The author writes short stories about caring for animals, suitable for primary school students. Please.

Elsa the lion cub

[Austria] Joy Adamson

Elsa the lion cub was only two or three days old when her mother died . I picked it out from the crack in the rock, petted it, and fed it milk powder and a drink made of cod liver oil and glucose. Soon, its little eyes covered with blue films opened, and its watery eyes rolled around. Five months later, it grew up and became very strong. It never leaves me for a moment and sleeps with me at night. In the middle of the night, he often licks my face with his rough tongue and wakes me up.

When summer came, Elsa loved to bathe in the river. She would bathe for several hours. When she had finished bathing, she would go to the dense reeds to rest. It saw me squatting by the river, deliberately splashing in the waves, and gently knocked me to the ground with its front paws. It was very happy to joke with me.

One evening, a rhinoceros came. The rhinoceros has a very bad temper. No matter what it is, it dares to hit even a locomotive. The rhino jumped at me. I didn't bring a gun, and there was no hiding place around me. I thought it was over now. I shouted loudly, and Elsa ran from a distance and fought bravely with the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros was no match for it and turned around and ran away. Elsa drove it very far away in one breath.

When Elsa started to lose her teeth, she opened her mouth like a child and showed it to me. I gently shook its baby teeth that were about to fall out. It closed its eyes and remained motionless. Sometimes I lean against Elsa to read or draw. She sucks my thumb and falls asleep quietly after a while.

We went to Lake Ludor, a distance of 370 kilometers, mostly on foot. Along the way, Elsa jumped around like a puppy, chasing hares for a while, and fetching us killed antelopes for a while. We used a few donkeys to carry our luggage. At first, Elsa could live in harmony with them, but one night in the middle of the night, Elsa suddenly broke into the donkeys. The donkeys ran away in fright, and one of them was scratched by Elsa. Only then did I remember that animals tend to show their bestiality at night. I had a whip and gave it a good lesson. Elsa lowered her head, remained silent, and squatted on the ground dejectedly, as if begging me for forgiveness. Looking at its pitiful appearance, my anger was forgotten. I stroked its head, comforted it, and told it not to do this next time. It seemed to understand what I said, sucking its thumb like a baby, rubbing its head against my knee, and humming softly from its nose.

Elsa was almost two years old, and I wanted to send her to the zoo. Later, I thought that I should send her back to nature to choose a good environment for her and let her live on her own. It is difficult for animals raised by humans to survive when returned to nature because they carry the smell of humans. However, this is also a scientific experiment. I am determined to train it to return to nature and let it live a happy life there.

I first taught it how to catch food by itself. I threw the half-beaten antelope in front of it and let it bite it open and kill it. Slowly, it would catch some food by itself. After a while, I quietly put it into an area rich in lion living resources and quietly left it. Several times, it came back hungry. I received it with a mixture of joy and sadness, like a married daughter returning home after some misfortune. After a few days, I returned it to nature. After it left, I missed it very much, especially on the night of the snowstorm. I thought about it all night and wondered what happened to it.

Once, it came back with a high fever. I never leave it, and it always sleeps gently holding my neck with its two paws. I gave it blood tests, took medicine, and slept with it. I myself had forgotten that I was a human being and Elsa was a lion. It gradually recovered to health, but I couldn't bear to let it go. Then I thought that it would always return to the beasts, so I decided to leave it.

Elsa and I lived together for three years. When we finally parted, I felt great pain. I put my arms around its neck and kissed it; it seemed to sense something and kept rubbing me with its smooth body. After that, it reluctantly lay down and walked into the forest, looking back at me again and again until we lost sight of each other.

In this way, my horse Elsa was sent back to nature.

Reference materials: Primary school Chinese textbooks