A Story A Panther Told Me

                                                               By Luther Slifer, Jr.

Rudyard Kipling was an English writer who was born in Bombay, India. He wrote many stories and books about India. Some of the books he wrote were about animals. He wrote The Jungle Book about Mowgli, an Indian boy, who lived with wild animals and learned to talk with them. He also wrote The Just-So Stories about how things happened, for example, “How the Leopard Got Its Spots.” I was born in India, too. I never learned to talk with all the animals like Mowgli did, but I did learn to speak Panther. This story is one a panther told me about the lion. 

One morning as the lion was beginning to wake up, he heard a rustling in the leaves that he was lying on. He stretched, reached down into the leaves, and pulled out a mouse. Seeing how tiny the mouse was made the lion think: “I could be king of the jungle!” So he asked the mouse, “Who’s king of the jungle?” The mouse squeaked, “You are.” The lion said, “That’s right,” and let the mouse go to hide in the leaves again. 

The lion walked down the jungle path and came across a rabbit. He caught it and asked, “Who’s king of the jungle?” The rabbit looked at him nervously and softly said, “You are.” The lion said, “You’re right,” and let the rabbit go. The rabbit hopped off into the jungle as quickly as he could. The lion went on down the jungle path. He saw a snake and caught it with his paw just behind the snake’s head. He asked, “Am I king of the jungle?” The snake hissed, “Yessss Ssssir.” Feeling pretty good about himself, the lion let the snake go. The snake slithered away into his hole in the ground. 

Further down the jungle path, the lion saw a leopard. He stopped him and sternly asked, “Am I the king of the jungle?” The leopard saw how much bigger the lion was than he was and half purred and half growled, “Surre you arre,” The lion waved him away and went on till he came to a clearing. There he saw an elephant. He went over to him and gruffly asked, “Who’s king of the jungle?” The elephant looked him over for a while, and then reached under the lion’s chest with his trunk, picked him up about eight feet in the air, turned him over and slammed him down on the ground. The lion scrambled to his feet and ran back to the edge of the jungle. There he turned around, and trying to save face and pretend he wasn’t hurt, he said, “You don’t have to get mad just because you don’t know the answer.” 

Then, afraid the elephant might charge, he ran into the jungle and kept on running across India, across Afghanistan, across Iran, across Arabia and down into Africa. There he felt it was safe to stop running. And that’s why there are no lions in India, except of course in circuses, zoos and wild animal parks.