I'm currently listening to the excellent novel, "Captains Courageous" by Rudyard Kipling. I wish I'd found it much earlier in life, for I would have inflicted it on our sons as well. It's the story of a soft, wealthy boy learning to be a man. It's wonderful.
Somewhere, I learned that Kipling had written an autobiography called, "Something of Myself." You can find it on a Project Gutenberg site, linked here. Although I'm a bit of a bibliophile, I did something I'd never done before and sought out a first edition to purchase. It arrived a few days ago.
Kipling grew up in India and I'm only just started, so the book is still dealing with his childhood.
The book is thoroughly him. This little vignette made me laugh.
Enjoy.
Far across green spaces round the house was a marvellous place filled with smells of paints and oils, and lumps of clay with which I played. That was the atelier of my Father's School of Art, and a Mr. 'Terry Sahib' his assistant, to whom my small sister was devoted, was our great friend.
Once, on the way there alone, I passed the edge of a huge ravine a foot deep, where a winged monster as big as myself attacked me, and I fled and wept. My Father drew for me a picture of the tragedy with a rhyme beneath:--
There was a small boy in Bombay
Who once from a hen ran away.
When they said: 'You're a baby,'
He replied: 'Well, I may be:
But I don't like these hens of Bombay.'
This consoled me. I have thought well of hens ever since.
Sublime.
You know, whoever came up with the idea that calling someone "chicken" was equivalent to calling them a coward, had obviously never dealt much with chickens. If they feel they have something to defend, they fear nothing. A hen with chicks, or a rooster with some hens, will go for your eyes at a moment's notice, no matter how big you might be. My daughter's chickens assault people pretty regularly.
ReplyDeleteYoung Kipling was absolutely correct to run away from those "hens of Bombay"