Chapter 1: Uncle Shelby’s Story of Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back Shel Silverstein

Once there was a young lion and his name was—well,
I don't really know what his name was because he lived
in the jungle with a lot of other lions and if he did have
a name it certainly wasn't a name like Joe or Ernie
or anything like that. No, it was more of a lion name like,
oh, maybe Grograph or Ruggrrg or Grmmff or Grrrrr.

Well, anyways, he had a name like that and he lived in
the jungle with the other lions and he did the usual lion
things like jumping and playing in the grass and
swimming in the river and eating rabbits and chasing
other lions and sleeping in the sun, and he was very
happy.Well, then, one day—I believe it was a Thursday—after
all the lions had eaten a good lunch and were sleeping in
the sun, snoring lions' snores, and the sky was blue and the
birds were going kaw kaw and the grass was blowing in
the breeze and it was quiet and wonderful, suddenly . . .There was a loud sound, all the lions woke up fast
and jumped straight up in the air. And they started to run.
Lickety-split, lickety-clipt or clippety-clop, clippety-clop,
or is that the way horses run? Well, they ran
whatever way lions run. I don't know, maybe even
pippety-pat. Anyway, they all ran away—

Well, almost all.

There was one lion that did not run, and that is the oneI am going to tell you the story about. This one lion, he
just sat up and blinked and winked in the sun and
stretched his arms—well, maybe he stretched his paws—
and he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and he said, "Hey,
why is everybody running?"
And an old lion who was running by said, "Run, kid,
run, run, run, run, run, the hunters are coming."

"Hunters? Hunters? What are hunters?" said the young
lion, still blinking in the sun."Look," said the old lion,
"you'd better stop asking so
many questions and just run
if you know what's
good for you."

So the young lion
got up and stretched
and began to run with
the other lions. Pippity-pat,
or was it clippety-clop?
I think we have gone
through all of this
before.And after he had run
for a while, he stopped
and looked back.

"Hunters," he said to
himself, "I wonder what
hunters are?"

And he said the name
hunters over and over to
himself" "Hunters, hunters."
And you know, he liked
the sound of the name
hunters—you know, the
way some people like
the sound of the words
Tuscaloosa or tapioca
or Carioca or gumbo, he
liked the sound of the
word hunters.So he let all the other lions run ahead and he stopped
and he hid in the tall grass, and soon he could see the
hunters coming and they all stood on their hind feet
and they all wore nice little red caps and they all carried
funny sticks that made loud noises.
And the young lion liked their looks.

Yes, he just liked their looks. So when a nice hunter
with green eyes and one tooth missing in the front passed
by the tall grass with his funny red cap (that had some egg
salad on it, by the way) the young lion stood up."Hi, hunter," he said.

"Good heavens," cried the hunter, "a ferocious lion,
a dangerous lion, a roaring, bloodthirsty man-eating lion."

"I am not a man-eating lion," said the young lion. "I
eat rabbits and blackberries."

"No excuses," said the hunter. "I am going to shoot
you."

"But I give up," said the young lion, and he put up his
paws in the air."Don't be silly," said the hunter. "Who ever heard of
a lion giving up. Lions don't give up, lions fight to the end.
Lions eat up hunters! So I must shoot you now and make
you into a nice rug and put you in front of my fireplace
and on cold winter evenings I will sit on you and toast
marshmallows."

"Well, my goodness, you don't have to shoot me," said
the young lion. "I will be your rug and I will lie in front
of your fireplace and I won't move a muscle and you can
sit on me and toast all the marshmallows you want. I love
marshmallows," said the young lion."You what?" said the hunter.
"Well," said the young lion, "to be absolutely honest
with you, I don't know if I really love marshmallows or not
because I have never tasted one, but I love most things
and I love the sound of the word marshmallow and if
they taste like they sound—mmmmmmmmmmmmm!—I
just know I will love them."

"That's ridiculous," said the hunter. "I have never
heard of a lion giving up. I have never heard of a lion
eating marshmallows. I am going to shoot you now and that is that." And he put his funny stuck up to his shoulder."But why?" said the young lion.

"Because I am, that is why," said the hunter, and he
pulled the trigger. And the stick went click.

"What was that click?" said the young lion. "Am I
shot?"

Well, as you can imagine, the hunter was very
embarrassed about this and this face turned as red as
his cap."I'm afraid I forgot to load my gun," he said. "I guess
the joke is on me—ha ha—but if you will just excuse me
for a moment, I will put a bullet in and we will go on
from there."

"No," said the young lion. "I don't think I will. I don't
think I will let you put a bullet in. I don't think I will
let you shoot me. I don't think I want to be your rug
and I don't think you are a very nice hunter after all and
I think I am going to eat you up."

"But why?" said the hunter.

"Because I am, that's why." said the young lion.

And he did.And after he had eaten the hunter all up, he ate the
hunter's red cap, but it tasted sort of woolly. And after
he had eaten up the red cap (Pooh! Doesn't it make your
mouth feel funny to think about eating a red cap?), he
tried to eat up the funny stick and the bullets, but he
couldn't chew them, so he said, "Well, I guess I will keep
these as a souvenir," and he picked them up with his teeth
and he carried them back to the other lions.