weep about, and I drown everybody I find using my
weeping pool." With that the animal tossed my father up and down over
the water.

"What--is it--that--you--weep about--so much?" asked my father, trying
to get his breath, and he thought over all the things he had in his
pack.

"Oh, I have many things to weep about, but the biggest thing is the
color of my tusk." My father squirmed every which way trying to see
the tusk, but it was through the seat of his pants where he couldn't
possibly see it. "When I was a young rhinoceros, my tusk was pearly
white," said the animal (and then my father knew that he was hanging
by the seat of his pants from a rhinoceros' tusk!), "but it has turned
a nasty yellow-gray in my old age, and I find it very ugly. You see,
everything else about me is ugly, but when I had a beautiful tusk I
didn't worry so much about the rest. Now that my tusk is ugly too, I
can't sleep nights just thinking about how completely ugly I am, and I
weep all the time. But why should I be telling you these things? I
caught you using my pool and now I'm going to drown you."

"Oh, wait a minute, Rhinoceros," said my father. "I have some things
that will make your tusk all white and beautiful again. Just let me
down and I'll give them to you."

The rhinoceros said, "You do? I can hardly believe it! Why, I'm so
excited!" He put my father down and danced around in a circle while my
father got out the tube of tooth paste and the toothbrush.

"Now," said my father, "just move your tusk a little nearer, please,
and I'll show you how to begin." My father wet the brush in the pool,
squeezed on a dab of tooth paste, and scrubbed very hard in one tiny
spot. Then he told the rhinoceros to wash it off, and when the pool
was calm again, he told the rhinoceros to look in the water and see
how white the little spot was. It was hard to see in the dim light of
the jungle, but sure enough, the spot shone pearly white, just like
new. The rhinoceros was so pleased that he grabbed the toothbrush and
began scrubbing violently, forgetting all about my father.

Just then my father heard hoofsteps and he jumped behind the
rhinoceros. It was the boar coming back from the big clearing where
the tigers were chewing gum. The boar looked at the rhinoceros, and at
the toothbrush, and at the tube of tooth paste, and then he scratched
his ear on a tree. "Tell me, Rhinoceros," he said, "where did you get
that fine tube of tooth paste and that to