The Leopards I Wonder if I ll Ever See You Again
How the Leopard Got His Spots
past Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling's Only So Stories (1902) offer young readers the opportunity to identify literary devices similar anthropomorphism and explore the characteristics of what makes a "tall tale" somewhat believable.
In the days when everybody started off-white, Best Dearest, the Leopard lived in a place called the High Veldt. 'Member it wasn't the Depression Veldt, or the Bush Veldt, or the Sour Veldt, but the 'sclusively bare, hot, shiny Loftier Veldt, where there was sand and sandy-coloured rock and 'sclusively tufts of sandy-yellowish grass. The Giraffe and the Zebra and the Eland and the Koodoo and the Hartebeest lived at that place; and they were 'sclusively sandy-yellowish-dark-brown all over; only the Leopard, he was the 'sclusivist sandiest-xanthous-brownest of them all a greyish-yellowish catty-shaped kind of beast, and he matched the Veldt to one hair. This was very bad for the Giraffe and the Zebra and the rest of them; for he would prevarication downwardly by a 'sclusively yellowish-greyish-brownish stone or clump of grass, and when the Giraffe or the Zebra or the Eland or the Koodoo or the Bush-Buck or the Bonte-Buck came past he would surprise them out of their jumpsome lives. He would indeed! And, also, there was an Ethiopian with bows and arrows (a 'sclusively greyish-brown-xanthous human he was then), who lived on the Loftier Veldt with the Leopard; and the two used to hunt together the Ethiopian with his bows and arrows, and the Leopard 'sclusively with his teeth and claws till the giraffe and the Eland and the Koodoo and the Quagga and all the rest of them didn't know which way to jump, Best Beloved. They didn't indeed!
Afterward a long fourth dimension things lived for ever so long in those days they learned to avoid anything that looked like a Leopard or an Ethiopian; and chip by bit the Giraffe began information technology, because his legs were the longest they went away from the High Veldt. They scuttled for days and days till they came to a bully woods, 'sclusively total of copse and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-blatchy shadows, and at that place they hid: and subsequently another long fourth dimension, what with standing one-half in the shade and one-half out of it, and what with the slippery-slidy shadows of the trees falling on them, the Giraffe grew blotchy, and the Zebra grew stripy, and the Eland and the Koodoo grew darker, with niggling wavy grey lines on their backs similar bark on a tree torso; so, though you could hear them and smell them, you could very seldom see them, then only when you knew precisely where to look. They had a cute time in the 'sclusively speckly-spickly shadows of the woods, while the Leopard and the Ethiopian ran nearly over the 'sclusively greyish-yellow-reddish High Veldt exterior, wondering where all their breakfasts and their dinners and their teas had gone. At last they were so hungry that they ate rats and beetles and stone-rabbits, the Leopard and the Ethipian, then they met Baviaan the dog-headed, barking Baboon, who is Quite the Wisest Animal in All South Africa.
Said Leopard to Baviaan (and it was a very hot day), "Where has all the game gone?"
And Baviaan winked. He knew.
Said the Ethiopian to Baviaan, "Can you tell me the nowadays habitat of the aboriginal Animal?" (That meant just the same thing, but the Ethiopian always used long words. He was a grown-up.)
And Baviaan winked. He knew.
Then said Baviaan, "The game has gone into other spots; and my advice to you lot, Leopard, is to go into other spots as presently as you can."
And the Ethiopian said, "That is all very fine, but I wish to know whither the aboriginal Beast has migrated."
So said Baviaan, "The aboriginal Animate being has joined the aboriginal Flora because it was high fourth dimension for a change; and my advice to you, Ethiopian, is to modify every bit shortly every bit you lot can."
That puzzled the Leopard and the Ethiopian, but they set off to await for the aboriginal Flora, and soon, after ever so many days, they saw a great, high, tall forest full of tree trunks all 'sclusively speckled and sprottled and spottled, dotted and splashed and slashed and hatched and cantankerous-hatched with shadows. (Say that chop-chop aloud, and you will see how very shadowy the forest must have been.)
"What is this," said the Leopard, "that is and then 'sclusively dark, and all the same then full of little pieces of light?"
"I don't know," said the Ethiopian, "just information technology ought to exist the aboriginal Flora. I can smell Giraffe, and I tin can hear Giraffe, merely I can't see Giraffe."
"That's curious," said Leopard. "I suppose it is considering we have simply come in out of the sunshine. I can smell Zebra, and I tin hear Zebra, only I can't see Zebra."
"Wait a bit," said the Ethiopian. "It's a long time since nosotros've hunted 'em. Maybe nosotros've forgotten what they were like."
"Fiddle!" said the Leopard. "I remember them perfectly on the High Veldt, especially their marrow bones. Giraffe is near seventeen feet high, of a 'sclusively fulvous gilt-yellow from head to heel; and Zebra is virtually iv and a half feet loftier, of a 'sclusively grey-fawn colour from head to heel."
"Ummm," said the Ethiopian, looking into the speckly-spickly shadows of the ancient Flora-woods. "Then they ought to evidence up in this nighttime identify like ripe bananas in a smokehouse."
But they didn't. The Leopard and the Ethiopian hunted all day; and though they could odor them and hear them, they never saw one of them.
For goodness sake," said the Leopard at tea-time, "permit the states wait till it gets nighttime. This daylight hunting is a perfect scandal."
So they waited till dark, and then the Leopard heard something animate sniffily in the starlight that fell all stripy through the branches, and he jumped at the noise, and it smelt like Zebra, and it felt like Zebra, and when he knocked it down it kicked similar Zebra, but he couldn't see information technology. So he said, "Be quiet, O you person without whatsoever form. I am going to sit on your head till morning, because in that location is something near yous that I don't empathise."
Shortly he heard a grunt and a crash and a scramble, and the Ethiopian called out, "I've caught a thing that I can't see. Information technology smells similar Giraffe, and it kicks like Giraffe, but it hasn't whatever grade."
"Don't y'all trust it," said the Leopard. "Sit down on its head till the morn aforementioned as me. They haven't whatever course whatever of 'em."
And so they sat downwards on them hard till brilliant morning-time, and then Leopard said, "What take yous at your finish of the table, Brother?"
The Ethiopian scratched his head and said, "Information technology ought to be 'sclusively a rich fulvous orange-tawny from head to heel, and it ought to be Giraffe; but it is covered all over with chesnut blotches. What have you at your cease of the tabular array, Blood brother?"
And the Leopard scratched his caput and said, "It ought to exist 'sclusively a delicate greyish-fawn, and information technology ought to be Zebra; but it is covered all over with black and purple stripes. What in the globe accept you lot been doing to yourself, Zebra? Don't you know that if you were on the High Veldt I could come across yous 10 miles off? You oasis't any form."
"Yes," said the Zebra, "simply this isn't the High Veldt. Can't you meet?"
"I can now," said the Leopard. "But I couldn't all yesterday. How is it done?"
"Let us upward," said the Zebra, "and we will show you lot."
They let the Zebra and the Giraffe get up; and Zebra moved away to some niggling thorn-bushes where the sunlight savage all stripy, and Giraffe moved off to some tallish trees where the shadows fell all blotchy.
"At present watch," said the Zebra and the Giraffe. "this is the way information technology's done. One two three! And where's your breakfast?"
Leopard stared, and Ethiopian stared, but all they could meet were stripy shadows and blotched shadows in the woods, only never a sign of Zebra and Giraffe. They had just walked off and hidden themselves in the shadowy forest.
"Hi! Hi!" said the Ethiopian. "That'south a pull a fast one on worth learning. Have a lesson by it, Leopard. You evidence upward in this nighttime identify like a bar of soap in a coal-scuttle."
"Ho! Ho!" said the Leopard. "Would it surprise you lot very much to know that you bear witness upward in this dark place like a mustard-plaster on a sack of coals?"
"Well, calling names won't take hold of dinner," said the Ethiopian. "The long and the little of it is that we don't match our backgrounds. I'thousand going to take Baviaan's communication. He told me I ought to change; and as I've nothing to change except my skin I'm going to alter that."
"What to?" said the Leopard, tremendously excited.
"To a squeamish working blackish-chocolate-brown colour, with a little royal in information technology, and touches of slaty-blue. Information technology will be the very thing for hiding in hollows and behind trees."
So he changed his skin then and there, and the Leopard was more than excited than ever; he had never seen a homo change his skin before.
"But what about me?" he said, when the Ethiopian had worked his final little finger into his fine new black skin.
"You accept Baviaan'south advice too. He told y'all to get into spots."
"Then I did," said the Leopard. "I went into other spots as fast as I could. I went into this spot with you lot, and a lot of good it has done me."
"Oh," said the Ethiopian, "Baviaan didn't mean spots in South Africa. He meant spots on your skin."
"What's the use of that?" said the Leopard.
"Recall of Giraffe," said the Ethiopian, "or if you prefer stripes, think of Zebra. They detect their spots and stripes give them perfect satisfaction."
"Umm," said the Leopard. "I wouldn't expect like Zebra not for always so."
"Well, make upwardly your heed," said the Ethiopian, "because I'd detest to become hunting without yous, but I must if you insist on looking like a sun-flower against a tarred fence."
"I'll take spots, so," said the Leopard; "only don't make 'em too vulgar-big. I wouldn't expect like giraffe not for always then."
I'll make 'em with the tips of my fingers," said the Ethiopian. "There'southward plenty of black left on my skin still. Stand over!"
So the Ethiopian put his five fingers close together (there was enough of black left on his new skin still) and pressed them all over the Leopard, and wherever the v fingers touched they left 5 little black marks, all close together. You can see them on any Leopard's skin you similar, All-time Honey. Sometimes the fingers slipped and the marks got a lilliputian blurred; just if you await closely at any Leopard now you lot will see that there are e'er five spots off five fat black finger-tips.
"At present you are a beauty!" said the Ethiopian. "Y'all can lie out on the bare ground and look like a heap of pebbles. You lot tin can lie out on the naked rocks and look like a piece of pudding-stone. You can prevarication out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie correct across the centre of a path and look similar nothing in detail. Think of that and purr!"
"But if I'm all this," said the Leopard, "why didn't yous go spotty too?"
"Oh, plain black'south best," said the Ethiopian. "Now come along and nosotros'll meet if we can't get even with Mr. One-Two-Three-Where'due south-your-Breakfast!"
So they went abroad and lived happily e'er afterward, Best Beloved. That is all.
Oh, at present and so you lot will hear grown-ups say, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots?" I don't recall even grown-ups would go along on maxim such a featherbrained thing if the Leopard and the Ethiopian hadn't done it once do you? But they will never do information technology once more, Best Beloved. They are quite contented equally they are.
I am the Most Wise Baviaan, maxim in Nearly wise tones, "Let u.s. cook into the mural, just the states ii by our lones." Peoplehavecome, inacarriage, calling. Only Mummy is at that place.... Aye, I can go if you take me— Nurse says she don't care. Let'southward go upwardly to the hog-styes and sit on the farmyard rails! Let's say things to the bunnies, and sentry 'em skitter their tails! Permit's'-oh, annihilation, daddy, and then long every bit it'southward y'all and me, And going truly exploring, and not being in till tea! Hither's your boots (I've brought 'em), and hither'due south your cap and stick, And here'due south your pipe and tobacco. Oh, come along out of it, quick!
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Source: https://americanliterature.com/author/rudyard-kipling/short-story/how-the-leopard-got-his-spots
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