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“If I could only get at him!” said the otter. “But I am too small.”
“All in good time,” answered the orang-outang. “We shall be even with him yet.”
TWO-LEGS KILLS
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The sun was scorching and the ground was shockingly dry.
The trees and bushes hung their leaves and the grass was parched and yellow, so that the ox could hardly find a green tuft to eat. The water in the river was so low that the fish swam along the bottom; and the brook had stopped running altogether. The animals lay in the shade and gasped for breath. In many places, both flowers and animals had died. Two-Legs and his wife and child were not much better off.
The only one who was really happy was the snake. He stretched himself in the sun and thought it delightful:
“Shine away, you dear sun,” he said. “The hotter the better. I am only just beginning to feel alive.”
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But one day the rain came.
It was not the sort of rain against which you can just put up an umbrella or take shelter in a doorway and wait until it stops. It poured down from the clouds till you could not see your hand before your face and it rained day after day as if it would never end. It rattled and pattered and clattered on the dry leaves so that you could not hear a sound. The river flowed again and the brook woke from its trance and sang as it had never sung before. The whole earth was like a thirsty mouth that drank and drank and could never quench its thirst.