--- title: Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 5: The Elephant's Child, part 2 (the tug-of-war and the trunk) — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 5: The Elephant's Child, part 2 (the tug-of-war and the trunk)», a lesson of the books course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The Snake wraps himself round the Elephant's Child's back legs and pulls t --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/) / Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 5:… # Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 5: The Elephant's Child, part 2 (the tug-of-war and the trunk) Lesson 80 of the books course of Mova's primary school: 22 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/1/) — The Snake wraps himself round the Elephant's Child's back legs and pulls too, and at last the Crocodile lets go with a "plop" heard all along the Limpopo; the Elephant's Child says thank you and cools his sore nose in the river, waiting for it to shrink. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/2/) — It never shrinks: it has become a real trunk, and soon he finds it can swat flies, pull up grass and slap cool mud on his head, three "'Vantages" the Snake points out. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/3/) — He walks home happy, using his trunk for everything and even picking up the melon rind he dropped, but at home he spanks his whole family back, until they all rush off to the Crocodile to get trunks of their own, and after that nobody spanks anybody. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/4/) — The poem after the story praises questions: Kipling's "six honest serving-men" are What, Where, When, How, Why and Who, and a small curious child keeps millions of them busy. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/5/) — The Python told him to "pull as hard as ever you can" or the Crocodile, "your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster", would jerk him into the river "before you can say Jack Robinson" (very quickly); an "ulster" is a long overcoat. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/6/) — The Elephant's Child "sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch", while the Crocodile "threshed his tail like an oar"; "and it hurt him hijjus!" (hideously, terribly). - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/7/) — His nose became "nearly five feet long", and he said "This is too butch for be!" (This is too much for me!). - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/8/) — The Snake "knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch" (a sailor's knot) round his hind legs, calling the Crocodile a "self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck" (a warship with armour on top), "That is the way all Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk." - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/9/) — "At last the Crocodile let go of the Elephant's Child's nose with a plop that you could hear all up and down the Limpopo." - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/10/) — He first said "Thank you" to the Snake, then wrapped his nose in cool banana leaves and hung it in the river; the Snake said "Some people do not know what is good for them." - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/11/) — He waited three days for it to shrink, but "it never grew any shorter, and, besides, it made him squint"; it was "a really truly trunk same as all Elephants have to-day". - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/12/) — "'Vantage" is short for "advantage" (a good point): one, he swatted a fly dead; two, he plucked grass, dusted it clean against his fore-legs and ate it; three, he "schlooped up a schloop of mud" and made a cool mud-cap. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/13/) — Going home he pulled fruit down from trees, used a branch as a fly-whisk, and sang down his trunk "louder than several brass bands"; he picked up the melon rind he had dropped, "for he was a Tidy Pachyderm" (a thick-skinned animal). - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/14/) — On the way he also went out of his way to spank a Hippopotamus who was no relation of his, to make sure the Snake had told the truth about his new trunk. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/15/) — At home he knocked two brothers "head over heels", threw the Baboon (who said the trunk "looks very ugly") into a hornets' nest, pulled the Ostrich's tail-feathers, dragged the Giraffe through a thorn-bush, and blew bubbles in the Hippo's ear, "but he never let any one touch Kolokolo Bird". - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/16/) — His families went "to borrow new noses from the Crocodile. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/17/) — When they came back nobody spanked anybody any more"; hitting people is wrong, and the story's ending is happiest when nobody does it. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/18/) — The poem: "I keep six honest serving-men ... - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/19/) — Their names are What and Where and When / And How and Why and Who"; a small girl keeps "One million Hows, two million Wheres, / And seven million Whys!" The poet lets his six "rest from nine till five, / For I am busy then, / As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea, / For they are hungry men." - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/20/) — Real biology: a trunk is the nose and upper lip joined together, with no bones and many thousands of muscle bundles, so it can lift a log or pick up a single peanut. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/21/) — Real biology: elephants smell, breathe, touch, trumpet, and spray dust and mud with their trunks; to drink they suck water a little way up the trunk and squirt it into their mouths, not drink through it like a straw. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/80-justso-elephants-child-2/22/) — Real biology: elephants got trunks slowly over millions of years, as their ancestors changed from generation to generation; no nose was ever stretched by a crocodile, and a stretched body part is not passed on to babies. - ← previous: [Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 5: The Elephant's Child, part 1 (What does the Crocodile have for dinner?)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/79-justso-elephants-child-1/) - next →: [Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 6: The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/81-justso-old-man-kangaroo/) - ↑ back to [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/)