Umboo, the Elephant Part 18

Once more Umboo was hoisted up by the ropes, but there was really no need for it. He knew what was wanted of him, and he did it.

"That's fine!" said the big elephant. "If you learn the other things as easily as you learned this trick, you will have no trouble."

"Are there other tricks to learn." asked Umboo.

"Oh, many of them," answered w.a.n.g, the best trick elephant in the circus. "You have only just begun."

And Umboo found that this was so. In the ten days that followed he was taught many more tricks. Some of them he did not learn so easily as he had the one of standing on his hind legs, and the ropes had to be used many times. But the other trick elephants, of whom there was more than one, showed the untrained ones what to do, and, in time, Umboo and his friends could go through many "stunts," as the circus men called them.

Umboo learned to lie down and "play dead," he learned to stand on a little stool, like an over-turned washtub, he learned to kneel down over a man stretched on the ground, and not crush him with the great body, weighing more than two tons of coal.

Other tricks, which Umboo learned, were to take pennies in his trunk, lift up a lid of a "bank," which was a big box, drop the pennies in and ring a bell, as if he had put money in a cash drawer. He also learned to turn the handle of a hand organ with his trunk, to ring a dinner bell, and do many other tricks, such as you have seen elephants do in a circus.

Then, one day, the man from India came where Umboo was, and giving him some peanuts, which our friend had learned to like very much, said:

"Well, now it is time you joined the circus. You know enough tricks to make a start, and your circus-trainer will teach you more. So off to the circus you go, Umboo! Off to the circus!"

And the next day Umboo went.

CHAPTER XV

UMBOO REMEMBERS

Brightly in the sun gleamed the white tents. In the wind the gay flags fluttered. Here and there were men selling pink lemonade and peanuts.

Around the green gra.s.s were the big wagons--wagons that needed eight or ten horses to pull, wagons s.h.i.+ning with gold and silver mirrors--heavy, rumbling wagons, which Umboo and the other elephants had to push out of the mud when the horses could not pull them.

"And so this is the circus, is it?" asked Umboo, as his friend, w.a.n.g, and he were led up to the tents.

"This is the circus," spoke w.a.n.g. "But I forgot. This is your first one; isn't it?"

"The very first," answered Umboo. "My! It's lots different from the barn where I learned my tricks, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, heaps different. It's more jolly," said w.a.n.g.

"And it's different from the jungle," went on Umboo.

"Oh, yes indeed! It isn't at all like the jungle," said w.a.n.g. "I remember the jungle very well. I always had to be sniffing here and there for danger, and often I had to drink muddy water, or else I went hungry. Here that never happens. All we have to do here is to perform our tricks, push a wagon out of the mud now and then, and eat and sleep. You'll like it here, Umboo."

"I'm sure I shall," he answered. "But what is that funny noise?"

"That is the music playing," answered w.a.n.g. "In the circus we do our tricks to band music. It's more fun that way."

Umboo liked the music, and there was one man who played a big horn--larger than himself, and the horn went: "Umph-umph!" just as Tusker used to trumpet through his trunk.

Umboo and the other elephants were taken into the animal tent, and placed around the outer ring, their legs chained to stakes driven in the ground. In cages were monkeys, lions, tigers and other beasts of the wood or jungle.

"Was it this circus of ours which you were first taken to, Umboo?"

asked Humpo. "I came here about a year ago."

"No, it was not this one, but it was one like it," said the elephant.

"I came here about a year ago."

"I remember that time," said Snarlie. "I liked you as soon as I saw you, Umboo."

"So did I," spoke Woo-Uff, the lion, stretching out his big paws.

"Let us hear the rest of Umboo's story," suggested Chako, the monkey.

"Did you like the circus?"

"Indeed I did, very much," Umboo answered.

Then he told how he stood in the ring, and watched the boys and girls, and the men and women, come in to look at the animals before they went in the main tent, to sit down and watch the performers and animals do their tricks and "stunts."

Boys and girls, and some grown-folk, too, gave the elephants peanuts and bits of popcorn b.a.l.l.s which the big fellows liked very much, indeed.

While Umboo was standing in line, with the other elephants, waiting until it was time for them to go in the big tent, and perform their tricks, such as standing on their hind legs and getting up on small barrels, our jungle friend saw a man coming toward him with a bag in his hand.

And, all at once Umboo remembered something. He looked sharply at the man and thought:

"Ha! There is the fellow who gave me the sour lemon inside the lump of sugar. Now is my chance to play a trick on him."

The man, with the bag in his hand, walked toward Umboo. To that man all elephants looked alike. He did not know he had ever seen this one before, and had played a mean trick on him. And the man said to another man who was with him:

"Watch me fool this elephant. I have an empty bag. I have blown it up full of wind, so that it looks like a bag of peanuts. I'll give it to this elephant and fool him."

"Maybe he'll bite you," said the other man, and the first one answered:

"Pooh! I'm not afraid. Watch me! I fooled an elephant once before. I gave him a lemon in some candy, and you should see the funny face he made. Ha! ha!"

"Ah, ha!" thought Umboo to himself. "He laughs, does he? Wait until I see what a funny face he is going to make."

The man held out the bag of wind to Umboo. But, instead of taking it, and getting fooled, the wise elephant suddenly dipped his trunk into a tub of water that stood near. Umboo sucked his trunk full of water and then, all at once, before the man knew what was going to happen, Umboo blew the water all over him.

"Whewiff!" went the water in the man's face, and all over his new suit, that he had put on to wear to the circus.

"Oh, my!" cried the man. "What happened?" and he spluttered and stuttered and gurgled. "What happened?" he asked, as he backed away and wiped the water from his face.

"I guess what happened," said the man who was with him, but who did not get wet, "was that the elephant played a trick on you, instead of you playing one on him. That's what happened!"

"I guess it did," said the man, whose windblown bag was all wet and flabby now. "But I don't see why he did it. I never fooled him before!"

"Maybe this is the same elephant you fooled with the lemon," said the second man.

"It couldn't be," spoke the wet one. "That was a long while ago, on a s.h.i.+p, and an elephant can't remember."