WHAT OLIVER ELEPHANT CAUGHT

By Ruth Plumly Thompson
Author of Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, "The Wizard of Pumperdink," "King, King! Double King!" etc.

Originally published in the Pittsburg Press, March 14, 1915.

 

 

In the first place, it was Saturday. If it hadn’t been Saturday, Oliver Elephant would have been in school. In the second place, Oliver Elephant’s mother had gone visiting! If Oliver Elephant’s mother hadn’t gone visiting, Oliver Elephant would never have gone fishing. “For,” as Mother Elephant often remarked, “there were a good many things besides fish in the jungle river!” and that Oliver was to keep away from there. “But I’m plenty big enough to take care of myself,” said Oliver Elephant as he marched along with his father’s best fishing rod in his trunk! and he tried to forget that his mother had told him NOT to go alone to the river. And you may think it strange for anybody to go fishing because it is so cold and snowy here, but you must remember that in Oliver Elephant’s country there never is any snow. Indeed, he grew so warm walking through the jungle that he had to take off his coat—think of it!

He was so busy thinking of the zwillycumzwoos (which are a sort of jungle fish, my dears) that he did not think of his coat at all, and pretty soon he had lost it. A beggar monkey saw the coat fall and when Oliver had passed by, he took it home to his wife, who made a dress for each of the babies out of the sleeves, a vest for her husband out of the back, and a jacket for herself out of the rest. Oliver Elephant never even missed it. He walked on and on, and pretty soon had come to the river itself. He sat down on a fallen tree, threw his line into the water and waited for the fishes to bite.

He waited—and waited—and WAITED! but no fishes came, and the longer he waited the sleepier he grew. Sleepier and SLEEPIER, and the old river sang such a drowsy song that first thing you know he had fallen fast asleep. And who do you suppose came along just about then? Why, Tabora Crocodile, and he grinned and chuckled till every tooth in his head showed. ’Cause he hadn’t forgotten how Oliver had pulled his tooth. And he hadn’t forgotten how it hurt—and Oliver had run home and talked to him from the upper window. Here was HIS chance and Tabora flopped himself into the river with a TREMENDOUS splash.

Oliver Elephant went on dreaming and dreaming, till all at once his line gave a little jerk, then another, and as Oliver had hold of it with his trunk the jerks pulled his head forward and wakened him up! “A fish!” cried Oliver Elephant, holding on with all his might and main and his trunk! “A fish!” The fish pulled harder and harder. ZIP—out flew the line! Oliver scrambled to his feet. “It MUST be a whopper! It must be a—” The next instant Oliver Elephant whizzed through the air (yes, really), struck the water with the awfullest smack—then disappeared altogether and entirely! A fish that could pull an elephant into the water—why—what kind of a fish could that be? I’ll tell you! It wasn’t a fish at all! It was Tabora Crocodile! And he dragged Oliver Elephant through all the mud at the bottom of the river, and bumped him on the bottom of the river, and bumped him on all the stones, and I don’t know what would have happened if Oliver hadn’t at last thought of letting go of the fishing rod.

I don’t know how he ever pulled himself up the bank, but somehow he managed, and all full of bruises and bumps and mud, with his ears and trunk full of bitter river water, without his coat or his father’s fishing rod he set off for home, while that rogue, Tabora Crodocile, sat on the bank and crunched the fishing rod to bits. The rest of the story is very unpleasant—for, though Oliver did not catch any fish, he DID catch two other things. The first was a terrible cold in his trunk, and the second—well, I’d rather not tell you about that. It happened when Father Elephant came home. I’m sorry about it! But he should have minded his mother!

Originally published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, November 3, 1918.

Supposyville’s Court Cross-Examiners

Across from the castle,
Just where the roads meet,
Lives the Court Cross-Examiner,
Jeremy Sweet.

Quite right he should live
At the Crossroads, you know,
And he calls his quaint cottage
The Cherry Cross Bow.

And the Cherry Cross Bow,
With its flowers and vines,
With its red-tiled roof top
And its Christmasy pines,

Is a duck of a spot.
As for Jeremy Sweet,
He’s the gayest dear fellow
One ever did meet.

Yet, on his broad shoulders
All the responsibility
For preserving Supposyville’s
Nerves and tranquillity

Rests, and each day on his
White old plump horse
He canters cross country
To hunt down each source

Of crossness—that’s why
In the whole realm there’s not
A single cross person,
Cross patch or cross spot.

When he sees signs of crossness,
He orders vacations
Or puts all the household
On Thanksgiving rations!

His pockets are wonders
And full of small toys
And caramel cookies
For good girls and boys.

And he keeps a big book
Where he likes to display
Names of people who never
Are cross, so they say.

“No one should be cross.
If they are there’s a reason
To be found and removed
At the earliest season,”

Says Jeremy Sweet,
And he works with such care
That, as I have said.
Not a cross person’s there.

There’s places, I know,
Where this Jeremy’s needed.
Then we’d get a whole lot
Of our cross patches weeded!

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