Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II

Now, there was n't any bridge, and there was n't any ferry-boat, and Kangaroo did n't know how to get over; so he stood on his legs and hopped.

He had to!

He hopped through the Flinders; he hopped through the Cinders; he hopped through the deserts in the middle of Australia. He hopped like a Kangaroo.

First he hopped one yard; then he hopped three yards; then he hopped five yards; his legs growing stronger; his legs growing longer. He had n't any time for rest or refreshment, and he wanted them very much.

Still ran Dingo – Yellow-Dog Dingo – very much bewildered, very much hungry, and wondering what in the world or out of it made Old Man Kangaroo hop.

For he hopped like a cricket; like a pea in a saucepan; or a new rubber ball on a nursery floor.

He had to!

He tucked up his front legs; he hopped on his hind legs; he stuck out his tail for a balance-weight behind him; and he hopped through the Darling Downs.

He had to!

Still ran Dingo – Tired Dog Dingo – hungrier and hungrier, very much bewildered, and wondering when in the world or out of it would Old Man Kangaroo stop.

Then came Nqong from his bath in the salt-pan, and said, "It's five o'clock."

Down sat Dingo – Poor Dog Dingo – always hungry, dusky in the sunshine; hung out his tongue and howled.

Down sat Kangaroo – Old Man Kangaroo – stuck out his tail like a milking-stool behind him, and said, "Thank goodness that's finished!"

Then said Nqong, who is always a gentleman, "Why are n't you grateful to Yellow-Dog Dingo? Why don't you thank him for all he has done for you?"

Then said Kangaroo – Tired Old Kangaroo – "He's chased me out of the homes of my childhood; he's chased me out of my regular meal-times; he's altered my shape so I'll never get it back; and he's played Old Scratch with my legs."

Then said Nqong, "Perhaps I'm mistaken, but didn't you ask me to make you different from all other animals, as well as to make you very truly sought after? And now it is five o'clock."

"Yes," said Kangaroo. "I wish that I had n't. I thought you would do it by charms and incantations, but this is a practical joke."

"Joke!" said Nqong from his bath in the blue gums. "Say that again and I'll whistle up Dingo and run your hind legs off."

"No," said the Kangaroo. "I must apologize. Legs are legs, and you need n't alter 'em so far as I am concerned. I only meant to explain to Your Lordliness that I've had nothing to eat since morning, and I'm very empty indeed."

"Yes," said Dingo – Yellow-Dog Dingo – "I am just in the same situation. I've made him different from all other animals; but what may I have for my tea?"

Then said Nqong from his bath in the salt-pan, "Come and ask me about it to-morrow, because I'm going to wash."

So they were left in the middle of Australia, Old Man Kangaroo and Yellow-Dog Dingo, and each said, "That's your fault."

This is the mouth-filling songOf the race that was run by a Boomer,Run in a single burst – only event of its kind —Started by Big God Nqong from Warrigaborrigarooma,Old Man Kangaroo first: Yellow-Dog Dingo behind.Kangaroo bounded away,His back-legs working like pistons —Bounded from morning till dark,Twenty-five feet to a bound.Yellow-Dog Dingo layLike a yellow cloud in the distance —Much too busy to bark.My! but they covered the ground!Nobody knows where they went,Or followed the track that they flew in,For that ContinentHad n't been given a name.They ran thirty degrees,From Torres Straits to the Leeuwin(Look at the Atlas, please),And they ran back as they came.S'posing you could trotFrom Adelaide to the Pacific,For an afternoon's run —Half what these gentlemen did —You would feel rather hotBut your legs would develop terrific —Yes, my importunate son,You'd be a Marvellous Kid!

II

FUZZY-WUZZY

At the School Council Fuzzy-Wuzzy was elected Vice-President of Mr. Kipling's Poems, "because he was so brave."

(Soudan Expeditionary Force.)We've fought with many men acrost the seas,An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not:The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese;But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot.We never got a ha'porth's change of 'im:'E squatted in the scrub an' 'ocked our 'orses,'E cut our sentries up at Suakim,An' 'e played the cat an' banjo with our forces.So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Sowdan;You 're a poor benighted 'eathen, but a first-class fightin' man;We gives you your certifikit, an' if you want it signed,We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you whenever you're inclined.We took our chanst among the Khyber hills,The Boers knocked us silly at a mile,The Burman guv us Irriwaddy chills,An' a Zulu impi dished us up in style;But all we ever got from such as theyWas pop to what the Fuzzy made us swaller;We 'eld our bloomin' own, the papers say,But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us 'oller.Then 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' the missis an' the kid,Our orders was to break you, an' of course we went an' did.We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it was n't 'ardly fair;But for all the odds agin you, Fuzzy Wuz, you bruk the square.'E 'as n't got no papers of 'is own,'E 'as n't got no medals nor rewards,So we must certify the skill 'e 's shownIn usin' of 'is long two-'anded swords;When 'e 's 'oppin' in an' out among the bushWith 'is coffin-headed shield an' shovel-spear,A 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rushWill last a 'ealthy Tommy for a year.So 'ere 's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' your friends which is no more,If we 'ad n't lost some messmates we would 'elp you to deplore;But give an' take 's the gospel, an' we'll call the bargain fair,For if you 'ave lost more than us, you crumpled up the square!'E rushes at the smoke, when we let drive,An', before we know, 'e 's 'ackin' at our 'ead;'E 's all 'ot sand an ginger when alive,An' 'e 's generally shammin' when 'e 's dead.'E 's a daisy, 'e 's a duck, 'e 's a lamb!'E 's a Injun-rubber idiot on the spree,'E 's the on'y thing that does n't care a clamFor the Regiment o' British Infantree.So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Sowdan;You 're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man;An' 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air —You big black boundin' beggar – for you bruk a British square.

III

THE ENGLISH FLAG

Above the portico the Union Jack remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts, and seemed to see significance in the incident. —Daily Papers.

Winds of the World, give answer? They are whimpering to and fro —And what should they know of England who only England know? —The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!Must we borrow a clout from the Boer – to plaster anew with dirt?An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt?We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share.What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare!The North Wind blew: – "From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go;I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe;By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God,That the liner splits on the ice-field or the Dogger fills with cod."I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame,Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came;I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast,And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed."The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night,The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light:What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare,Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!"The South Wind sighed: – "From The Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'enOver a thousand islands lost in an idle main,Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croonTheir endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon."Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys,I waked the palms to laughter – I tossed the scud in the breeze —Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown."I have wrenched it free from the halliard, to hang for a wisp on the Horn;I have chased it north to the Lizard – ribboned and rolled and torn;I have spread its fold o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea;I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free."My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross,Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross.What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare,Ye have but my seas to furrow. Go forth, for it is there!"The East Wind roared: – "From the Kuriles, the Bitter Seas, I come,And me men call the Home-Wind, for I bring the English home.Look – look well to your shipping! By the breath of my mad typhoonI swept your close-packed Praya and beached your best at Kowloon!"The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before,I raped your richest roadstead – I plundered Singapore!I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose,And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with the startled crows."Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake,But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for England's sake —Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid —Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed."The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows.The scared white leopard winds it across the taint-less snows.What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare,Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there!"The West Wind called: – "In squadrons the thoughtless galleons flyThat bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die.They make my might their porter, they make my house their path,Till I loose my neck from their rudder and whelm them all in my wrath."I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole;They bellow one to the other, the frightened ship-bells toll,For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath,And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death."But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day,I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away,First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky,Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by."The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it – the frozen dews have kissed —The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist.What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare,Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!"

IV

THE KING

Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said;"With bone well carved he went away;Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,And jasper tips the spear to-day.Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance,And he with these. Farewell, Romance!""Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed;"We lift the weight of flatling years;The caverns of the mountain sideHold him who scorns our hutted piers.Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell,Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!""Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke;"By sleight of sword we may not win,But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smokeOf arquebus and culverin.Honour is lost, and none may tellWho paid good blows. Romance, farewell!""Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried;"Our keels ha' lain with every sea;The dull-returning wind and tideHeave up the wharf where we would be;The known and noted breezes swellOur trudging sail. Romance, farewell!""Good-bye, Romance!" the Skipper said;"He vanished with the coal we burn;Our dial marks full steam ahead.Our speed is timed to half a turn.Sure as the tidal trains we ply'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye!""Romance!" the Season-tickets mourn,"He never ran to catch his train,But passed with coach and guard and horn —And left the local – late again!Confound Romance!" … And all unseenRomance brought up the nine-fifteen.His hand was on the lever laid,His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks,His whistle waked the snow-bound grade,His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks;In dock and deep and mine and millThe Boy-god reckless laboured still.Robed, crowned and throned, he wove his spell,Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curledWith unconsidered miracle,Hedged in a backward-gazing world:Then taught his chosen bard to say:"The King was with us – yesterday!"

V

TO THE UNKNOWN GODDESS

Will you conquer my heart with your beauty, my soul going out from afar?Shall I fall to your hand as a victim of crafty and cautious shikar?Have I met you and passed you already, unknowing, unthinking, and blindShall I meet you next session at Simla, oh, sweetest and best of your kind?Ah, Goddess! child, spinster, or widow – as of old on Mars Hill when they raisedTo the God that they knew not an altar – so I, a young Pagan, have praised.The Goddess I know not nor worship; yet if half that men tell me be true,You will come in the future, and therefore these verses are written to you.

VI

THE GALLEY SLAVE

Oh, gallant was our galley from her carven steering-wheelTo her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel;The leg-bar chafed the ankle, and we gasped for cooler air,But no galley on the water with our galley could compare!Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold —We ran a mighty merchandise of Negroes in the hold;The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below,As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that galley go.It was merry in the galley, for we revelled now and then —If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men!As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute's bliss,And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lover's kiss.Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark —They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the shark —We heaved them to the fishes, but so fast the galley sped,We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn our dead.Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we —The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea!By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed and sheered,Woman, Man, or God, or Devil, was there anything we feared?Was it storm? Our fathers faced it, and a wilder never blew;Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle through.Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death?Nay our very babes would mock you, had they time for idle breath.But to-day I leave the galley, and another takes my place;There's my name upon the deck-beam – let it stand a little space.I am free – to watch my messmates beating out to open main,Free of all that Life can offer – save to handle sweep again.By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel,By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal;By eyes grown old with staring through the sun-wash on the brine,I am paid in full for service – would that service still were mine!It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more —Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar.But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service then?God be thanked – whate'er comes after, I have lived and toiled with men!

VII

THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF

It was her first voyage, and though she was but a cargo-steamer of twenty-five hundred tons, she was the very best of her kind, the outcome of forty years of experiments and improvements in framework and machinery; and her designers and owner thought as much of her as though she had been the Lucania. Anyone can make a floating hotel that will pay expenses, if he puts enough money into the saloon, and charges for private baths, suites of rooms, and such like; but in these days of competition and low freights every square inch of a cargo-boat must be built for cheapness, great hold-capacity, and a certain steady speed. This boat was, perhaps, two hundred and forty feet long and thirty-two feet wide, with arrangements that enabled her to carry cattle on her main and sheep on her upper deck if she wanted to; but her great glory was the amount of cargo that she could store away in her holds. Her owners – they were a very well-known Scotch firm – came round with her from the north, where she had been launched and christened and fitted, to Liverpool, where she was to take cargo for New York; and the owner's daughter, Miss Frazier, went to and fro on the clean decks, admiring the new paint and the brass work, and the patent winches, and particularly the strong, straight bow, over which she had cracked a bottle of champagne when she named the steamer the Dimbula. It was a beautiful September afternoon, and the boat in all her newness – she was painted lead-colour with a red funnel – looked very fine indeed. Her house-flag was flying, and her whistle from time to time acknowledged the salutes of friendly boats, who saw that she was new to the High and Narrow Seas and wished to make her welcome.

"And now," said Miss Frazier, delightedly, to the captain, "she's a real ship, is n't she? It seems only the other day father gave the order for her, and now – and now – is n't she a beauty!" The girl was proud of the firm, and talked as though she were the controlling partner.

"Oh, she's no so bad," the skipper replied cautiously. "But I'm sayin' that it takes more than christenin' to mak' a ship. In the nature o' things, Miss Frazier, if ye follow me, she's just irons and rivets and plates put into the form of a ship. She has to find herself yet."

"I thought father said she was exceptionally well found."

"So she is," said the skipper, with a laugh. "But it's this way wi' ships, Miss Frazier. She's all here, but the parrts of her have not learned to work together yet. They've had no chance."

"The engines are working beautifully. I can hear them."

"Yes, indeed. But there's more than engines to a ship. Every inch of her, ye'll understand, has to be livened up and made to work wi' its neighbour – sweetenin' her, we call it, technically."

"And how will you do it?" the girl asked.

"We can no more than drive and steer her, and so forth; but if we have rough weather this trip – it's likely – she'll learn the rest by heart! For a ship, ye'll obsairve, Miss Frazier, is in no sense a reegid body closed at both ends. She's a highly complex structure o' various an' conflictin' strains, wi' tissues that must give an' tak' accordin' to her personal modulus of elasteecity." Mr. Buchanan, the chief engineer, was coming toward them. "I'm sayin' to Miss Frazier, here, that our little Dimbula has to be sweetened yet, and nothin' but a gale will do it. How's all wi' your engines, Buck?"

"Well enough – true by plumb an' rule, o' course; but there's no spontaneeity yet." He turned to the girl. "Take my word, Miss Frazier, and maybe ye'll comprehend later; even after a pretty girl's christened a ship it does not follow that there's such a thing as a ship under the men that work her."

"I was sayin' the very same, Mr. Buchanan," the skipper interrupted.

"That's more metaphysical than I can follow," said Miss Frazier, laughing.

"Why so? Ye're good Scotch, an' – I knew your mother's father, he was fra' Dumfries – ye've a vested right in metapheesics, Miss Frazier, just as ye have in the Dimbula," the engineer said.

"Eh, well, we must go down to the deep watters, an' earn Miss Frazier her deevidends. Will you not come to my cabin for tea?" said the skipper. "We'll be in dock the night, and when you're goin' back to Glasgie ye can think of us loadin' her down an' drivin' her forth – all for your sake."

In the next few days they stowed some four thousand tons' dead weight into the Dimbula, and took her out from Liverpool. As soon as she met the lift of the open water, she naturally began to talk. If you lay your ear to the side of the cabin next time you are in a steamer, you will hear hundreds of little voices in every direction, thrilling and buzzing, and whispering and popping, and gurgling and sobbing and squeaking exactly like a telephone in a thunder-storm. Wooden ships shriek and growl and grunt, but iron vessels throb and quiver through all their hundreds of ribs and thousands of rivets. The Dimbula was very strongly built, and every piece of her had a letter or number, or both, to describe it; and every piece had been hammered, or forged, or rolled, or punched by man, and had lived in the roar and rattle of the shipyard for months. Therefore, every piece had its own separate voice in exact proportion to the amount of trouble spent upon it. Cast-iron as a rule, says very little; but mild steel plates and wrought-iron, and ribs and beams that have been much bent and welded and riveted, talk continuously. Their conversation, of course, is not half as wise as our human talk, because they are all, though they do not know it, bound down one to the other in a black darkness, where they cannot tell what is happening near them, nor what will overtake them next.

As soon as she had cleared the Irish coast a sullen gray-headed old wave of the Atlantic climbed leisurely over her straight bows, and sat down on her steam-capstan used for hauling up the anchor. Now the capstan and the engine that drove it had been newly painted red and green; besides which, nobody likes being ducked.

"Don't you do that again," the capstan sputtered through the teeth of his cogs. "Hi! Where's the fellow gone?"

The wave had slouched overside with a plop and a chuckle; but "Plenty more where he came from," said a brother-wave, and went through and over the capstan, who was bolted firmly to an iron plate on the iron deck-beams below.

"Can't you keep still up there?" said the deck-beams. "What's the matter with you? One minute you weigh twice as much as you ought to, and the next you don't!"

"It is n't my fault," said the capstan. "There's a green brute outside that comes and hits me on the head."

"Tell that to the shipwrights. You've been in position for months and you've never wriggled like this before. If you are n't careful you'll strain us."

"Talking of strain," said a low, rasping, unpleasant voice, "are any of you fellows – you deck-beams, we mean – aware that those exceedingly ugly knees of yours happen to be riveted into our structure —ours?"

"Who might you be?" the deck-beams inquired.

"Oh, nobody in particular," was the answer. "We're only the port and starboard upper-deck stringers; and if you persist in heaving and hiking like this, we shall be reluctantly compelled to take steps."

Now the stringers of the ship are long iron girders, so to speak, that run lengthways from stern to bow. They keep the iron frames (what are called ribs in a wooden ship) in place, and also help to hold the ends of the deck-beams, which go from side to side of the ship. Stringers always consider themselves most important, because they are so long.

"You will take steps – will you?" This was a long echoing rumble. It came from the frames – scores and scores of them, each one about eighteen inches distant from the next, and each riveted to the stringers in four places. "We think you will have a certain amount of trouble in that;" and thousands and thousands of the little rivets that held everything together whispered: "You will. You will! Stop quivering and be quiet. Hold on, brethren! Hold on! Hot Punches! What's that?"

Rivets have no teeth, so they cannot chatter with fright; but they did their best as a fluttering jar swept along the ship from stern to bow, and she shook like a rat in a terrier's mouth.

An unusually severe pitch, for the sea was rising, had lifted the big throbbing screw nearly to the surface, and it was spinning round in a kind of soda-water – half sea and half air – going much faster than was proper, because there was no deep water for it to work in. As it sank again, the engines – and they were triple expansion, three cylinders in a row – snorted through all their three pistons, "Was that a joke, you fellow outside? It's an uncommonly poor one. How are we to do our work if you fly off the handle that way?"

"I did n't fly off the handle," said the screw, twirling huskily at the end of the screw-shaft. "If I had, you'd have been scrap-iron by this time. The sea dropped away from under me, and I had nothing to catch on to. That's all."