Just So Stories for Little Children / Просто сказки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

By and by they found Painted Jaguar, still nursing his paddy-paw that had been hurt the night before. He was so astonished that he fell three times backward over his own painted tail without stopping.

‘Good morning!’ said Stickly-Prickly. ‘And how is your dear gracious Mummy this morning?’

‘She is quite well, thank you,’ said Painted Jaguar; ‘but you must forgive me if I do not at this precise moment recall your name.’

‘That’s unkind of you,’ said Stickly-Prickly, ‘seeing that this time yesterday you tried to scoop me out of my shell with your paw.’

‘But you hadn’t any shell. It was all prickles,’ said Painted Jaguar. ‘I know it was. Just look at my paw!’

‘You told me to drop into the turbid Amazon and be drowned,’ said Slow-and-Solid. ‘Why are you so rude and forgetful today?’

‘Don’t you remember what your mother told you?’ said Stickly-Prickly, —

‘Can’t curl, but can swim —
Stickly-Prickly, that’s him!
Curls up, but can’t swim —
Slow-Solid, that’s him!’

Then they both curled themselves up and rolled round and round Painted Jaguar till his eyes turned truly cart-wheels in his head[174].

Then he went to fetch his mother.

‘Mother,’ he said, ‘there are two new animals in the woods today, and the one that you said couldn’t swim, swims, and the one that you said couldn’t curl up, curls; they’ve gone shares in their prickles, I think, because both of them are scaly all over, instead of one being smooth and the other very prickly; and, besides that, they are rolling round and round in circles, and I don’t feel comfy[175].’

‘Son, son!’ said Mother Jaguar ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, ‘a Hedgehog is a Hedgehog, and can’t be anything but a Hedgehog; and a Tortoise is a Tortoise, and can never be anything else.’

‘But it isn’t a Hedgehog, and it isn’t a Tortoise. It’s a little bit of both, and I don’t know its proper name.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Mother Jaguar. ‘Everything has its proper name. I should call it “Armadillo” till I found out the real one. And I should leave it alone.’

So Painted Jaguar did as he was told, especially about leaving them alone; but the curious thing is that from day to this, O Best Beloved, no one on the banks of the turbid Amazon has ever called Stickly-Prickly and Slow-and-Solid anything except Armadillo. There are Hedgehogs and Tortoises in other places, of course (there are some in my garden); but the real old and clever kind, with their scales lying lipperty-lapperty one over the other, like pine-cone scales, that lived on the banks of Days, are always called Armadilloes, because they were so clever.

So that’s all right, Best Beloved. Do you see?

I’ve never sailed[176]

the Amazon,I’ve never reached Brazil;
But the Don and Magdalena,
They can go there when they will!

Yes, weekly from Southampton,

Great steamers[177], white and gold,
Go rolling down to Rio
(Roll down – roll down to Rio!)
And I’d like to roll to Rio
Some day before I’m old!

I’ve never seen a Jaguar,

Nor yet an Armadill —
O dilloing in his armour[178],
And I s’pose I never will,

Unless I go to Rio

These wonders to behold —
Roll down – roll down to Rio —
Roll really down to Rio!
Oh, I’d love to roll to Rio
Some day before I’m old!

Questions and tasks

1. According to Mother Jaguar’s words what did Painted Jaguar have to do when he found a Hedgehog and a Tortoise? Did he do everything quite right?

2. Why did Painted Jaguar hurt his paw? Was it his fault? Why?

3. What were Mother Jaguar and Painted Jaguar talking about when Tortoise and Hedgehog overheard them? What did they do after this conversation?

4. What was the mistake of Painted Jaguar in your opinion?

5. Who called the Tortoise and the Hedgehog “Armadillo”? Why?

6. Imagine the person that has never seen a dog. How can you explain that the dog is a dog? Make up a dialogue between this person and you.

How the First Letter Was Written