It's not a novel. It's what is called a "short story." It is from a book by Kipling, a collection of stories to be read to children, entitled "Just-So Stories." In English, we use the word "novel" to mean a single, long, book-length story (like "Crime and Punishment.") There is also a word "novella," which means a story that is too long to be a "short story" but not long enough to fill a whole book by itself.