Back Aa

Umboo, The Elephant

<h5 id="id00009">UMBOO, THE ELEPHANT</h5> By <h5 id="id00011">HOWARD R. GARIS</h5> <h2 id="id00030" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER I</h2> <h5 id="id00031">BABY UMBOO</h5> "Oh, my! But it's hot! It is just too hot for anything!" cried Chako, one of the monkeys in the circus cage. "It is hotter under this tent than ever it was in the jungle! Whew!" and he hung by his tail and swung to and fro from a wooden bar. "In the jungle we could find a pool of water where we could keep cool," said another monkey, who was poking around the floor of the cage, hoping he could find a peanut. But there were only shells. "I wish I could go back to the jungle," he chattered. "What did you come away from the jungle for, if you don't like it in this circus?" asked Woo-Uff, the big yellow lion, who lay on his back in his cage, his legs stuck up in the air, for he was cooler that way. "Why did you come from the jungle, Chako?" "I didn't want to come," answered the swinging monkey. "But some white and black hunters caught me, and a lot more of us chattering chaps, and took us away from the jungle." "That's right, my boy!" exclaimed the deep, rumbly voice of Umboo, the biggest elephant in the circus. "None of us animals would have come away from the jungle if we could have had our way. But, now that we are here, we must make the best of it." "How can one make the best of it when it is so hot?" asked Chako. "The sun shines down on this circus tent hotter than ever it did in the jungle. And there is no pool of water where we can splash and be cool." "Oh, if water is all you want, I can give you some of that," spoke Umboo. "Wait a minute!" Near the elephants, of whom Umboo was one on a long line, chained to stakes driven in the ground, was a big tub of water, put there for them to drink when they wanted to. Umboo put his long, rubbery hose of a trunk down into this tub of water, and sucked up a lot, just as you fill your rubber ball at the bathroom basin. "Look out now, monkeys!" cried the elephant. "It's going to rain!" and he sort of laughed away down in his throat. He couldn't laugh through his nose, as his nose was his trunk, and that was full of water. "Look out for a shower!" he cried. With that the elephant went: "Woof-umph!" Out from his trunk, as if from a hose, sprinkled a shower of water. Over the cage of monkeys it sprayed, wetting them as might a fall of rain. "Here comes some more!" cried Umboo, and again he dipped his trunk in the tub of water, sucked up some in the two hollow places, and again squirted it over the monkeys' cage. "Oh, that's good! That's fine!" cried Chako. "That was like being in a jungle rain. I'm cooler now. Squirt some more, Umboo!" "No, hold on, if you please!" rumbled another elephant. "It is all right for Umboo to splatter some water on you poor monkeys, but if he quirts away all in the tub we will have none to drink." "That's so," said Umboo. "I can't squirt away all the water, Chako. We big elephants have to drink a lot more than you little monkeys. But when the circus men fill our tub again, I'll squirt some more on you." "Thank you!" chattered Chako. "I feel cooler, anyhow. And we monkeys can't stand too much water. This felt fine!" The monkeys in the cage were quite damp, and some began combing out their long hair with their queer little fingers, that look almost like yours, except that their thumb isn't quite the same. "If Umboo can't squirt any more water on us, maybe he can do something else to help us forget that it is so hot," said Gink, a funny little monkey, who had a very long tail. "What can he do, except squirt water on us?" asked Chako. "And I wish he'd do that again. It's the only thing to make us cooler." "No, I wasn't thinking of that, though I do like a little water," spoke Gink. "But don't you remember, Umboo, you promised to tell us a story of how you lived in a jungle when you were a baby elephant?" "Oh, yes, so he did!" exclaimed Chako. "I had forgotten about that. It will make us cooler, I think, to hear you tell a story, Umboo. Please do!" "Well, all right, I will," said the big elephant, as he swung to and fro; because elephants are very seldom still, but always moving as they stand. And they sleep standing up—did you know that? "I'll tell you a story about my jungle," went on Umboo. "But perhaps you will not like it as well as you did the story Snarlie the tiger told you." "Oh, yes we will," said Snarlie himself, a big, handsome striped tiger in a cage not far from where the monkeys lived. "You can tell us a good story, Umboo." "And make it as long as the story Woo-Uff, the lion, told us," begged Humpo, the camel. "I liked his story." "Thank you," spoke Woo-Uff, as he rolled over near the edge of his cage where he could hear better. "I'm glad you liked my story, Humpo, but I'm sure Umboo's will be better than mine. And don't forget the funny part, my big elephant friend." "What funny part is that?" asked Horni, the rhinoceros. "Oh, I guess he means where I once filled my trunk with water and squirted some on a man, as I did on the monkeys just now," said the swaying elephant. "Why did you do that?" Chako wanted to know. "Well, I'll tell you when I get to that part of my story," said the elephant. "Now do you all want to hear me talk?" "Oh, yes! yes!" cried the animals in the circus tent. "Tell us your story, Umboo! Tell us about when you were a baby in the far-off jungle of Africa." "I did not come from Africa; I came from an Indian jungle," said Umboo. "My friends, the African elephants, are much larger than I am, and they are wilder and fiercer, and so they are hardly every caught for the circus." "I remember a great big elephant in a circus I was once with—not this one, though," said Humpo, the camel. "His name was Jug—no it was not Jug, and it wasn't Jig, but it began with a J." "Maybe it was Jumbo," suggested Umboo. "That was it—Jumbo!" cried Humpo. "He was a very big elephant." "Yes, I guess he was," said Umboo. "I have heard of him, but I never saw him. He was an African elephant, and they are all large. Poor Jumbo!" "Why do you say that?" asked Chako the monkey. "Poor Jumbo?" "Because he is dead," said Umboo. "Poor Jumbo was struck by one of those big puffing animals, of steam and steel and iron, that pull our circus train over the shiny rails." "You mean a choo-choo-locomotive-steam-engine," said Woo-Uff, the lion. "I suppose that is the name," said Umboo. "Anyhow, Jumbo was hit by an engine, and, big as he was, it killed him. His bones, or skeleton, are in a museum in New York now." "Is New York a jungle?" asked Gink, who had not been with the circus very long. "New York a jungle? Of course not!" laughed Snarlie, the tiger. "New York is a big city, and sometimes we circus animals are taken there to help with the show. I've been in New York lots of times." "Well, don't let it make you proud," said Chako, the other monkey. "I have been there myself, and I'd much rather be in the jungle." "Say, are we going to listen to you animals talk or hear the story Umboo is going to tell us?" asked Humpo, the camel. "I thought he was going to make us forget the heat." "So I am," said Umboo, in a kind voice, "Only I wanted to speak about old Jumbo, There used to be a song about him, many years ago. It went something like this, and I heard a little English boy sing it: "Alice said to Jumbo: 'I love you!' Jumbo said to Alice: 'I don't believe you do; 'Cause if you love me truly, As you say you do, Come over to America To Barnum's show!'" "That's the song they used to sing about Jumbo, more than twenty years ago," said Umboo. "My! How can you remember so far back?" asked Chako. "Oh, we elephants live to a good old age," said Umboo. "Why, I am fifty years old now, and yet I am young! Some of the elephants in the jungle lived to be a hundred and twenty years old!" "Oh, my!" cried Chako. "Did they have circuses as long ago as that?" "Yes, but not the kind that traveled about, and showed in white tents," said Umboo. "But I have heard my father and mother say that we elephants live to be very old." "And can you remember so far back, when you were a baby in the jungle?" asked Humpo. "Oh, yes, very easily," answered Umboo. "I am going to tell you a story about how first I was a little elephant in the great, green forest, or jungle, and then I'll tell you how I was caught, and worked in a lumber yard in India, and how I was then sold to a circus." "Well, then, please begin!" begged Chako. "It is getting hot again in this monkey cage, and if you haven't any water to squirt on us tell us your story." "I will!" promised the elephant. And then, as the afternoon show was over, and it was not yet time for the night one to begin, the animals had a little quiet time to themselves. And, as they had done once before, they got ready to listen to a story. In the book before this I have written for you the story of Woo-Uff, the lion. And before that I gave you the story of Snarlie, the tiger. And now we come to Umboo. "The first thing I remember," began the elephant, "was when I was a little baby in the jungle." "Were you very little?" asked Snarlie the tiger. "Well, I have heard my mother say I weighed about two hundred pounds the first day I came into the world," answered Umboo. "So, though I was little for an elephant, I would have made a very big monkey, I suppose. And for a time I just stayed near my mother, between her two, big front legs, so the other elephants would not step on me, and I drank the milk my mother gave me, for my teeth were not yet ready for me to chew roots, leaves and grass." "Tell us something that happened!" begged Chako, "and make it exciting, so we will forget about the heat!" "Well," said Umboo, "I'll tell you of a terrible fright we had, and how—" But just then something else happened. Into the tent came running one of the circus men, and he cried to another, who was asleep on some hay near the elephants. "Come! Loosen Umboo! We need him to help us get one of the wagons out of the mud! Bring Umboo, the strongest of all elephants!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.