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Umboo, The Elephant

<h2 id="id00698" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XII</h2> <h5 id="id00699">UMBOO IS SOLD</h5> Umboo, the big elephant boy, did not at once begin to learn the teakwood log-piling lesson. Just as in school you do not learn to read the first day, so it was with Umboo. He had to be trained by his keeper and the keonkies, or tame elephants. And, after the first feeling of being sorry at having been taken away from his mother, Umboo grew to like the new life. His mother was sent to another big stable, farther away, though Umboo saw her once in a while. With him, however, were many of the wild elephants he had known when the herd was in the jungle. Keedah was one of these elephants. "I don't like it here at all!" snarled Keedah, when he had been led up beside Umboo, a few days after they had all been caught in the trap. "I don't like it, and I'm not going to stay!" "What are you going to do?" asked Umboo. "I am going to run away," said the elephant boy, whom Umboo had once, in fun, knocked into the river. "I am going to run away, and go out in the jungle." "Oh, no. I wouldn't do that if I were you," quietly said one of the tame elephants, coming up behind Keedah just then, and the half-wild elephant was so surprised that he nearly dropped a wisp of hay he was eating. "If you ran away we should have to run into the jungle after you," went on the tame elephant. "And when we brought you back you would not have a nice time. It is better to do as you are told, and to learn to do what the black and white men tell you. For then you will be kindly treated, and have plenty to eat. And the work you will learn to do, after you go to school, as you and Umboo will go, will not be hard. Take my advice and stay where you are." "Well, I guess I'll have to," said Keedah, with a funny look at Umboo. "I didn't know he heard me," he whispered, as if the tame elephant were a teacher in school, which, in a way, he was. And then began long days and months of lessons for Umboo and the other wild elephants. They were not wild any longer, for the first thing they learned was that the tame elephants would help them, and next that the white and black men would be kind to them and feed them. So the jungle elephants, who used to roam about with Tusker for their leader, lost most of their wildness, quieted down, and were sent to different places in India to work in the lumber yards, or to carry Princes on their backs. Umboo and his mother had to say good-bye, but they hoped to meet again, and though for a time Umboo felt sad, he soon forgot it as he had many things to learn. One of the first was to let a man come near him to pat his trunk, and to feed him. In the beginning Umboo was very much afraid, because he smelled the man-smell, which Tusker had so often said meant danger. But Umboo grew to know that not all men were dangerous. For, though some might be hunters, with guns and sharp arrows, those who had caught the wild elephants were kind to the big animals. "I wonder why I am afraid of the man?" thought Umboo. "He is much smaller than I am. His head hardly comes up to my tusks, and some of the tame elephants are even larger than I. Why are we so afraid of the men as to do just as they tell us?" Of course Umboo did not know, but it is because man, who is also an animal, is put in charge of all the beasts of the jungle, the woods and fields. Animals are given to help man, and to feed him. And as a man has more brains—that is he is smarter than animals—he rules over them. Thus it is that even great elephants, and savage lions and tigers, as well as horses, know that man is their master, and must do as he wants them to. So, though he could see that he was larger than a man, Umboo did not think much farther than this, and so he never made up his mind that, if he wanted to, he could run away, and that no one man could hold him. But perhaps it was just as well as it was, and that the elephant remained gentle and did as he was told, not trying to use his great strength against his friends. One of the first things Umboo learned was to walk along, when he was told to do so in the Indian language. At first Umboo did not know what this word meant. But his keeper gently pricked him with a sharp hook, called an "ankus," and to get away from the prick, which was like the bite of a big fly, Umboo stepped out and walked away. "Ha! That is what I wanted you to do, little one," said the Indian, speaking to Umboo as he might to a child. And indeed the Indian mahouts consider their elephants almost like children. When Umboo had learned that a certain word meant that he was to walk along, he was taught two others, one of which meant to go to the left, and the other to go to the right. Then, in a few weeks, he learned a fourth word, which meant to stand still, and then a fifth one, which meant to kneel down. And though, at first, the elephant boy did not like doing the things he was told to do, as well as he had liked playing about in the jungle, he soon grew to see that his life was easier than it had been with Tusker and the others. He never had to hunt for food, as it was brought to him by the keepers. Nor was he ever thirsty. And, best of all, he never had to drop what he was eating and run away, crashing through the jungle, because Tusker, or some other elephant had trumpeted the call of: "Danger! I smell the man-smell!" Umboo was used to the man-smell now, and knew that no harm would come to him. He knew the men were his friends. And so he who had once been a wild baby elephant, grew to be a tame, big strong beast, who could carry heavy teakwood logs on his tusks, and pile them in great heaps near the river, where they were loaded upon great ships. Umboo did not know the boats were ships, but they were, and soon he was to have a ride in one. But I have not reached that part of his story yet. Sometimes, instead of being made to pile the logs in the lumber yard, Umboo would be taken into the forest, where the Indians cut the trees down. The forest was something like the jungle where the boy elephant had once lived with Tusker and the others, and where he had played, and once been lost. In the forest were great trees of teakwood and these the elephant workers had to drag out so they could be loaded upon carts, with great wooden wheels, and brought to the river. One day Umboo and Keedah were taken together to the teak forest. "Now is our chance, Umboo," said the other elephant after a while as they went farther and farther into the woods. "Now is our chance!" "Our chance for what?" asked Umboo, speaking in elephant talk, of course, and which the Indian keepers did not always understand. "This is our chance to run away and go back to the jungle," went on Keedah. "When the men are not looking, after we have hauled out a few big logs, we will go away and hide. At night we can run off to the jungle." "No," said Umboo, shaking his trunk, "I am not going to do it. If we run away they will find us and bring us back. Besides, I like it in the lumber yard. It is fun to pile up the big logs, and lay them straight." "Pooh! I don't think so," said Keedah, who had not given up all his wild ways. "I am going to run!" And so, watching his chance, when the Indian men were not looking, Keedah sneaked off into the dark part of the woods. In a little while he was missed, and the keepers, with shouts, started after him. They tied Umboo to a tree with chains, leaving him there while they went to hunt Keedah. "They need not have chained me," thought Umboo. "I would not run away. I like my men friends too much, for they are good to me." The keepers got other elephants and hunted Keedah in the forest. For three days they searched for him, and at last they found him and brought him back. For Keedah had forgotten some of his wildness, and did not know so well how to keep away from the men who were after him, as he had known when he lived in the herd, with Tusker to lead the way. So Keedah, tired and dirty, and hungry too, it must be said—for he had not found good things to eat in the woods—Keedah was brought back. And he was kept chained up for a week, and given only water and not much food. This was to tame him down, and make him learn that it did not pay to run off when he was taken to the teakwood forest. "I wish I had done as you did, and stayed," said Keedah sorrowfully to Umboo. "I am not going to run away any more." So Umboo and the other wild elephants who were caught at the same time as he was, stayed around the lumber camp, and did work for their white and black masters. Sometimes a few of the elephants were sold, and taken away by Indian Princes, to live in stables near the palaces, to have gold and silver cloths fastened on their backs, and then the howdahs, in which rode the rich Indians, would be strapped on. Sometimes other wild elephants were brought in, having been caught as Umboo had been. And once Umboo helped to tame one of these little wild ones, telling him to be nice, as he would be kindly treated and have food and water. And one day new adventures came to Umboo. By this time he was a big, strong elephant, nearly fully grown, for it was now many years since he had been a baby in the jungle. And one day, as he was standing near a pile of lumber, that he had helped to build, one of the white men, whom he knew, and who had been kind to Umboo, took a handkerchief from his white, linen coat pocket, and wiped his face, for the day was hot. Then a little spirit of mischief seemed to enter Umboo. And this little spirit, or fairy, seemed to whisper: "Take his handkerchief out of his pocket with your trunk, Umboo, and make believe wipe your own face with it. That will be a funny little trick, and will make the men laugh, and maybe they will give you some soft, brown sugar." This the elephants like very much. Umboo saw the edge of the handkerchief sticking out of the man's pocket. Very softly the elephant reached put his trunk and took it. Then Umboo flourished the piece of white linen in the air, as the man had done, and pretended to use it, though Umboo's face was much larger than the man's, and really needed no handkerchief. The man turned around, as he heard his friends laughing, and when he saw what Umboo had done the man smiled and said: "Ha! That elephant is too smart to be piling lumber. I heard the other day where I could sell one to go in a circus. I'll sell Umboo! He will make a good circus elephant, to do tricks." And so Umboo was sold, though at first he did not know what that was, nor where he was to be taken. He only thought of how the men laughed when he took out the handkerchief from the pocket. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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