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Chunky, the Happy Hippo

<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII CHUNKY ON A SHIP</h2> Standing up in the cage made of jungle vines, Chunky, the happy hippo—happy even though he had been caught and taken away from home—listened, hoping to hear the trumpeting of his friend, Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. But no such sound came. Instead, the black men shouted more loudly than before, and began dancing. “What is it all about?” asked Chunky of some monkeys who had been caught a few days before. “Why are the men shouting?” “I think it’s because they can see the ocean from the top of the hill,” returned one monkey. “I can smell the salt air. I remember it; for once, years ago, a troop of monkeys of which I was one, came down to the seashore. It smells now just as it did then.” “But why should the black men be glad to get to the ocean?” asked Chunky. “I can tell you why,” growled the lion. “It means they have come safely through the jungle with us animals, and do not have to march and[76] carry us any more. I know, for I heard a lion friend of my father’s tell about it. He was caught and carried through the jungle to the sea, ready to be put on a big floating house and sent across the ocean. But he got away and ran back into the jungle. “And now they are going to take us away. I’m not going! I’m going to break out of my cage!” and once more the lion roared and tried to break loose, but he could not. “Quiet! Quiet!” said the white hunter in a gentle voice, but the lion roared, and would not be still. “You are very silly,” said Chunky. “You can’t get out, and you may as well make the best of it. Being in a circus may not be so bad. Tum Tum liked it.” “But I am not Tum Tum!” roared the lion, and he would not be quiet until they gave him a lot of meat. When he chewed on that he could not very well roar. It was the sight of the ocean that had made the black men shout so joyfully, and soon Chunky, in his cage, was carried down to a spot from which he could see what, at first, he thought was a big river. But it was the sea, not a river. “I think we’ll give the hippos a bath,” said the head white hunter to his men, though the animals, of course, did not know what he was[77] saying. “The hippos like lots of water,” went on the man, “and they haven’t had a chance to get a good soaking since we caught them. Take their cages down to the ocean and dip them in, but don’t let the animals out.” Chunky, Short Tooth and Gimpy did not know what was going to happen to them when they found themselves being lifted up again and carried forward. But they soon found out. Long ropes were fastened to their cages, and they were dipped right down into the salty ocean. This was the first time Chunky or any of the other hippos had been in salt water, for the rivers where they lived in the jungle were of fresh water, though it was muddy. But salt water or fresh is all the same to a hippo, except for taking a drink. They like to swim in one as well as in the other, and often, when the jungle where the hippos live is near the sea, they spend all day in the ocean, near shore and travel inland at night to feed. So, though it was the first time Chunky had had a salt bath, he and his two friends liked it. In their cages they sank away down on the sandy bottom of the ocean near the shore, closing their nose holes, so as not to swallow any of the briny water. Short Tooth thought he could break out of his cage while he was in it under water, and he tried,[78] but it was of no use. The black men knew how to make cages strong enough to hold even a young hippo. “Ah ha! Now I feel fine!” cried Chunky, as they raised his cage out of the ocean, and he puffed and blew out the air from his nose, which he had kept closed under water. “I feel just dandy!” Of course Chunky didn’t use the word “dandy,” but he used one in animal talk which means the same thing, only it would be too hard for you to pronounce if I put it in here. “What makes you so happy?” asked one of the monkeys, who sat in his cage near the shore, really shivering, though the day was warm—shivering as he saw how the hippos liked the cool water. “I am happy because I hope I am going to be in a circus,” said Chunky. “Well, I’m not!” growled the lion; “though I am feeling a little better since they fed me.” “Chunky is always happy,” said Gimpy. “He has been jolly ever since I’ve known him.” “Yes, so he has,” added Short Tooth, as he stood up to let the water drip off him. “Well, why shouldn’t I be?” asked Chunky. “It’s true I’ve been taken away from the river I liked so well, away from the jungle, away from my father and mother, away from Mumpy, my[79] sister, and Bumpy, my funny brother. But what of that? I’d have had to leave them some day, anyhow, and why not now? Besides, I am going to be in a circus, and I may meet Mappo, the merry monkey.” “I wish I could be jolly, like you,” said one of the monkeys. “Well, just think what fun you may be going to have, and not about the trouble you’re in now, and you’ll be happy,” said the hippo, and he opened his mouth as wide as he could. The black hunters, who were just then bringing up great quantities of grass for the hippos to eat, thought Chunky was opening his mouth to take a big bite of the food, but, instead, he was smiling because he felt so jolly. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, when a hippo is laughing, or when he is smiling, or when he just opens his mouth to eat, but once you learn to know the difference, you’ll never make a mistake. Chunky was smiling. None of the other wild animals that had been caught in the jungle and brought to the sea, felt as happy as Chunky did, though the other two hippos were pretty jolly. Having a bath in the sea and getting sweet grass to eat made them that way, I guess. And now began a busy time, for all the animal cages—in some of which were lions, big apes,[80] snakes, monkeys, and deer with big horns, besides the hippos—had to be hoisted up into the ship, or the “floating house,” as some of the jungle beasts called it. In this ship the animals would be carried across the ocean from Africa to America, where they were to be put on exhibition in circuses or in zoological parks or in menageries. Of course Chunky and his friends knew nothing of this. They did not even know what a circus was, though Chunky had heard Tum Tum talk about one, and about books and adventures. “I shall be very glad to get to a circus, I think, and off this floating house, or whatever it is,” thought Chunky, when the ship had started. Chunky was in his cage up on deck, as were his two hippo friends and some of the larger animals. The others were under the deck, in the hold of the ship. “I don’t like this at all,” Chunky said to the other hippos. “It’s too swishy-swashy like!” He meant the ship was rolling to and fro, and pitching and tossing up and down with the waves, for it was soon out of sight of land, and going far away from Africa and the jungle. Though Chunky and his friends were used to being tossed about in the river, when they played tag and other water games, this motion of the ship was different. It made some of the animals[81] seasick, and the lion, especially, was quite sad and miserable. He grumbled and growled, but he was too sick to roar, and Chunky, too, did not feel as well as when he had been carried through the jungle in the vine cage. “Still, I suppose I might be worse,” thought the hippo. “I might have nothing to eat or be chased by a crocodile,” and he sort of looked down cross-eyed at his nose, which was scarred by the teeth of the crocodile that had bit Chunky. Indeed Chunky and the other animals had all they wanted to eat, and were kindly treated, for the men who had bought them from the black hunters wanted the animals to be well and strong when they were taken off the ship. So Chunky, Short Tooth, Gimpy and all the rest were well treated, though of course they were not allowed to go around loose. On and on steamed the big ship with its load of animals. There was nothing much Chunky could do except eat and sleep and drink water. He wanted a bath, but there seemed to be no way of giving him one. However, one day, as an animal man passed along the deck and looked in at the hippos, he saw that their skin was very dry and that it was getting hard and cracking open. “That will never do!” he said to the captain. “We must fix it so the hippos can have a bath.” [82] “How can we?” asked another animal man. “Very easily,” put in the captain. “I’ll get a big wooden tank up on deck. We can pump it full of sea water from a hose and let the hippos have a bath in it.” “That will be just the thing for them!” said the animal man. “Get a tank for the hippos.” The sailors soon made one, for I guess sailors can do almost anything. On deck a big wooden box as large as a room in your house, was set, and water was pumped into this. It was salt water from the ocean in which the ship was steaming along, but the hippos liked salt water to wash in as well as fresh, as I have told you. “Now we’re all ready,” said the animal man. “We’ll hoist the hippos up, one at a time in their cages, and dip them into the tank.” Chunky and the others rather hoped they might be allowed to come out of their cages and splash around loose in the water tank, but this could not be. They might have gotten out and run all about the ship, not knowing any better. So they had to stay in their jungle cages still. “Oh, but this is fine!” cried Chunky, as he sank down in the water and let it soak into his hard, dry skin. “This is fine!” “Just what we wanted!” said Short Tooth. “Couldn’t be better!” gurgled Gimpy, as he let the water come up over his back. [83] “How happy those hippos seem,” said a giraffe. He had stuck his head out of a hole in the deck, for he was down below, though he could look out, as he was very tall and had a long neck. “Yes, they are happy,” said the lion. “Especially the one they call Chunky. I never saw such a jolly chap. He thinks he’s going to have lots of fun in a circus; but wait until he sees how it is! Then he won’t open his big mouth and smile any more.” The hippos liked the tank so much that the animal man said they could stay in it during the rest of the voyage. It was not so deep but what they could put their heads out to breathe, and this just suited Chunky and the others. One day, when they had been steaming over the ocean a long while, the sun went under some clouds and it became very dark, though it was not night. The sailors ran here and there about the ship, making everything fast. “We are going to have a bad storm!” cried the captain. “I hope none of the animals will get loose.” “We must take the hippos out of the tank, and tie their cages fast on deck,” said the animal man. But, before that could be done, the storm came and the ship was in the midst of wind and rain. <hr class="chap" /> [84] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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