The Ambitious Hippopotamus

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Title:     The Ambitious Hippopotamus
Author: Henry Wallace Phillips [More Titles by Phillips]

A hippopotamus who had dwelt contentedly for years on the banks of a reedy stream, looked up one day and saw an eagle.

She became immediately fired with a desire to fly. Having lived a staid and respectable life that could not but find favor in the eyes of the gods, she raised her voice in prayer.

Jove smiled a little, but granted her request.

On the instant a pair of broad, powerful wings were affixed to her shoulders.

She was naturally a trifle nervous about trying them at first, but finally mustered up her courage.

Away she swooped, and with a pardonable vanity took her course over a piece of jungle where some old friends lived.

Precisely thirty-eight seconds later a convention of animals, all swearing and trembling with fright, were trying to conceal themselves in the same three-by-four hole in the ground.

The effect on the other animals disconcerted the good-natured hippopotamus to such an extent that she lost control of herself and sailed through the forest like an avalanche on a bender. Down went the trees and crack went the branches, while horror-stricken beasts with bristling hair split the welkin with their shrieks.

The hippopotamus made for home at her best speed. Arriving over the familiar spot, she let go all holds and came down ker-splash in the mud, knocking the astonished little hippopotamuses out into mid-stream.

"Oh, Jupiter! take 'em off!" she gasped. "I now see that the hippopotamus was not intended to fly."

IMMORAL:

It takes more than nine bloomers to make a man.

[The end]
Henry Wallace Phillips's short story: Ambitious Hippopotamus

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