The Elephant's Child

Part One · Too Many Questions

Long, long ago, the elephant had no trunk. He had only a little dark nose, about as big as a boot. He could wiggle it from side to side, but he could not pick up anything with it. Not one thing!

In those days there was a young elephant, the Elephant's Child. He was full of questions. He asked questions all day long, and he asked them all night too. He wanted to know everything about everything. He just could not stop.

He asked his tall aunt the Ostrich why her feathers grew just so. He asked his tall uncle the Giraffe why his skin had spots. He asked the Hippo why her eyes were red. Every one of them told him to hush.

Then one fine morning, he asked a brand new question. "What does the Crocodile have for dinner?" Everyone said, "Hush!" in a loud and scary voice. Nobody would tell him. So he went off by himself, feeling very puzzled. He kicked a stone as he went.

He met the Kolokolo Bird sitting in a thorn bush. "What does the Crocodile have for dinner?" he asked. The Kolokolo Bird gave a sad little cry. "Go to the banks of the great gray-green, greasy Limpopo River, and find out."

Part Two · The Big River

So the Elephant's Child packed a hundred bananas, a hundred sugar canes and seventeen melons. He said goodbye to his family. "I am going to the great gray-green, greasy Limpopo River," he said, "to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner."

He walked and walked, eating melons and dropping the rinds, because he could not pick them up. At last he came to the great gray-green, greasy Limpopo River. It was all set about with fever trees, just as the Kolokolo Bird had said.

First he stepped on something that felt like a log. But it was the Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake, curled around a rock. "Have you seen a Crocodile around here?" asked the Elephant's Child. The Snake only yawned and went back to sleep.

Then he stepped on something else that looked like a log. It winked one eye. "Come here, little one," said the log, "and I will whisper it to you." The Elephant's Child bent down his little nose very close. Closer and closer he came.

Snap! The Crocodile caught his little nose in its teeth. "I think," said the Crocodile, "that today I will begin with Elephant's Child!" The Elephant's Child sat back on his legs and pulled. "Led go!" he cried. "You are hurtig be!"

The Elephant's Child pulled, and the Crocodile pulled, and the little nose began to stretch. Then the Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake woke up. He wrapped himself around the Elephant's Child's back legs, and he pulled too. Pull, pull, pull!

Part Three · The New Nose

They pulled and pulled. The nose grew longer and longer. At last the Crocodile let go with a plop that you could hear all up and down the Limpopo. The Elephant's Child sat down hard. "Thank you," he said to the Snake.

His nose was now very, very long. He waited three days for it to shrink, but it never did. Then a fly landed on his shoulder. Without even thinking, he lifted his long nose and swatted it away. "Well!" he said. "That is handy!"

When he was hungry, he picked up grass with his long nose and stuffed it into his mouth. When the sun was hot, he scooped up mud and made himself a cool mud cap. He could pick things up and reach things down. It was the most useful nose in the world.

He went home to his family, and they all came to tease him. But he only laughed and tickled them with his trunk. So, one by one, they all went to the great gray-green, greasy Limpopo River to get new noses too. And that, my dear, is why elephants have trunks today.