CHAPTER XVI

THE JUNGLE BOOKS--JUST SO STORIES--PUCK OF POOK'S HILL--REWARDS AND FAIRIES--THE BLUE BIRD--PETER PAN--KILMENY

_The Jungle Book_ by Rudyard Kipling was first published as a book in 1894. Some of the stories had appeared in the magazine _St. Nicholas_ before that date. _The Second Jungle Book_ was published in 1895. Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865. It gives one a wonderful, very delightful thrill to take up a book by a new writer, whose name one has never heard before, and after reading a little while, to find oneself convinced that this unknown author has unmistakable genius. Some day you will likely have the pleasure of discovering for yourselves a writer of, perhaps, the first rank. The grand-fathers and grand-mothers or perhaps the fathers and mothers of boys and girls to-day experienced this thrill when they read for the first time one of Kipling's short stories of India.

Rudyard Kipling had been writing nearly ten years, and was a well-known author, before he published _The Jungle Books_, which are his first books for young people. Like some other books for boys and girls, older people are fascinated by them also. Kipling's father, John Lockwood Kipling, was an Englishman in the Indian Civil Service. His mother was the daughter of a {104} Wesleyan minister, whose sons and daughters all have showed distinguished ability. Kipling lived in India when he was a child. While he was still a small boy, he was sent home to school in England. But from his child's recollections of India have come pictures of Indian life, and an understanding and interpretation of the people of that widely-spreading, mysterious country with its swarming population, its plains, mountains, and deep jungles where lions, tigers and many other animals live, which are unparalleled elsewhere in English literature.

Carried safely and swiftly by the magic of Kipling's stories, we may all visit the Indian jungle, hear Shere Khan, the tiger, roar, stand with the Lone Wolf on the Council Rock, learn to know Bagheera, the Black Panther, Baloo, the bear, Hathi, the elephant and many more of the jungle people, as well as Father Wolf, Mother Wolf, and the Pack. The Man cub, the boy Mowgli, is the pattern and epitome of what every boy likes to be, brave, resourceful, loyal, quick to see and hold advantage, staunch in friendship, fond of play, longing to do great deeds, and now and then showing that he is capable. The stories of Mowgli are collected in _The Jungle Book_. In _The Second Jungle Book_ are such stories as Rikki-tikki-tavi, the Mongoose; the White Seal; Toomai of the Elephants; and Her Majesty's Servants, which is a tale of the animals of a military camp. None of us to-day can imagine how any writer could possibly create finer stories of animals than Kipling has written in _The Jungle Books_.

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It is not easy to try to tell how charming and wise are the _Just So Stories_, told in Kipling's book for little people known by that name. Much of the tenderness that fathers and mothers feel for the very youngest, and that you feel for your small brothers and sisters, if you have brothers and sisters younger than you are, shines in these stories. Here, too, you will find laughter, very sweet and merry, and much wise understanding, not only of animals and children, but of the great world and its history. Some of the more noted of the tales in _Just So Stories_ are: How the Camel Got His Hump; How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin; The Elephant's Child; The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo; The Beginning of the Armadillos; and The Cat that Walked by Himself. There are six more stories that perhaps are as wonderful as those which have been named. _Just So Stories_ was published in 1902.

Kipling has written as well two books of stories which reveal to young people in a remarkable way the course and glory of English history. These books could have been written only for one reason, to help and delight Kipling's own children. The books are called _Puck of Pook's Hill_ and _Rewards and Fairies_. Una and Dan are the names of the children who have the adventures told of in these books, and who see far, far back into the past of England. With Pict, Roman, Dane, Saxon, Norman, soldiers, peasants, Jews, priests, Crusaders, squires, dames, knights, down to the time of the great sea captains and Sir Francis Drake, this famous writer unfolds the pageant of English history in an incomparable way for {106} boys and girls belonging to the twentieth century. _Puck of Pook's Hill_ appeared first in 1906; and _Rewards and Fairies_ in 1909.

Not many years ago Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian poet, wrote for every one, old and young, a fairy play called _The Blue Bird_. You may sometimes see the play acted in a theatre, or you may read the scenes and acts of the play in a book. First of all, in the book, come the names of all the characters, and then a description of the costumes in which they are dressed. Tyltyl and Mytyl, a brother and sister, for the sake of a neighbour's child, go away from home into strange, marvellous places, looking for the blue bird, Happiness. Tyltyl wears scarlet knickerbockers, pale-blue jacket, white stockings, tan shoes, which is the way Hop o' My Thumb is dressed. Mytyl is dressed like Little Red Riding-hood. _The Blue Bird_ is a fairy story, a wonderful story, and true, as we say, spiritually. The brother and sister, when they are at home, live in a wood-cutter's cottage. On their travels, they visit the Land of Memory, the Palace of Night, a great forest, the Palace of Happiness, a graveyard, and the Kingdom of the Future. Tylo, the dog, and Tylette, the cat, are two of the most important characters; and in the play, you will meet people called Bread, Sugar, Fire, Water, Milk, and many more familiar to you in everyday life, but not in the same shape. _The Blue Bird_ is a wonderful fairy play. When you read it, you will discover whether or not Tyltyl and Mytyl find the bluebird, Happiness.

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Everyone is likely to have heard of Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up. You may have seen the play, _Peter Pan_, acted on a stage, or you may have read the story in a book. Barrie, who wrote the play, was born in a village in Scotland, called Kirriemuir, in the year 1860. He is a novelist as well as a playwright. His full name is James Matthew Barrie, and because his novels and plays are so pleasing, and whimsical, very many people have a special feeling of love and kindness for Barrie.

_Peter Pan_ is a delightful play; and the story _Peter Pan_ is almost as enjoyable. The three Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael, are taught by Peter Pan how to fly, and they fly away with him to the Never-Never Land. Here are the lost boys, Slightly, Tootles, Nibs and Curly, and the crocodile, Captain Hook and his pirates, mermaids, redskins, and Tinker Bell, the fairy who is devoted to Peter Pan. In the end, the Darling children return to their father and mother. Peter Pan chooses to stay in the Never-Never Land; but once a year, at the time of spring cleaning, Wendy goes back to keep house for him for a little while.

So we learn that fairy stories, very wonderful fairy stories, are still being written to-day as they were long years ago when the world was younger. Beauty, fantasy, and magic belong to us all. The love of these things calls us, as it were, with a very sweet voice, and when we hear that call--often from a book--we recognize it as the spirit of the fairy story. Sometimes the spirit of a fairy tale is caught perfectly and beautifully in {108} a poem. You will find such a poem in the collection known as _The Oxford Book of English Verse_. The name of the poem is "Kilmeny", and the name of the man who wrote it is James Hogg, or, as he is often called, The Ettrick Shepherd. He was a friend of Sir Walter Scott. "Kilmeny" has the same magic that Barrie's plays show so remarkably.

Late, late in gloamin' when all was still, When the fringe was red on the westlin hill, The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane, The reek o' the cot hung over the plain, Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane; When the ingle low'd wi' an eiry leme, Late, late in the gloamin' Kilmeny came hame!

You may not know what some of these words mean. Gloaming is twilight; westlin is western; reek is smoke; its lane means all by itself; ingle is the open fire-place; low'd is flamed; eiry leme is eery gleam.

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PART IV

BALLADS, LAYS AND STORIES IN VERSE

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