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Chunky, the Happy Hippo

<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III CHUNKY IS BITTEN</h2> “Hold on there! Wait a minute! Don’t be afraid! Wait for me, little hippo chap!” cried the big animal to Chunky. “Oh, no! You’ll bite me!” answered Chunky, as he crashed his way through the jungle. “Bite you? I wouldn’t bite you for the world. I never bite anything except the grass and leaves I chew for my dinner. I might tickle you with my trunk, if I wanted to have some fun, but I’d never bite,” and the big animal talked in such a kind way that Chunky no longer felt frightened. He stopped and looked back. “What do you mean—tickle me with your trunk?” he asked, speaking animal talk, of course. “Do you mean with one of your two tails?” “I haven’t two tails,” answered the big animal. “The little one is a tail, to be sure, but the other is my trunk, or nose. See! I can wiggle it any way I like to;” and this he did. “My! that’s wonderful!” cried Chunky. “I can wiggle my tail, even if it is shorter than[27] yours, and I can open my mouth real wide, but I can’t make my nose go as yours does. And so you call it a trunk! What do you do with it?” “It is like a hand to me,” said the big animal. “I pick up in it things to eat, and I pull off the leaves of trees that grow above my head on the high branches. What is your name, little hippo boy?” “My name is Chunky. And what is yours?” “I’m called Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, and I’m in a book,” said the big animal. “Now don’t ask me what a book is, for I don’t know. All I know is I’m in one and the book is about a lot of my adventures.” “What’s adventures?” asked Chunky. “Things that happen to you,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. “If I had tickled you with my trunk, that would have been an adventure.” “And if the crocodile had bitten me when I was out playing water-tag a while ago, would that have been an adventure?” asked Chunky. “It would,” said Tum Tum. “But that’s all I know about a book—I’m in one, and there’s a picture of me. I had a lot of adventures in the jungle, and then I was caught and taken away far off and put in a circus. There I had lots of fun.” “Why aren’t you in the circus now?” asked Chunky. [28] “Well, I’m getting too old to do circus tricks any more, though I feel as jolly as ever,” answered Tum Tum. “So the man who owned me said he’d take me out of the circus and bring me back to the jungle to help train any wild elephants he might catch. That’s why I’m back in the jungle. I’m going to help tame and train wild elephants, which the hunters, who are with the man who owns me, are going to try to catch.” “Ha! So there are hunters here, are there?” cried Chunky, for he had heard his father and mother speak of these creatures, and they had told him always to keep out of their way. “Yes, there are some hunters in the jungle,” said Tum Tum. “They are after elephants.” “Do you think they’ll want a hippo?” asked Chunky anxiously. “Well, I can’t tell. Maybe they might. Would you like to be caught and put in a circus?” “Indeed I would not!” cried Chunky. “I want to stay in the jungle, and swim in the muddy river with my brother Bumpy and my sister Mumpy. We have lots of fun.” “We had fun in the circus, too,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. “There I met Mappo, the merry monkey, and I know lots of other animals, about whom those things that are called books have been written.” [29] “Oh, tell me about the other animals!” begged Chunky. “Was there one like me?” “Yes, there was a hippo in the circus,” said Tum Tum; “but he was old and big, and slept in his tank of water most of the time. I didn’t have much to say to him. But I like you. “Then there were other animals in the circus, and out of it, too, for that matter, and I liked most of them. I met Squinty, a comical pig, and there was Don, a runaway dog, besides Flop Ear, a funny rabbit. They all have books written about them, and you’d be surprised at the many adventures my friends had.” “I was surprised, just now, when the jungle birds perched on my back,” said Chunky. “You’d be more surprised if you could read about my adventures in the book,” said Tum Tum, with a jolly twinkle in his eyes, as he reached his trunk up in a tree and pulled off some sweet, green leaves. “Have some,” he invited Chunky, and Chunky did. “Well, I’m very glad to meet you,” said the little hippo boy, after a while, when he and Tum Tum had talked for some time, and the jolly elephant had told him a few of his adventures, especially of once having been in a fire when the circus barns caught, and of how he had helped save some of the animals from being burned, including Dido, a dancing bear. [30] “My! that was an adventure!” cried Chunky. “Pooh! that’s nothing,” said Tum Tum. “Maybe I’ll have more adventures now that I’ve come to the jungle. What! you aren’t going, are you?” “Yes, I guess I’d better go home,” said Chunky. “Some of those hunter friends of yours might try to catch me to put me in a circus, and I don’t want to go. Maybe I’ll see you some other time,” and away he went through the jungle toward the river, on the edge of which, amid the tall reeds, he lived with the other hippos. “Good-bye!” called Tum Tum. “If ever you get caught by the hunters, and you don’t like it, I’ll help you get away if I’m around.” “Thank you!” said Chunky, and he made up his mind never to be caught if he could help it. But you just wait and see what happens to the little hippo boy! Chunky made his way through the jungle to where his father and mother had their home. It was not a house, or even a nest, such as birds live in, though I have called it a nest. It was just a place where the reeds and weeds were trampled down smooth to make a soft place for the hippos to sleep. There was no roof over the top of the hippos’ house, if you can call such a place a house.[31] There were no windows in it, nor doors, and when it rained the water came in all over. But Chunky and his brother and sister did not mind the wetness. They liked being in the water as much as being on dry land, and they spent more than half their time in the river, anyhow. So, really, all they needed of a house was a place where they could lie down and sleep, and it was easy to make such a place. All Mr. and Mrs. Hippo had to do was to lie down in the weeds and reeds, roll over once or twice to make them stay down smoothly, and the house was made. There was no furniture in it—neither tables nor chairs, and not even a piano or a talking machine. The hippos had no use for these things. All they needed was a place to lie down, and such a place need not even be dry. Then all else they wanted was something to eat, and this they could get on land or in the water. “I think I like my home on the river bank better than the circus, even if Tum Tum did say it was jolly,” thought Chunky, as he crashed his way back through the jungle to where he had left his sister. She was out in the river now, playing water-tag with some of the other hippo boys and girls. “Aren’t you afraid of the crocodile?” asked Chunky, as he, too, waded out to get some more[32] grass roots, for he was hungry again. Hippos and elephants eat very often during the day. “The crocodile has gone away,” answered Mumpy. “The big hippos swam around in the water and drove him to the other side of the river. We are not afraid. Come and play tag with us, Chunky.” “Not now,” he answered. “I’m going to eat. After I eat I will play.” Chunky waded out into the river until he felt the water coming up over his nose. Then he shut the breathing holes, so no water would run into them. It was just as if one of you boys had ducked your head under water and held your nose closed with your fingers, only Chunky did not need to hold his nose. He could not have done so if he had wanted, for he had no hands, and he needed his four feet to walk on. For, though in deep water he could swim, as could the other hippos, he now wanted to walk along under water on the soft, oozy, muddy bottom of the river and eat grass and plant-roots. Chunky had in his jaw some long, sharp teeth, called tusks. They were not as big as the tusks of Tum Tum the elephant, and they did not show when Chunky closed his big lips. But when he opened his mouth his tusks could easily be seen and so, too, could his other big teeth, called molars,[33] which were used for grinding up the grass and other things he ate, just as your teeth grind, or chew, your food. It was with his long, sharp tusks that Chunky dug up from the muddy bottom, or from the banks of the river, the roots which he loved so well. And now, as the boy hippo waded out, he opened his eyes under water to look about and to find a good feeding place. “Ah, I shall have a fine feast!” thought Chunky to himself, as he saw, a little ahead of him, under water, a big clump of rich, green grass. “There must be some fine roots there.” Walking along on the soft mud at the bottom of the river, the little hippo boy peered about, trying to decide which was the best place to begin his meal. The surface of the water was about a foot over his back, and he could see quite well, for the sun was shining overhead in the blue sky. Opening wide his mouth, so he could use his tusk-like teeth to uproot the grass, Chunky began his feast. With a motion of his big head, which made the water above him boil and bubble, the hippo tore out a lot of the juicy roots, getting them into his mouth. “Ah! but these are good!” he thought to himself. “I don’t believe that Tum Tum, even if he was in a circus, and was put in an adventure-book,[34] ever had anything as good as this. Yum-yum!” said Chunky, or whatever it is hippos say when they have something good to eat. Chunky was chewing away, wishing his sister Mumpy and his brother Bumpy were with him to enjoy the sweet grass roots, when, all of a sudden, Chunky felt something sharp nip him on the end of his nose. “Ouch!” he cried to himself. “I must have run against a sharp stone.” He tried to step backward, and then he felt the sharp pain again. This time he knew he had not struck himself. “Something has bit me!” cried Chunky. “Oh, it must be a big fish! I must get out of here!” He started to rise to the top of the water, so he could swim ashore, but, just as he did so, there came a third bite on his big nose, and he saw, right in front of him, a great big crocodile with a lot of teeth in his long jaws. It was the crocodile that had bitten Chunky and which now had hold of his nose, hanging on like a mud turtle. “Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!” blubbered Chunky, as he wiggled about under water, trying to get loose from the crocodile. [35] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_p035.jpg" width-obs="391" height-obs="600" alt="" title="" /> <div class="caption">“It was the crocodile that had bitten Chunky”</div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> [36] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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