There was once a little baby boy called Babba, he had bright blue eyes and golden curls, and he had Anna for his nurse. She had been with Babba ever since he was quite a tiny baby in long robes, and she was very fond of him. Her name was Arielle Nona, but they just called her Anna.
Babba lived in a beautiful white house on the Simla Hills, with a big decm running all around it. Around about the deck was a garden, and outside the garden the jungle stretched for miles and miles, and in the jungle were all sorts of animald and birds.
Little Babba used to play on the deck with his pets, Moomoo, the cat, and Wooly, the dog, and they both loved him sooo much. Moomoo never scratched him, and was really cuddly. Wooly used to stand on his back legs and perform all sorts of funny tricks to make Babba laugh.
Every morning after breakfast Babba threw bread crumbs out to the little birds on the lawn, and they used to sit in the trees and watch for him, and sing about him till' he came out of the house. “Good little Babba, who gives us our food,” one would sing; and “We all love little Babba,” several of the others would reply from another part of the garden.
Moomoo used to watch them out of the corner of her eyes, but she never attempted to catch them because she knew that Babba loved them. Wooly used to sit with his head on one side and wonder however they managed with only two legs and not four like his.
But one day when Babba was feeding the birdies, the big snake Hoodo, who lived in the garden, came creeping under the deck and tried to catch some of the birds while they were eating, but Babba saw him and called out:
“Go away, bad Hoodo, go away!”
and Anna heard him and came running out to see what was the matter.
When she saw Hoodo, the big snake, she caught Babba up in her arms and ran with him into the house, and two of the men came out with big sticks and beat Hoodo over the head and body till he could hardly crawl away again into his hole under a big tree in the garden.
Now Hoodo was a very wicked snake, and was very angry about all this, and he thought and thought about it, and wondered how he could be revenged on little Babba, for he put all that had occurred down to him, and so one day, after he had got better he went out into the jungle to see an old friend of his, Tig, the Tiger, and talk the matter over with him.
Hoodo thought that Tig the Tiger was as greedy and cruel as he was himself, and so he asked him how he would like a little fat baby boy for his dinner, and Tig licked his lips and said, “H’M! we shall see.”
Then Hoodo went further into the jungle and met Prowl, the Wolf.
“How would you like a little fat baby to eat?” asked Hoodo; and Prowl, the Wolf, licked his lips and said, “Ha!” and nothing else.
A little further on Hoodo met Bluf, the big brown Bear, and he asked him what he would do if he met a little fat baby in the jungle.
And Bluf stood up on his hind legs, hugged himself and said, “Ough! Very nice, very nice indeed!”
And then Poon-dah, the big wild Elephant, came crushing through the jungle, and Hoodo had to scurry out of his way, so that he didn’t get trampled upon.
“How would you like a little fat ——” he screamed out, but Poon-dah made a loud noise with his trunk and went on, for he didn’t converse with snakes.
