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Umboo, The Elephant

<h2 id="id00282" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER V</h2> <h5 id="id00283">PICKING NUTS</h5> Not stopping to dig up any more roots, Umboo rushed off through the jungle after his mother, who hurried on ahead. As they crashed along, breaking their way through bushes and knocking down small trees, they heard again the shrill trumpet of Tusker, the oldest and largest elephant of the jungle. "What is he saying?" asked Umboo of his mother, as he hurried along, now close to her. "What is Tusker saying?" "He is telling of some kind of danger," said the older elephant. "Just what it is I don't know. But the herd will be moving away very soon, to hide in a dark part of the jungle, and we must go with them." As Umboo and his mother came out into an open part of the forest, where they had left the other elephants, when Umboo had been led away to be given his root-digging lesson, there was great excitement. Tusker stood on top of a little hill, his trunk high in the air, making all sorts of queer, trumpeting noises. "We were waiting for you," said Mr. Stumptail to Umboo's mother. "We are going to run away and hide. Tusker is calling you." "Well, tell him we are here now," said Mrs. Stumptail. "I had to give Umboo his lesson." "And I dug up some sweet roots," said the little elephant, "but I didn't have time to bring you any," he told his father. "Some other time will do," spoke Mr. Stumptail. "Hello, Tusker!" he called through his trunk to the old, big elephant. "Here they are now! Umboo and his mother have come back. We can all go hide in the jungle." "Why must we hide?" asked Umboo. "Because Tusker smelled danger," answered Keedah, who was with the other small elephants where they were gathered together, the older ones about them. "He smelled white and black hunters, with guns, and they are coming to shoot us, Tusker says. So he called a warning to all of us." "I heard it away off where I was digging up roots," said Umboo. "But did Tusker see the hunters with their guns?" "No, I didn't see them," said Tusker himself, coming down from the hill just then. "But I smelled them, and that is the same thing. The wind was blowing from them to me, and I could smell them very plainly. Come now, elephants! Into the deep, dark part of the jungle, where the hunters can not find us, we will go—far into the jungle." Then the herd moved off, and Umboo's mother told him, as they hurried along, that an elephant's eyes can not see very far. "We have not a very sharp sight, like the hawks or the vultures," said Mrs. Stumptail, "so we have to depend on our noses. We can smell things a long way off, and when you are older you will get to know the difference between the sweet roots, under the ground, and the man-smell, which means danger. "Tusker smelled the man-smell, even though he could not see the white and black hunters, and then he trumpeted through his trunk to tell us all to run away," said Mrs. Stumptail. Through the jungle crashed the herd of elephants, not going any faster, though, than Umboo and the other small ones could trot along. Though an elephant is very big and heavy he can move swiftly through the forest, and go in places where no horse could travel, for the way would be too rough, and great vines and trees would be strung across the path. Indeed there is no path, the elephants making one for themselves, and when once a herd starts off it can hardly ever be caught by a hunter on foot. "Do you think any of us will be shot?" asked Umboo, as he shuffled along beside his mother. "How does it feel to be shot?" "My! But you ask a lot of questions," said Mrs. Stumptail; and I think Umboo was like a lot of boys and girls I know. But then if you don't ask questions how are you ever going to find out anything? "I can tell you how it feels to be shot," said a middle-aged elephant, who was hurrying along, next to Mr. Stumptail. "It hurts very much, Umboo! It hurts very much, and worse than a whole lot of big bugs biting you at once." "Were you ever shot?" asked Umboo. "Indeed I was," answered the elephant, whose name was Bango, called so because he used to bang big trees down with his head. "I was shot twice." "Tell me about it," said Umboo. "It was some years ago," went on Bango. "I was with another herd, and we were eating away in the jungle. All at once I heard a noise like a little clap of thunder, and I felt a sharp pain in my head. One of the hard things the hunters shoot in their guns had hit me. Then another struck me in the leg." "Didn't any of you smell the hunter coming?" asked Mr. Stumptail. "Didn't you smell him and get out of the way?" "No," answered Bango, "none of us did. The wind was blowing the wrong way, I guess. But as soon as we heard the gun, and when I gave a blast through my trunk, as I felt myself hurt, then all the herd knew what had happened, and away we rushed, just as we are rushing now. We went very fast." "Did the hunter get any of you?" asked Umboo. "Not that time. I was the only one hit," said Bango. "But another time five or six of the herd I was with were killed by hunters." "What for?" asked Keedah, who was now more friendly with Umboo. "Why did the hunters kill the elephants, Bango?" "To get their big teeth, or tusks. Our tusks are ivory, you know, and the hunter men, so I have been told, take our teeth to make into round balls, with which they play games, or they use them to put on machines that make tinkle-tinkle sounds." By this Bango meant pianos, the keys of which used to be made from ivory, though now they are mostly celluloid. And the game men play, with balls made from elephants' tusks, is called billiards. On and on through the jungle hurried the elephants, until at last Tusker, who led the way, came to a stop. "This is far enough," he said. "I do not believe the hunters will find us here. We will rest now." Indeed it was time to stop, for some of the smaller elephants were quite tired out. Big elephants can hurry through the jungle very fast for as long as twenty hours at a time, stopping, perhaps, only during the very hottest part of the day. And when an elephant is very tired it begins to perspire, or "sweat," over each eye, and two little hollow places there look as though they had been wet with a sponge. In the cooler part of the shady jungle the elephants rested, some of them pulling down branches from the trees to get at the leaves or tender bark. Umboo began sniffing along the ground with his trunk. "What are you doing?" asked Keedah. "I am smelling for sweet roots," was the answer. "My mother showed me how to do it. Do you want me to show you?" "I learned that long ago," said Keedah. "Why I can even get palm nuts off a high tree by knocking the tree down. Can you do that? Smelling out earth-roots is nothing!" "I think it is something," spoke Umboo. "And, when I get a little bigger my mother is going to show me how to pull over, or knock down, a whole tree. But now I am hungry for roots." So Umboo kept on sniffing at the ground with his trunk. He was feeling quite hungry. Suddenly Keedah cried: "Ha! I have found some sweet roots! I am going to dig them up!" "And I have found some, too!" exclaimed Umboo, as through his long nose of a trunk he sniffed the good smell. Then the two elephant boys dug up the earth with their feet, sort of pawing aside the soft dirt, and with their tusks they pried up the roots, chewing the soft part. At first the older elephants were uneasy, or worried, for fear that, even though they were in a deep part of the jungle, the hunters might come after them. Tusker and some of the big father-elephants went about, with their trunks high in the air, sniffing, sniffing and sniffing for any smell of danger. But there seemed to be none. The hunters were left many miles away, and the elephants could rest and eat in peace. For many months after this they roamed about, going from place to place in the jungle as they ate one spot bare of roots and leaves. Sometimes the place where they drank water would dry up, and they would have to move to another river or spring. For an elephant must have plenty of water. All this while Umboo kept on digging up sweet roots when ever he felt he wanted some, until he could do it almost as well as his mother or father could. One day, when the elephant boy was traveling through the jungle he looked up and saw, growing on top of a tree, some palm nuts. Elephants are very fond of these, and will go a great way to get them. There are many kinds of palm trees, and on some grow cocoanuts, and on others dates; but the palm nuts the elephants eat are different. Umboo looked up at the palm nuts growing on the tree in the jungle, and said: "Oh, how I wish I had some of those." "Well," said Mrs. Stumptail, "how do you think you can get them?" "If I were a monkey," said the elephant boy, "I could climb up the tree and pick them off." Umboo had often, in the jungle, seen the monkeys do this. "But you are not a monkey," said his mother. "Can you reach up with your trunk and pull down the nuts?" Umboo tried, but his trunk was not long enough. "I guess the only way to get the nuts is to break down the tree; but how can I do that?" he asked. "Your head is the strongest part of you," said Mrs. Stumptail. "See if you can knock the tree over." "Bang!" went Umboo's head against the tree. The tree shook and shivered, and a few nuts were knocked down, but not enough. "Well," said the elephant boy, as he banged the tree again, "I don't mind doing this for fun, as it doesn't hurt, but the tree doesn't seem to be coming down very fast. And I can't get the nuts until it does. What shall I do, mother?" "Just think a little harder," said Mrs. Stumptail. "I want you to grow up to be a smart elephant boy, and to do that you must think for yourself. I shall not always be with you. Try and think now how to get the tree down." "I know!" cried Umboo. "I can pull it over with my trunk!" He wrapped his long trunk around the tree and began to pull. He had often pulled up small trees and bushes this way, but the palm nut tree was stronger. Though Umboo pulled and pulled, digging his feet hard down into the ground, the tree did not come up. "Oh, dear!" said the elephant boy. "I don't believe anyone can get this tree down, Mother!" "Nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Stumptail. "Don't be such a baby. Think hard, Umboo! You can easily uproot that tree and get all the nuts you want. Let me see you do it!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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