On our cruises we visited so many different places in so many different countries and saw some wonderful things. But one little incident, involving one huge creature, stands out in my memory.
The ship was at anchor at Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, and sitting out on the balcony of our cabin, we could see, perhaps three-quarters of a mile away, a number of whales. Humpback whales they were, who come down from the north in February to spend their mating season in warmer waters. Through binoculars we could see them surfacing to “blow,” and also doing what is known as “lobtailing”' raising their great tail flukes high out of the water to smack them down again on the surface with a mighty splash.
Suddenly, right beneath us as we sat, a huge humpback whale surfaced so close that we could have dropped an apple, say, down either of its twin blowholes. Slowly, lazily, it moved away from us and lifted one great pale paddle-shaped fin high out of the water and slapped it down again. Then it rolled and did the same with the opposite fin. Then it sank from sight. We felt that it had come to say to us, “Hullo, I am your personal humpback whale. Greetings!”
Of all the animals that either of us had ever seen, this was by far the biggest.
Now for the first time in our long married life, we don't have any animals, not even a dog. Mind you, next-door's cat — a beautiful little black queen with a white tip to her tail — comes round each day for a second breakfast (and I learned recently that she then goes round to the neighbor on the other side for a third one). But our lives, from when we were both small, have always been filled with animals of one sort or another. Which is why, I dare say, I write so many stories for children about animals.
And do you know the nicest thing for me about this, my last career, as an author? It isn't the money, though it's very pleasant at last not to have to worry — as we used to have to do — about how to pay the bills, and it's good to be able to help our children when they need it. No, the nicest thing for me is the thousands of letters that I get from children, all over the world, who take the trouble to write and tell me that they've enjoyed my books. Sometimes too a mother or a teacher will write to say that Jack or Jill was not really interested in reading until he, or she, was turned on by one of my stories. That's very rewarding.
And of course every fan letter gets an answer (except for the ones without addresses!). So here I am, in my little study in my old cottage in this new millennium, still writing away happily.
I wasn't a particularly good soldier or farmer or salesman or factory worker or teacher, but at last I've found something I can do reasonably well. I'm a lucky man, in my three children, in all my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and most especially of course in my wife, who's always backed me up and seen us through bad patches. Without Myrle, I could never have been what I now am.
Looking back at my life so far, there's only one thing to be said, in just the same quiet tones of satisfaction that Farmer Hogget used, at the end of the Grand Challenge Sheep-dog Trials: “That'll do.”
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Text copyright © 2001 by Fox Busters, Ltd.
Illustrations copyright © 2001 by Harry Horse
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Viking Penguin Children's Books in 2001.
KNOPF, BORZOI BOOKS, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/kids
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
King-Smith, Dick.
Chewing the cud: an extraordinary life remembered by the author of Babe, the gallant pig / Dick King-Smith. p. cm.
Originally published: London: Penguin, 2001.
Summary: Dick King-Smith recounts his life from soldier to farmer to salesman to factory worker to teacher to, finally, author.
eISBN: 978-0-307-48277-8
1. King-Smith, Dick—Juvenile literature. 2. Authors, English—20th
century—Biography—
Juvenile literature. 3. Children's stories—
Authorship—Juvenile literature. 4. Farmers—England—Biography— Juvenile literature. 5. Farm life—England—Juvenile literature. 6. Swine in
literature—Juvenile literature. 7. Farm animals—Juvenile literature.
[1. King-Smith, Dick. 2. Authors, English. 3. Farmers. 4. Farm life—England.
5. Authorship.] I. Title.
PR6061.I4934 Z463 2002
823—.914—dc21
[B]
2002067128
October 2002
v3.0
Chewing the Cud Page 13