The Kipling Reader: Selections from the Books of Rudyard KiplingKipling, Rudyard
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The Kipling Reader: Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling
Kipling, Rudyard
Animals -- Fiction; English poetry; India -- Social life and customs -- Literary collections; Readers; Short stories, English
There was a clamour of scores of voices, saying: 'What matter? He
will die in the winter rains. He will scorch in the sun. What harm
can a naked frog do us? Let him run with the Pack. Where is the bull,
Bagheera? Let him be accepted.' And then came Akela's deep bay,
crying: Look well--look well, O Wolves!'
Mowgli was still deeply interested in the pebbles, and he did not
notice when the wolves came and looked at him one by one. At last
they all went down the hill for the dead bull, and only Akela,
Bagheera, Baloo, and Mowgli's own wolves were left. Shere Khan roared
still in the night, for he was very angry that Mowgli had not been
handed over to him.
'Ay, roar well,' said Bagheera, under his whiskers; 'for the time
comes when this naked thing will make thee roar to another tune, or I
know nothing of man.'
'It was well done,' said Akela. 'Men and their cubs are very wise. He
may be a help in time.'
'Truly, a help in time of need; for none can hope to lead the Pack
for ever,' said Bagheera.
Akela said nothing. He was thinking of the time that comes to every
leader of every pack when his strength goes from him and he gets
feebler and feebler, till at last he is killed by the wolves and a
new leader comes up--to be killed in his turn.
'Take him away,' he said to Father Wolf, 'and train him as befits one
of the Free People.'
And that is how Mowgli was entered into the Seeonee wolf-pack for the
price of a bull and on Baloo's good word.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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