The Second Jungle Book: Man's Ways of Courtship

Jungle Boys Hate the Spring

Months after Shere Khan was defeated, Mowgli and the rest of the jungle's residents thought the jungle was finally safe with the tiger gone along with Kaa, the python snake, and King Louie of the Bandar-log. The whole jungle was almost right about all of that, but rumors had grown up about a shadow of the meanest, scariest, and the nastiest-tempered tiger in the whole jungle and Kaa had actually survived her confrontation with Mowgli and his friends. Only King Louie was truly vanquished when the ancient ruins toppled and were crushed. The Bandar-log had moved on since then.

When Mowgli turned thirteen, Raksha and her mate, Rama, had finally had their last ever litter of wolf pups, something or someone old and new was soon fated to cross paths with Mowgli, and Grey Brother had at last become an adult wolf. Mowgli's runty wolf brother, who everyone in the jungle thought would be eaten, finally made it to adulthood against all odds.

The only true problem in the jungle was that it was once again the time of spring and while every other male in the jungle could work their best moves to impress the females, Mowgli could not do anything except watch it all happen. Even Grey Brother was pulling out his best moves for the young females of the wolf pack, and everyone thought he would have been eaten by then.

Feeling bored and lonely without anything to do and nearly no one to talk to his problems about, Mowgli decided to see if he could go exploring with Baloo, his favorite sloth bear. Luckily for him, both the bear and Bagheera were just conversing with one another about the spring. It might have been the very topic Mowgli had grown tired of hearing about, but he wanted to talk to them, anyway. "Maybe, we could talk about something other than the springtime, you two," Mowgli requested of the panther and the bear. The man-cub was rather annoyed that the other two seemed to talk about spring, of all topics, even with him.

The bear was willing to respect the man-cub's wishes, but the panther had plans to remind him that, "Why don't you want to talk about spring, man-cub?" he asked.

Mowgli did not want to discuss the spring because of spring being the courtship season in the jungle. His only response Bagheera's question, however, was the classic "I don't wanna talk about it." It was a tired and old response, but it was the truth... more or less.

It may have been Mowgli's only response to Bagheera's question, but the panther did not buy the man-cub's answer that much. Baloo, however, believed Mowgli in full. "Ah, come on, Baggy. Leave the kid alone, will ya?" the bear told the panther. "Little Britches doesn't have to like spring if he doesn't wanna," the sloth bear finished.

Baloo might have believed that Mowgli just did not like spring, but Bagheera suspected that Mowgli's surprise hatred for the season had less to do with the season itself and was more about what the season entailed. "For some reason, I think the man-cub's springtime pet peeve might just be more about spring being courtship season than anything else," the wise panther said.

With that one sentence from the panther, the sloth bear had finally got why the man-cub hated spring as much as he had. "Oh, I see what's going on now," Baloo said. "You don't not like the spring just because. You don't like the spring because you're just lonely."

As blindingly harsh as it was, it was nonetheless the full truth. The man-cub really did only hate the spring because he was lonely and for no other reason. Mowgli was just about ready to deny it before realizing that his two closest animal friends were right about his reason for not liking the spring. "I don't know why it's my only reason for not liking the spring," the man-cub confessed. "I suppose I wouldn't hate courtship season as much if I had someone of my own to love. It's just that there is no one for me in the jungle, and because of it, I'm a lonely little guy."

Baloo just wanted to bring his man-cub friend some comfort, but Bagheera had a different idea to soothe Mowgli's lonely soul. "You said that you supposed you would not hate the courtship season of spring as much if you had some to love for yourself, didn't you, man-cub?" the panther asked Mowgli.