Unit 1: Selection Vocabulary 1

They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki-tikki liked it immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the veranda and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots.

It was a large garden, only half cultivated, with bushes, as big as summer-houses, of Marshal Niel roses, lime and orange trees, clumps of bamboos, and thickets of high grass.

"I have settled it all;" and then Teddy's mother picked him up from the dust and hugged him, crying that he had saved Teddy from death, and Teddy's father said that he was a providence, and Teddy looked on with big scared eyes.

But his wife was a sensible bird, and she knew that cobra's eggs meant young cobras later on.

It may be some consolation to you when you're dead to know that I shall settle accounts with the boy.

Many long years ago, there lived an arrogant and cruel young lord who ruled over a small village in the western hills of Japan.

“They are neither useful nor able to work for a living. I therefore decree that anyone over seventy-one must be banished from the village and left in the mountains to die.”

“What a dreadful decree! What a cruel and unreasonable lord we have,” the people of the village murmured.

“If only I could somehow deceive the cruel lord,” the farmer thought.

Then one day there was a terrible commotion among the villagers, for Lord Higa of the town beyond the hills threatened to conquer their village and make it his own.

Once more the lord commended the young farmer and rewarded him with many pieces of gold.