Children's Omnibus

by Ruskin Bond

  I lowered the trap-door gently, but the python took no notice of me. Grandfather and the gardener put the cage in a tonga and took it across the river-bed. Opening the trap-door, they left the cage in the jungle. When they went away, the python had made no attempt to get out.

  "I didn't have the heart to take the mirror away from him," said Grandfather. "It's the first time I've seen a snake fall in love."

  A HORNBILL CALLED HAROLD

  arold's mother, like all good hornbills, was the most careful of wives; his father, the most easy-going of husbands. In January before the dhak tree burst into flame-red blossom, Harold's father took his wife into a great hole high in the tree trunk, where his father and his father's father had taken their brides at the same time every year. In this weather-beaten hollow, generation upon generation of hornbills had been raised; and Harold's mother, like those before her, was enclosed within the hole by a sturdy wall of earth, sticks and dung.

  Harold's father left a small slit in the centre of this wall, to enable him to communicate with his wife whenever he felt like a chat. Walled up in her uncomfortable room, Harold's mother was a prisoner for over two months. During this period an egg was laid, and Harold was born.

  In his naked boyhood Harold was no beauty. His most prominent feature was his flaming red bill, matching the blossoms of the flame-tree which were now ablaze, heralding the summer. He had a stomach that could never be filled, despite the best efforts of his parents, who brought him pieces of jackfruit and berries from the banyan tree.

  As he grew bigger, the room became more cramped, and one day his mother burst through the wall, spread out her wings and sailed over the tree-tops. Her husband pretended he was glad to see her about, and played with her, expressing his delight with deep gurgles and throaty chuckles. Then they repaired the wall of the nursery, so that Harold would not fall out.

  Harold was quite happy in his cell, and felt no urge for freedom. He was putting on weight and feathers, and acquiring a philosophy of his own. Then something happened to change the course of his life.

  One afternoon he was awakened from his siesta by a loud banging on the wall, a banging quite different from that made by his parents. Soon the wall gave way, and there was something large and red staring at him — not his parents' bills, but Grandfather's sun-burnt face and short red beard.

  In a moment Harold was seized. He roared lustily and struck out with his bill and feet, but to no purpose. Grandfather had him in a bag, and the young hornbill was added to the zoo on our front verandah.

  Harold had a simple outlook, and once he had got over some early attacks of nerves, he began to welcome the approach of strangers. For him, Grandfather and I meant the arrival of food, and he greeted us with craning neck, quivering open bill, and a loud, croaking "Ka-Ka-Kaee!" Grandfather gave him a very roomy cage in a sunny corner of the verandah — a palace compared to the cramped quarters he had grown up in — and a basin of fresh water every day for his bath.

  Harold was not beautiful by Indian standards. He had a small body and a large head. But his nature was friendly, and he stayed on good terms with both my grandparents during his twelve years as a member of the household. He would even tolerate my aunts, to whom most of the other pets in the house usually took a strong dislike.

  Harold's best friends were those who fed him, and he was willing even to share his food with us, sometimes trying to feed me with his great beak. Eating was a serious business for Harold, and if there was any delay at mealtimes he would summon us with raucous barks and vigorous bangs of his bill on the woodwork of his cage.

  He loved bananas and dates and balls of boiled rice. I would throw him the rice-balls, and he would catch them in his beak, toss them into the air, and let them drop into his open mouth. He perfected his trick of catching things, and Grandfather trained him to catch a tennis ball thrown with some force from a distance of fifteen yards. Harold would have made an excellent slip-fielder at cricket.

  Having no family, profession or religion, Harold gave much time and thought to his personal appearance. He carried a rouge-pot on his person, and used it very skilfully as an item of his morning toilet. This rouge-pot was a small gland situated above the roots of his tail feathers; it produced a rich yellow fluid. Harold would dip into his rouge-pot from time to time and then rub the colour over his feathers and the back of his neck. The colour came off on one's hands when one touched Harold. I think his colour had some sort of waterproofing effect because he used his colour-pot most during the rains.

  Harold never drank anything, not even water, in all the years he stayed with Grandfather. Apparently hornbills get all the liquid they need from their solid food.

  Only once did he misbehave. That was when he removed a lighted cigar from the hand of an American friend who was visiting us, and swallowed it. It was a moving experience for Harold, and an unnerving one for our guest. Both had to be given some brandy.

  Though Harold drank no water, he loved the rain. We always knew when it was going to rain, because Harold would start chuckling to himself about one hour before the raindrops fell. This used to irritate my aunts. They were always being caught in the rain. Harold would be chuckling when they left the house; and when they returned drenched to the skin, he would be in fits of laughter.

  As the storm-clouds gathered, and gusts of wind shook the banana trees, Harold would get very excited, and his chuckle would change to an eerie whistle. "Wheee... wheee" he would scream. And then, as the first drops of rain hit the verandah steps, and the scent of the freshened earth passed through the house, he would start roaring again, like a drunk. The wind swept the rain into his spacious cage, and Harold would spread out his wings and dance, tumbling about like a circus clown.

  When the monsoon really set in, he would get used to the rains, and his enthusiasm, like our own, would lessen. But the first few showers were always a wonder to him and we would come out on the verandah to watch him and share in his pleasure.

  I miss Harold's raucous bark, and the banging of his great bill. If there is a heaven for good hornbills, I hope he is getting all the summer showers he could wish for, and plenty of tennis balls to catch.

  A LITTLE WORLD OF MUD

  had never thought there was much to be found in the rainwater pond behind our house except for quantities of mud and the occasional water-buffalo. It was Grandfather who introduced me to the pond's diversity of life, so beautifully arranged that each individual gained some benefit from the well-being of the mass. To the inhabitants of the pond, the pond was the world; and to the inhabitants of the world, commented Grandfather, the world was but a muddy pond.

  When Grandfather first showed me the pond-world, he chose a dry place in the shade of an old peepul tree, where we sat for an hour, gazing steadily at the thin green scum on the water. The buffaloes had not arrived for their afternoon dip, and the surface of the pond was undisturbed.

  For the first ten minutes we saw nothing. Then a small black blob appeared in the middle of the pond. Gradually it rose higher until at last we could make out a frog's head, its big eyes staring hard at us. He did not know if we were friend or enemy, and kept his body out of sight. A heron, his mortal enemy, might have been wading about in search of him. When he had made sure that we were not herons, he passed this information on to his friends and neighbours, and very soon there were a number of big heads and eyes on the surface of the water. Throats swelled, and there began a chorus which went, "wurk, wurk, wurk..."

  In the shallow water near the tree we could see a dark shifting shadow. When we touched it with the end of a stick, the dark mass immediately became alive. Thousands of little black tadpoles wriggled into life, pushing and hustling one another.

  "What do tadpoles eat?" I asked Grandfather.

  "They eat one another much of the time," said Grandfather, who had once kept a few in an aquarium. "It may seem an unpleasant custom, but when you think of the thousands of tadpoles that are hatched, you will realise what a useful system it is.
If all the young tadpoles in this pond became frogs, they would take up every inch of ground between us and the house!"

  "Their croaking would certainly drive Grandmother crazy," I said, to which Grandfather agreed.

  When Grandfather was younger, he had once brought home a number of green tree-frogs. He put them in a glass-jar and left them on a window-sill without telling anyone, anyone at all, of their presence.

  At about four in the morning the entire household was awakened by a loud and fearful noise, and Grandmother and several nervous relatives gathered on the verandah for safety. Their fear turned to anger when they discovered the source of the noise. At the first glimmer of dawn, the frogs had with one accord burst into song. Grandmother wanted to throw the frogs, bottle and all, out of the window, but Grandfather gave the bottle a good shaking, and the frogs stayed quiet. Everyone went to sleep again, but Grandfather was obliged to stay awake in order to shake the bottle whenever the frogs showed signs of bursting into song again.

  Fortunately for all concerned, the next day Aunt Mabel took the top off the bottle to see what was inside. The sight of a dozen green tree-frogs so frightened her that she ran off without replacing the cover, and the frogs jumped out and got loose in the garden and were never seen again.

  Their escape ruined Grandfather's project of using the tree-frogs as barometers. His idea was to place the frogs in tall bottles with wooden ladders. The steps of the ladder would act as degree-marks. The frogs would climb to the top in fine weather, but keep to the bottom of the bottle in bad weather. It was Grandfather's plan to consult his frogs before going out on picnics.

  But to return to my own pond....

  I soon grew into the habit of visiting it on my own, to explore its banks and shallows; and, taking off my shoes, I would wade into the muddy water up to my knees, and pluck the water-lilies off the surface.

  One day, when I reached the pond, I found it already occupied by the buffaloes. Their owner, a boy a little older than I, was swimming about in the middle of the pond. Instead of climbing out on to the bank, he would pull himself up on the back of one of his buffaloes, stretch his naked brown body out on the animal's glistening back, and start singing to himself.

  When the boy saw me staring at him from across the pond, he smiled, showing gleaming white teeth in his dark, sunburned face. He invited me to join him in a swim. I told him I could not swim, and he offered to teach me. He dived off the back of his buffalo and swam across to me. And I, having removed my shirt and shorts, followed his instructions until I was struggling about among the water-lilies.

  The boy's name was Ramu, and he promised to give me swimming lessons every afternoon. And so it was during the afternoons — especially summer afternoons when everyone else was asleep — that we met.

  Very soon I was able to swim across the pond to sit with Ramu astride a contented buffalo, standing like an island in the middle of a muddy ocean. Ramu came from a family of farmers and had as yet received no schooling. But he was well-versed in folk-lore and knew a great deal about birds and animals.

  I liked the buffaloes too. Sometimes we would try racing them, Ramu and I riding on different buffaloes. But they were lazy creatures, and would leave one comfortable spot only to look for another or, if they were in no mood for games, would roll over on their backs, taking us with them into the mud and green scum of the pond. I would often emerge from the pond in shades of green and khaki, then slip into the house through the bathroom, bathing under the tap before getting into my clothes.

  Ramu and I sat on our favourite buffalo and watched a pair of sarus-cranes prancing and capering around each other: tall, stork-like birds with naked red heads and long red legs. They are always very devoted companions, and it is said that if a sarus is killed its mate will haunt the scene for weeks, calling sadly, and sometimes pining away and dying of grief. They are held in great affection by village people, and when caught young, make excellent pets. Though Grandfather did not keep a sarus-crane, he said they were as good as watch-dogs, giving loud trumpet-like calls when they were disturbed.

  "Many birds are sacred," said Ramu, as a blue-jay swooped down from the peepul tree and carried off a grasshopper. He told me that both the blue jay and Lord Shiva were called Nilkanth. Shiva had a blue throat, like the bird, because out of compassion for the human race, He had swallowed a deadly poison meant to destroy the world. Keeping the poison in His throat, He did not let it go down any farther.

  "Are squirrels sacred?" I asked.

  "Lord Krishna loved squirrels," said Ramu. "He would take them in His arms and stroke them with His long fingers. That is why they have four dark lines down their backs from head to tail. Krishna was very dark, and the lines are the marks of His fingers."

  It seemed that both Ramu and Grandfather were of the opinion that we should be more gentle with birds and animals, and not kill so many of them.

  "It is also important that we respect them," said Grandfather. "We must acknowledge their rights on the earth. Everywhere, birds and animals are finding it more difficult to live because we are destroying their forests. They have to keep moving as the trees disappear."

  Ramu and I spent many long summer afternoons at the pond. Only the buffaloes and the frogs and the sarus-cranes knew of our friendship. They had accepted us as part of their own world, their muddy but comfortable pond. And when finally I went away, both they and Ramu must have assumed that I would return like the birds.

  THE BANYAN TREE

  hough the house and grounds belonged to my grandparents, the magnificent old banyan tree was mine — chiefly because Grandfather, at sixty-five, could no longer climb it.

  Its spreading branches, which hung to the ground and took root again, forming a number of twisting passages, gave me endless pleasure. Among them were squirrels and snails and butterflies. The tree was older than the house, older than Grandfather, as old as Dehra Dun itself. I could hide myself in its branches, behind thick green leaves, and spy on the world below.

  My first friend was a small grey squirrel. Arching his back and sniffing into the air, he seemed at first to resent my invasion of his privacy. But when he found that I did not arm myself with catapult or air-gun, he became friendly, and when I started bringing him pieces of cake and biscuit, he grew quite bold and was soon taking morsels from my hand.

  Before long he was delving into my pockets and helping himself to whatever he could find. He was a very young squirrel, and his friends and relatives probably thought him foolish and headstrong for trusting a human.

  In the spring, when the banyan tree was full of small red figs, birds of all kinds would flock into its branches: the red-bottomed bulbul, cheerful and greedy; gossipy rosy-pastors; parrots, mynas and crows squabbling with one another. During the fig season, the banyan tree was the noisiest place in the garden.

  Half-way up the tree I had built a crude platform where I would spend the afternoons when it was not too hot. I could read there, propping myself up against the bole of the tree with a cushion from the living-room. Treasure Island, Huckleberry Finn and The Story of Dr. Dolittle were some of the books that made up my banyan tree library.

  When I did not feel like reading, I could look down through the leaves at the world below. And on one particular afternoon I had a grand-stand view of that classic of the Indian wilds, a fight between a mongoose and a cobra. And this one had not been staged for my benefit!

  The warm breezes of approaching summer had sent everyone, including the gardener, into the house. I was feeling drowsy myself, wondering if I should go to the pond and have a swim with Ramu and the buffaloes, when I saw a huge black cobra gliding out of a clump of cactus. At the same time a mongoose emerged from the bushes and went straight for the cobra.

  In a clearing beneath the banyan tree, in bright sunshine, they came face to face.

  The cobra knew only too well that the grey mongoose, three feet long, was a superb fighter, clever and aggressive. But the cobra, too, was a skilful and experienced fig
hter. He could move swiftly and strike with the speed of light; and the sacks behind his long sharp fangs were full of deadly poison.

  It was to be a battle of champions.

  Hissing defiance, his forked tongue darting in and out, the cobra raised three of his six feet off the ground, and spread his broad, spectacled hood. The mongoose bushed his tail. The long hair on his spine stood up.

  Though the combatants were unaware of my presence in the tree, they were soon made aware of the arrival of two other spectators. One was a myna, the other a jungle crow. They had seen these preparations for battle, and had settled on the cactus to watch the outcome. Had they been content only to watch, all would have been well with both of them.

  The cobra stood on the defensive, swaying slowly from side to side, trying to mesmerise the mongoose into making a false move. But the mongoose knew the power of his opponent's glassy, unwinking eyes, and refused to meet them. Instead he fixed his gaze at a point just below the cobra's hood, and opened the attack.

  Moving forward quickly until he was just within the cobra's reach, the mongoose made a pretended move to one side. Immediately the cobra struck. His great hood came down so swiftly that I thought nothing could save the mongoose. But the little fellow jumped neatly to one side, and darted in as swiftly as the cobra, biting the snake on the back and darting away again out of reach.

  At the same moment that the cobra struck, the crow and the myna hurled themselves at him, only to collide heavily in mid-air. Shrieking insults at each other, they returned to the cactus plant.

  A few drops of blood glistened on the cobra's back.

  The cobra struck again and missed. Again the mongoose sprang aside, jumped in and bit. Again, the birds dived at the snake, bumped into each other instead, and returned shrieking to the safety of the cactus.