# Little Elephant Catches Cold

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LITTLE ELEPHANT CATCHES COLD
LITTLE ELEPHANT CATCHES COLD
Story by Heluiz Washburne Pictures by Jean McConnell
Junior Press Books
Chicago
1937
Copyright 1937, by Albert Whitman & Company
Lithographed in the U. S. A.
One morning Little Elephant woke up and he didn't feel very well. So he got out of bed and galumphed into his mother's room, and he said, "Oh, Mama, I feel so sick!"
His mother was snoring and she didn't hear him. So he raised up his trunk and he bellowed, "Oh, Mama! I feel so sick!" And then she heard him. And she jumped out of bed in her long flannel nightgown.
"What, Little Elephant! You feel sick?" she cried.
"Yes, I feel drefful sick!" And his eyes were all criss-crossed because he had an awful pain.
"Where do you feel sick?" asked his mother.
​But just then Little Elephant went "Kerchooo!" And he sneezed so hard he blew his mother's nightcap right off.
"O-ho! I see," said his mother. "I told you not to go out in the rain yesterday without your rubbers. And now you have a cold."
"I haben' godt a gold, honesd I haben'," whined Little Elephant. And he sniffed a great big sniff.
"Here, blow your nose," said his mother, and she held out a large handkerchief of his daddy's. And Little Elephant blew a great big b-l-o-w.
"Now," said his mother, "you can't go to school today."
"Oh, dear," said Little Elephant, looking very sad, "I ca'd go do school!" (What he really meant was—I can't go out and roller-skate.)
"And you'll have to stay in bed all day," his mother went on.
"Oh, I don'd want do stay in bed all day," sobbed Little Elephant. And he stamped his feet up and down.
But Mother was very firm and she took Little
​Elephant by one large ear and led him back into his room.
There she plumped him into bed and pulled the big downy comforter up around his neck so that only his trunk was sticking out. Then she disappeared from the room. When she came back she had a bottle and a big spoon in her hand. Little Elephant didn't like the looks of the stuff she began to pour into the spoon.
"Nice castor oil," said Mother. And before he knew what had happened she had taken a firm hold on the tender end of his trunk and was pouring the oily stuff down his throat.
"Ulp, ulp, ulp!" Then it was over.
"We must put some drops in your nose, too," she said, taking another bottle from her pocket. "Now lie down on your back and hold your trunk up nice and straight."
"Will they hurt?" asked Little Elephant.
"They'll make your head feel all nice and clear so you can breathe better," she told him.
So Little Elephant held his trunk straight up
​in the air while Mother took the medicine dropper and squirted some stuff in his nose.
It ran down his trunk like a streak of fire, and Little Elephant thought the top of his head was going off. Big tears began to trickle down his cheeks. Then pretty soon it stopped burning and Little Elephant drew a big breath.
"There, isn't that better," asked Mother. "Now lie still; I'm going to call the doctor."
"Oh, oh, I don'd wand do see the doctor," bellowed Little Elephant, and he ducked down under the covers and pulled them up in a heap so his mother had to make the bed all over again.
Pretty soon the doctor came, with a little black bag in his hand. He was a very old elephant and his skin was all wrinkled.
"Well, well, young man! What's wrong with you?" he rumbled as he placed his glasses astride his trunk.
But Little Elephant didn't answer him because he was looking at that little black bag.
Then the doctor opened the bag. (That was
​just what Little Elephant was afraid he would do.) And he took out a big thermometer. He shook it down and stuck it into Little Elephant's mouth.
"Now, hold it under your tongue," he said. "And keep your mouth shut."
Next the doctor put his hand on Little Elephant's forehead and said it seemed very hot. He took hold of Little Elephant's wrist to feel his pulse and said it was very fast.
Then the doctor took out the thermometer, looked at it and raised his eyebrows, and said, "Yes, he must be sick! He has a temperature of 512. He will have to stay in bed. Now, let me see your tongue, young fellow!"
So poor Little Elephant opened his mouth and the doctor put a piece of wood in it to hold his tongue down. And he said, "Say 'A-a-h-h!'"
By this time Little Elephant was pretty mad. So he said a great big "A-a-a-h-h-h!" and blew the doctor's high silk hat off. (But then the doctor shouldn't have had his hat on in the house anyway.)
​Just for that the doctor said that Little Elephant would have to have a bandage on his throat. So Mother took one of her old red flannel petticoats and tore it up into long strips—yards and yards of them.
Then she rubbed hot oil all over Little Elephant's neck and wrapped the bandage around and around and around and around and around, till Little Elephant could hardly turn his head.
All that day Little Elephant stayed in bed. At first he thought it was fun, not having to go to school (he was in first grade). But then he got ever so tired of having nothing to do. He'd played with all his blocks and broken his toys and crayoned all the picture books. And then there was nothing else to do.
At lunch time he smelled the good things his mother was cooking down in the kitchen. But when she came upstairs with his tray she said, "I have some nice milk toast for you."
"I don'd wand ady milg doast," said Little Elephant and squirmed down under the covers again.
But his mother said, "Very well," and set the tray down on the table beside his bed and left the room.
When he heard that she was all the way downstairs again he poked his trunk out from under the covers and took a sniff of the steaming bowl of milk toast. After all it smelled pretty good and he was awfully hungry.
So he sat up in bed and gulped down the milk toast. After that he felt better. When his mother came up to get the tray Little Elephant was sound asleep and snoring.
​"Bless his little heart," she said and tiptoed out of the room.
When Little Elephant woke up he heard his playmates outdoors shouting, "Hey, Little Elephant! Come on out and play."
"Y-e-e-y! School's over!" cried Little Elephant. And he bounced out of bed and ran to the window.
But just then Mother Elephant opened the door and said, "You naughty Little Elephant! Get back into bed this minute. Don't you know you have a cold and mustn't get in a draught?"
But Little Elephant said, "Honesd, Mama! I habed' god a gold any more. I feel fi'd. I wand do go oud and roller-skade."
Then Mother Elephant was very severe and shook her trunk at Little Elephant. "If you don't behave yourself I'll have to give you another dose of this castor oil." And she picked up the big bottle beside his bed.
But Little Elephant jumped into bed so fast that his mother didn't have to give it to him after all.
​Before he went to sleep that night Mother Elephant said, "Now you are going to have a nice hot bath." So she filled the big tub full of hot water. The steam came up in clouds and filled the bathroom. Then Little Elephant put one foot carefully into the water. But he pulled it out again in a hurry.
"Ouch," he yelled, "the wader is doo hod!"
"Nonsense," said his mother. "That's good for you. Get in."
So Little Elephant stepped into the water with all four feet. But he kept lifting them out one by one to cool them off.
Finally he sat down in the water. Then it came up all around him and ran over the edge and made pools on the floor.
Mother Elephant pulled up her skirts and said, "Oh, do be careful! Now my feet are all wet."
Little Elephant soaked and soaked in the nice warm water. Then his mother went out of the room to get his bath towel, and he thought he'd take a shower. So he stuck his trunk down into the
​water and drew in a big noseful. Then he raised it up over his head and squirted it all over himself.
He did it again and again. It was great fun. Then he heard Mother coming back, but he thought he would have time for one more blow. So he drew in another big noseful and was just about to shower himself when he felt a sneeze coming. He tried pinching his trunk to stop it but he couldn't.
Just at that moment Mother opened the bathroom door.
"Ha-ha-ha-chooooo," sneezed Little Elephant. "Ha-ha-ha-chooooo!"
When he opened his eyes there was Mother spluttering and gasping, with water running down all over her.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she scolded when she caught her breath. "You naughty Little Elephant! Can't I leave you alone for a minute? You deserve a good spanking, that you do. Now get out of that tub and let me dry you before you make any more trouble."
So Mother Elephant wrapped him up in a huge
​bath towel and rubbed him dry. Then she popped him into bed with a hot water bottle at his feet, and gave him a large glass of hot lemonade to drink, with two straws in it.
Then Mother Elephant sat down beside the bed and read Little Elephant the story called How The Elephant Got His Trunk. As she read Little Elephant grew hotter and hotter and hotter.
The hot water bottle at his feet was steaming and the hot lemonade inside him was steaming.
"Whew! but I'b hot!" he said. "Ca'd I take off some covers?"
But Mother just said, "That's fine!" and went on reading.
Pretty soon the beads of perspiration were rolling down Little Elephant's face and Mother said, "Now, your cold is broken. You'll feel much better in the morning." Then she kissed him good-night and turned out the light.
The next day Little Elephant was much better just as Mother had promised. And when she took his temperature it was quite normal.
​"Can't I please go to school today," he begged. (For he knew if he couldn't go to school he couldn't go out and play either.)
But his mother told him, "No, the doctor said you must stay in bed again today."
Little Elephant tried to be good about it, but it was very hard. His pillows just wouldn't stay piled up and he had to call his mother to fix them. And his throat was awfully dry and scratchy and he had to have a drink. He didn't want to call Mother again, so he jumped up and ran to the bathroom to get it.
Mother heard him trotting around and came up from the kitchen to see what he was doing.
"Oh! you bad child!" she cried. "Don't you know you shouldn't be running around on these cold floors in your bare feet? Now get into bed and stay there, and I'll bring you a nice dish of junket."
Now Little Elephant just loved junket, especially strawberry junket. So he was very good for quite a long time.
At last Mother brought him a bowl of the lovely
​pink junket. Little Elephant put his trunk in and took big gulps of it and let it slide delightfully down his throat.
Just as he had finished the last mouthful and was settling back in his pillows, he heard a fire-engine go tearing down the street, with its siren blowing "r-r-r-r-R-R-R-R-R-r-r-r-r! r-r-r-r-R-R-R-R-r-r-r-r!"
So he hopped out of bed and bounced over to the window to see if he could catch a glimpse of the hook-and-ladder, or perhaps the fire itself.
By this time he had jumped around so much that his bed was all pulled out at the bottom.
Altogether Mother Elephant had a dreadful time trying to keep Little Elephant quietly in bed and attend to her baking in the kitchen.
But the next morning was Saturday, and Little Elephant leaped out of bed and ran to the cupboard. He took down their own big thermometer, gave it a shake and put it in his mouth. After he had kept it under his tongue for quite a while he looked at it.
​The silver line was right at the red arrow where it should be; so he galloped in to his mother's room.
"Oh, Mama! I'm not sick today!" he shouted, pulling her trunk to wake her up.
"Look at my fever, it's all gone!" and he showed her the thermometer.
Mother sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes and straightened her nightcap.
"Hand me my spectacles," she said.
So Little Elephant gave her her spectacles. She put them on and looked at the thermometer.
"Hmmmm! That's good," she said. "Now let me see your throat." Little Elephant opened his mouth very wide. "Say 'A-a-h-h!'" she told him.
"A-a-a-h-h-h-h-h!" said Little Elephant very loud.
But Mother remembered what had happened to the doctor's high silk hat, and grabbed her nightcap just in time.
"Yes, you can go out today," she said.
"Ye-e-e-y!" shouted Little Elephant and dashed out of the room.
​In a minute Mother Elephant heard him galumphing down the stairs three steps at a time. There was a dreadful clatter and thumping as he fastened his roller skates on all four feet. In another minute the door banged.
When Mother Elephant looked out of the window she saw Little Elephant coasting down the hill full tilt, waving his trunk and trumpeting for joy.
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Works published in 1937 could have had their copyright renewed in 1964 or 1965, i.e. between January 1st of the 27th year after publication or registration and December 31st of the 28th year. As this work's copyright was not renewed, it entered the public domain on January 1st, 1966.
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