If he is indeed sent in the place of our son he will not run away." "Remember he can never till now have slept on a bed. "Give him his will," said Messua's husband. There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep under anything that looked so like a panther trap as that hut, and when they shut the door he went through the window. So, as soon as Messua pronounced a word Mowgli would imitate it almost perfectly, and before dark he had learned the names of many things in the hut. It was not for fun that he had learned while he was with the wolves to imitate the challenge of bucks in the jungle and the grunt of the little wild pig. "What is the good of a man," he said to himself at last, "if he does not understand man's talk? Now I am as silly and dumb as a man would be with us in the jungle. But as he looked at the thatch, he saw that he could tear it out any time if he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings. Mowgli was uneasy, because he had never been under a roof before. "No," she said sorrowfully, "those feet have never worn shoes, but thou art very like my Nathoo, and thou shalt be my son." "Dost thou not remember the day when I gave thee thy new shoes?" She touched his foot, and it was almost as hard as horn. So she said, "Nathoo, O Nathoo!" Mowgli did not show that he knew the name. She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and then she laid her hand on his head and looked into his eyes for she thought perhaps that he might be her real son come back from the jungle where the tiger had taken him. The crowd parted as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there was a red lacquered bedstead, a great earthen grain chest with funny raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking pots, an image of a Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking glass, such as they sell at the country fairs.
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