--- title: The Beginning of the Armadillos — Just so stories · full text with trees · page 2 description: The Beginning of the Armadillos, «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: THIS, O Best Beloved, is another story of the High and Far-Off Times. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/page/2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/) / The Beginning of the Armadillos # The Beginning of the Armadillos · page 2 [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/) **2** - [101](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/101/) — Kindly lead me into the water once again and I’ll practice that side-stroke which you say is so easy.’ - [102](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/102/) — And so Stickly-Prickly practiced, and Slow-Solid swam alongside. - [103](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/103/) — ‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid. - [104](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/104/) — ‘A little more practice will make you a regular whale. - [105](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/105/) — Now, if I may trouble you to unlace my back and front plates two holes more, I’ll try that fascinating bend that you say is so easy. - [106](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/106/) — Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’ - [107](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/107/) — ‘Excellent!’ said Stickly-Prickly, all wet from the turbid Amazon. - [108](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/108/) — ‘I declare, I shouldn’t know you from one of my own family. - [109](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/109/) — Two holes, I think, you said? - [110](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/110/) — A little more expression, please, and don’t grunt quite so much, or Painted Jaguar may hear us. - [111](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/111/) — When you’ve finished, I want to try that long dive which you say is so easy. - [112](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/112/) — Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’ - [113](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/113/) — And so Stickly-Prickly dived, and Slow-and-Solid dived alongside. - [114](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/114/) — ‘Excellent!’ said Slow-and-Solid. - [115](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/115/) — ‘A leetle more attention to holding your breath and you will be able to keep house at the bottom of the turbid Amazon. - [116](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/116/) — Now I’ll try that exercise of putting my hind legs round my ears which you say is so peculiarly comfortable. - [117](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/117/) — Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’ - [118](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/118/) — ‘Excellent!’ said Stickly-Prickly. - [119](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/119/) — ‘But it’s straining your back-plates a little. — checked by a teacher - [120](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/120/) — They are all overlapping now, instead of lying side by side.’ - [121](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/121/) — ‘Oh, that’s the result of exercise,’ said Slow-and-Solid. - [122](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/122/) — ‘I’ve noticed that your prickles seem to be melting into one another, and that you’re growing to look rather more like a pinecone, and less like a chestnut-burr, than you used to.’ - [123](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/123/) — ‘Am I?’ said Stickly-Prickly. - [124](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/124/) — ‘That comes from my soaking in the water. - [125](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/125/) — Oh, won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!’ - [126](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/126/) — They went on with their exercises, each helping the other, till morning came; and when the sun was high they rested and dried themselves. - [127](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/127/) — Then they saw that they were both of them quite different from what they had been. - [128](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/128/) — ‘Stickly-Prickly,’ said Tortoise after breakfast, ‘I am not what I was yesterday; but I think that I may yet amuse Painted Jaguar. - [129](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/129/) — ‘That was the very thing I was thinking just now,’ said Stickly-Prickly. - [130](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/130/) — ‘I think scales are a tremendous improvement on prickles--to say nothing of being able to swim. - [131](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/131/) — Oh, won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised! - [132](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/132/) — Let’s go and find him.’ - [133](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/133/) — By and by they found Painted Jaguar, still nursing his paddy-paw that had been hurt the night before. - [134](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/134/) — He was so astonished that he fell three times backward over his own painted tail without stopping. - [135](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/135/) — ‘Good morning!’ said Stickly-Prickly. - [136](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/136/) — ‘And how is your dear gracious Mummy this morning?’ - [137](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/137/) — ‘She is quite well, thank you,’ said Painted Jaguar; ‘but you must forgive me if I do not at this precise moment recall your name.’ - [138](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/138/) — ‘That’s unkind of you,’ said Stickly-Prickly, ‘seeing that this time yesterday you tried to scoop me out of my shell with your paw.’ - [139](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/139/) — ‘But you hadn’t any shell. - [140](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/140/) — It was all prickles,’ said Painted Jaguar. - [141](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/141/) — ‘I know it was. - [142](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/142/) — Just look at my paw!’ - [143](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/143/) — ‘You told me to drop into the turbid Amazon and be drowned,’ said Slow-Solid. - [144](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/144/) — ‘Why are you so rude and forgetful to-day?’ - [145](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/145/) — ‘Don’t you remember what your mother told you?’ said Stickly-Prickly,-- - [146](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/146/) — ‘Can’t curl, but can swim-- Stickly-Prickly, that’s him! - [147](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/147/) — Curls up, but can’t swim-- Slow-Solid, that’s him!’ - [148](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/148/) — Then they both curled themselves up and rolled round and round Painted Jaguar till his eyes turned truly cart-wheels in his head. - [149](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/149/) — Then he went to fetch his mother. - [150](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/150/) — ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘there are two new animals in the woods to-day, and the one that you said couldn’t swim, swims, and the one that you said couldn’t curl up, curls; and they’ve gone shares in their prickles, I think, because both of them are scaly all over, instead of one being smooth and the other very prickly; and, besides that, they are rolling round and round in circles, and I don’t feel comfy.’ - [151](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/151/) — ‘Son, son!’ said Mother Jaguar ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, ‘a Hedgehog is a Hedgehog, and can’t be anything but a Hedgehog; and a Tortoise is a Tortoise, and can never be anything else.’ - [152](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/152/) — ‘But it isn’t a Hedgehog, and it isn’t a Tortoise. - [153](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/153/) — It’s a little bit of both, and I don’t know its proper name.’ - [154](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/154/) — ‘Nonsense!’ said Mother Jaguar. - [155](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/155/) — ‘Everything has its proper name. - [156](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/156/) — I should call it “Armadillo” till I found out the real one. - [157](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/157/) — And I should leave it alone.’ - [158](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/158/) — So Painted Jaguar did as he was told, especially about leaving them alone; but the curious thing is that from that day to this, O Best Beloved, no one on the banks of the turbid Amazon has ever called Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid anything except Armadillo. - [159](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/159/) — There are Hedgehogs and Tortoises in other places, of course (there are some in my garden); but the real old and clever kind, with their scales lying lippety-lappety one over the other, like pine-cone scales, that lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon in the High and Far-Off Days, are always called Armadillos, because they were so clever. - [160](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/160/) — So that; all right, Best Beloved. - [161](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/161/) — Do you see? - [162](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/162/) — I’VE never sailed the Amazon, I’ve never reached Brazil; But the Don and Magdelana, They can go there when they will! - [163](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/163/) — Yes, weekly from Southampton, Great steamers, white and gold, Go rolling down to Rio (Roll down--roll down to Rio!) - [164](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/164/) — And I’d like to roll to Rio Some day before I’m old! - [165](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/165/) — I’ve never seen a Jaguar, Nor yet an Armadill O dilloing in his armour, And I s’pose I never will, - [166](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/166/) — Unless I go to Rio These wonders to behold-- Roll down--roll down to Rio-- Roll really down to Rio! - [167](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/167/) — Oh, I’d love to roll to Rio Some day before I’m old! [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/8/) **2** - ← previous: [The Sing-song of Old Man Kangaroo](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/7/) - next →: [How the First Letter Was Written](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/9/) - ↑ back to [Just so stories](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2781/)