One sunny afternoon, I, Ella the Elephant, was playing in my favorite place—a lovely playground where all my friends liked to come. Today, I thought, I might share with them my huge bag of candies—just to see their happy little faces gleaming with delight when they tasted my sweet, sweet gifts.
So I sat quietly munching my favorite toffees, looking at the gate to see who would come first. I hoped it would be my noisiest friend Jake the Jackal; he was always the first to arrive. No sooner had I thought this than who should come in but Jake!
“Hallo, Ella!” he cried. “What are you here all alone for?”
But I could see he was looking at my bag of delicious sweets he knew I always kept for my friends.
“I’m dreaming dreams of opening my new bag of lovely sweeties,” I said; “won’t you come up and share them with me? It’s always much nicer to eat when you can share your food with a friend, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” Jake answered. “But I’m afraid I shall never live to eat even half of your sweets if you share with me! You know during all the days of our friendship I have never had one single crumb from your share. I have never known what it was like to get a sweet from you. How, oh how, can I live to share your handful when to this day I have not had one mouthful of your much-longed-for eatables?”
As Jake said these words a horrible, gloomy thought crossed my mind. Could it possibly be all my other friends were like Jake? I could not bear the idea, so I decided we would soon make sure.
“I’m happy to think that I have got, let me see, yes, just about enough for us all,” I said. “Let us wait a little while for a few others to come, will you? Each of us in our turn shall have a handful. Oh, we shall enjoy ourselves most beautifully.”
What a happy thought that was! And I almost danced with joy at the prospect of my next guests. At last I did hear a voice saying, “What’s in the bag, dear Ella?”
“Who comes there?” asked Jake. “Why it is Nelly the Nightingale. Come up here, Nelly darling, and we’ll soon see what we have got for you.”
“Thank you, thank you ever so much, dear Ella! Why, how kind you are to ask me! I was beginning to think that nobody wanted me, here in this dull, bare playground afar from the trees to sing my happy songs.”
“Oh, but we want you as a dear little friend, Nelly!” I cried; “only the fact is, I was going to share my bag of sweets between us.”
“Yes, that’s just what Jake was saying,” Nelly answered. “But I don’t see how we are all going to manage to get a share when I have been here now two long afternoons and he hasn’t asked me even once if I’d like to share with him. But I only wait for your next joke, Ella, I am sure.”
“I have a plan all ready made for anyone who cares to share,” I said. “If you are hungry, come up, so I can see who else is in our Camp. I am delighted to have our friend Nelly.”
Then we had Becko the Bear, old, slow Uncle Joe, Rhyme the Magpie, and one or two others.
“Now,” said I, “will you each take two large handfuls?”
Now this wise man, I must tell you, never listens to my orders, which, of course, I am certain he never means. He comes, with a few others, whenever he thinks proper, but generally when all the other guests are just finishing.
He came now, looking hungry enough to swallow a whole sack of sweets and toss up heel and toe for more.
“Ella!” he cried, as soon as he got up, “what have you and your friends been feasting on, in an empty sack? Are those my old tin-hearted food, or your humble sweets?”
He counted the few remnants left lying in the bag. “Well, why don’t you all make up what share you can eat with your little handful of crumbs?”
But I—the only person in the world, I think—never bear ill will towards anybody. Uncle Joe never told anyone that he thought only a few had more than one share each. He sang a few verses of his last song, then, turning to me, said, “Good-bye, Ella, good-bye, all friends, I’m afraid I must also say I do not find this camp pleasant enough for me.”
Now, I dare say, a lot of children would not have liked Uncle Joe’s clever, but not very polite, remarks. But as long as he himself was so kind and forgiving, I made no sort of fuss, as I would not be unpunctual in keeping my variable Music-friend waiting. So I gave him the one tin heart, mine was.
“Take care of yourself whilst I am gone, Ella, and send foremost Crumb a few kind messages from me. And now I won’t put you to any bother but hop on this, if you will, I shall find my way home somehow with these many ears. Bye-bye!”
Just as our birds were lifting their wings, who comes creeping along but all little Choir and Band till he saw my guests.
“Why, why, what a nearly full Camp we have got here! Yet to listen to their clever songs, I doubt if any one of the choir could name as many of them as I knew half an hour ago by heart,” said Music.
Then he and Uncle Joe started together. It seems to be a part of their plan of not bothering me in anything I take in hand when they see I am really busy to refrain from speaking to me at all till they are out of hearing of Cumbola and his married-eyed assistant. When fairly away from the camp they made up their minds to take the place of a few stragglers because they had heard that Nelly’s body and Jake’s family were something worth looking at. They followed the usual shadows of all other friends, idlers in added leisure, spectators in whom I don’t know just where to place, and then you have a natural adieu said by my clever uncle, till he hears our first note.