Kṛṣṇa was seven when he asked the awkward question.
Every year the village of Vraja sent its harvest offering up to Indra, king of the gods, who sends the rain. Kṛṣṇa said: whose grass do our cows eat? Whose streams do we drink? Whose shade do we sit in? Govardhana's. Why do we never thank the hill?
So that year the offering went to the mountain.
Indra was not thanked, and Indra had a temper. The rain came sideways, for a day, and then two. The cattle stood in water up to their knees. The roofs began to come apart.
The people ran to Kṛṣṇa, because when you are frightened you run to whoever is not.
He walked to the hill, put one hand under its edge, and lifted it — up out of the ground like a lid off a pot — and held it over the whole village on the little finger of his left hand. Come in, he said.
They came in. Cows, calves, carts, grandmothers, dogs.
And one cowherd, looking up at a seven-year-old holding a mountain, thought: he must be getting tired. So he raised his stick and pressed it against the underside of the hill. To help. And then another one did. And another.
Seven days of rain, and a ring of cowherds standing with their sticks up against the roof of the world, absolutely certain they were holding it.
Kṛṣṇa never told them they weren't. That is the part I like best. Not the lifting — the not telling.