"'The night after I brought Brud and Sister back from the ranch I lay awake for hours, trying to think what to do next to find the vulnerable spot in my kleinen teufel. I couldn't think of a thing, but decided to begin telling them Kipling's jungle stories instead of any more fairy-tales, and to try Mrs. Barnaby's suggestion of making them responsible for their own entertainment part of the time.'
"Oh, this isn't the one I thought," exclaimed Joyce. "It goes on to tell about the last news from Holland, instead of the children. Here is the one I wanted, written two weeks later:
"'Hail, Columbia, happy land! I've found the "open sesame," thanks to Kipling, and in a way I little expected. The children showed a breathless interest in the Jungle stories from the start, and began dramatizing them of their own accord. They have thrown themselves into the play with a zest which nothing of my proposing has ever called out. For two weeks I have been old Baloo, the Brown Bear, and Father Wolf by turns. There are two little hairless man-cubs in our version, however, for a Mowglina divides honors with Mowgli. Sister says she has chosen the name of Mowglina "for keeps," and I sincerely hope she has, if what Mr. Sammy Bradford said about names having a moral effect on her is true.
"'We have our Council Rock up on the high hill back of St. Peter's, where Meliss sometimes plays the part of the Black Panther. We no longer greet each other with "Good morning." It is "Good Hunting" now, and when we part, it is with the benediction, "Jungle favor go with thee!" You remember Baloo taught the wood and water laws to Mowgli, how to tell a rotten branch from a sound one, how to speak politely to the wild bees when he came upon a hive of them, etc. But more than all he taught the Master Words of the Jungle, that turned every bird, beast and snake into a friend. It is simply amazing to me the way they seemed to be charmed by that idea, and it is strange that such utterly lawless children should be not only willing but eager to abide by the rules laid down for animals. It does my soul good to hear Brud, who has never obeyed anyone, gravely declaim:
"'"Now these are the laws of the Jungle,
And many and mighty are they,
But the head and the hoof of the law
And the haunch and the hump is—obey!"
"'Or to hear saucy little Sister in the rôle of Mowglina, repeating Kaa's words to Uncle August, "A brave heart and a courteous tongue, they will carry thee far through the Jungle, manling."
"'It was Uncle August, bless his old brown body, who helped me to make my first personal application of the play. I had just heard of their latest prank down-town. (Sad to say, the more angelic they are as little wolves, the more annoying they are when they return to the Man-pack.) They had dropped a live garter snake, a good-sized one, through the slit of the package box, and the postmistress had picked it up with a bundle of newspapers. She was so frightened that she yelled like a Comanche, and then had a nervous chill that lasted for a quarter of an hour. That same day they filled all the keyholes of the private letterboxes with chewing-gum, as far up as they could reach, and everybody who had to stop to pry it out was so cross.
"'I didn't say anything to them about it till after they had told me about Uncle August's chasing the calves out of Mrs. Williams' garden, and how she had petted and praised him for it. We talked a few minutes about the way Uncle August is beloved by everybody who knows him, and how even strangers on the street stop to pat his head or say something kind about him.
"'"It's because he keeps every Law of the Jungle, for dogs," I told them, and then I said, quite mercilessly, "but the whole town looks on you two children as Banderlogs! Mere, senseless monkey-folks, outcasts who have no leaders and no laws!" Really, it hurt them dreadfully and I felt almost cruel for saying it. I could see that the shot told when I reminded them how they had been turned out of the hotel and chased out of every store in town. I told them that people said ugly things about them behind their backs, just as Kaa and Baloo did about the silly gray Apes who threw dirt and sticks and made mischief wherever they went.
"'That was the climax. They both threw themselves across my lap and began to cry, protesting that they were not Banderlogs. They didn't want people to call them that. I think my good angel must have inspired me to make the little sermon that I gave them then, for I certainly had never thought of the analogy before—how the same thing that is true in the Jungle holds good in the Man-world; that we must learn the Master Words for each person we meet, so that every heart will understand when we call out, "We be of one blood, ye and I." That just as the elephants and kites and snakes became friendly to Mowgli as soon as he learned the Master Words of their speech, so Miss Edna and the postmistress and old Mr. Sammy would be friendly to them, when they showed that they not only had brave hearts, which scorned to play little, mean, silly tricks, but courteous tongues as well.