The Baboons Who Went This Way and That Read Free Page A

went from the huts to fetch water at the river to water the pumpkins. He did not get as far as the river, though, as what he saw in the fields made him turn straight back. Calling out to his mother, he ran up to her hut and told her what he had seen.

    The woman lost no time in running down to the fields. When she reached the first of the fences she let out a wail of sorrow.
    “Our pumpkins!” she sobbed. “Who has eaten our pumpkins?”
    The other boys and the grandfather were soon in the fields as well. They looked about them and saw that many of the pumpkins had been ripped from their vines and were lying, half-eaten, on the ground. Other pumpkins had been crushed, and the seeds were scattered all over the ground. Every field looked as if it had been a battleground, with the yellow blood of the pumpkins on every stone.
    The whole family set to work in clearing up the broken pumpkins. Then, when this was done, they set to repairing the fences which had been broken by whomever had done the damage. That night, the two elder boys crouched in a bush near the furthest field, waiting to see if anything would come back to wreak further havoc.
    Many hours passed, but at last they heard a sound. They knew immediately what it was that had done so much damage to their crop. Of course, they were too frightened to move, and had to sit in their bush while the great elephants ate as many pumpkins as they could manage and destroyed many more. Then, when the elephants had walked away, the two boys ran to their home and told their weeping mother what they had seen.

    The next day the family discussed what could be done to save their remaining pumpkins.
    “There is nothing we can do,” said the grandfather, who was very old and had seen many times the damage that elephants could do. “When elephants come to a place the only thing that people can do is to move somewhere else.”
    “But we cannot leave this place,” said the mother. “We cannot leave our beautiful fields and the good water in the river.”
    “Then we shall all starve,” said the grandfather. “The elephants will eat all our pumpkins and there shall be none left for us.”
    Nobody spoke for a while. They all knew that what the grandfather had said was probably true. Then the oldest boy stood up.
    “I know of a way to save our pumpkins,” he said. “It is the only way.”
    The other boys looked at him as he spoke. This boy always had the best ideas, but they wondered how even he could deal with such great beasts as elephants.

    “We shall put a boy in a pumpkin,” he said. “We shall hollow out the biggest pumpkin that we can find and we shall put a small boy inside. Then, when the elephants come back to the fields, they will be unable to resist such a good-looking pumpkin. The biggest elephant will eat it, and when the boy is inside the elephant’s stomach he can strike at its heart with his knife. That will surely drive the elephants away.”
    Everybody agreed that this was the best plan that could be suggested.
    “You will have to get insidethe pumpkin,” the oldest boy said to his youngest brother. “You are the smallest.”
    The small boy was unhappy about this plan, but since the whole family had agreed on it, he could not refuse to play his part. While the older boys went off to the fields to look for the biggest pumpkin, the mother made a special meal for her youngest son. Then she covered him with fat and gave him some special charms that she had kept for such a time.
    The other boys came back to the house with the largest pumpkin that the family had seen that year. They set it on a low rock and cut a hole in its side. Then, with wooden scoops and knives, they took out the pumpkin flesh and put it in a cooking pot. Soon the pumpkin was quite hollow and they were able to push the youngest boy inside it.

    It was now getting dark, and so they carried the great pumpkin down to one of the fields and placed it in the middle. No elephant could fail to spot