nipped Mowgli harder than they intended, and there were white scars all over his arms and legs.160But he would have been the last person in the world to call these bites, for he knew what real biting meant.161“Arre!162Arre!” said two or three women together.163“To be bitten by wolves, poor child!164He is a handsome boy.165He has eyes like red fire.166By my honor, Messua, he is not unlike thy boy that was taken by the tiger.”167“Let me look,” said a woman with heavy copper rings on her wrists and ankles, and she peered at Mowgli under the palm of her hand.168“Indeed he is not.169He is thinner, but he has the very look of my boy.”170The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the richest villager in the place.171So he looked up at the sky for a minute and said solemnly: “What the jungle has taken the jungle has restored.172Take the boy into thy house, my sister, and forget not to honor the priest who sees so far into the lives of men.”173“By the Bull that bought me,” said Mowgli to himself, “but all this talking is like another looking-over by the Pack!174Well, if I am a man, a man I must become.”175The crowd parted as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there was a red lacquered bedstead, a great earthen grain chest with funny raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking pots, an image of a Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking glass, such as they sell at the country fairs.176She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and then she laid her hand on his head and looked into his eyes; for she thought perhaps that he might be her real son come back from the jungle where the tiger had taken him.177So she said, “Nathoo, O Nathoo!”178Mowgli did not show that he knew the name.179“Dost thou not remember the day when I gave thee thy new shoes?”180She touched his foot, and it was almost as hard as horn.181“No,” she said sorrowfully, “those feet have never worn shoes, but thou art very like my Nathoo, and thou shalt be my son.”182Mowgli was uneasy, because he had never been under a roof before.183But as he looked at the thatch, he saw that he could tear it out any time if he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings.184“What is the good of a man,” he said to himself at last, “if he does not understand man’s talk?185Now I am as silly and dumb as a man would be with us in the jungle.186I must speak their talk.”1 2← previousThe Jungle Book, part 6next →The Jungle Book, part 8↑ back to The Jungle BookThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg236/7/page/2/