Umboo, the Elephant Part 14

But, better than this, the elephants in India do much work. They pull great wagons, that many horses could not move, and they work in lumber yards, piling up the big, heavy logs of teakwood, from which those queer, Chinese carved tables and chairs are made, and which wood is also used in s.h.i.+ps. The Indians teach the elephants how to pile up big logs very carefully, and so straight that a big pile may be made without one falling off. Besides this the rich men of India, the Princes, own many elephants, which they ride on in little houses, called howdahs which are strapped to the backs of the big animals.

But before the wild elephants can be used thus they must go to school, to learn to be gentle, and to do as their drivers, or mahouts, tell them to do. And so Umboo went to school and I shall tell you about that.

Of course it was not such a school as you boys go to, and the big elephant boy did not have to learn to read and write. But he had to learn the meaning of Indian words, so that when he heard them he would know which meant go to the right or which to the left, and which meant to stand still, to kneel down or to go forward.

But I am getting a little ahead of my story. Umboo was still in the stockade trap with the other elephants. And there they were kept two or three days, without anything to eat or anything to drink. Fast they were kept in the stockade, where they could not get out, and as the days pa.s.sed, and they felt very badly at not having anything to eat, or anything to drink, the elephants grew more quiet. No longer did they rush at the fence, and fall into the ditch. They huddled together in the middle part, and rubbed their trunks against one another, as men, in trouble, might shake hands.

"Oh, will we ever get out of this, and have sweet bark and palm nuts to eat again?" asked Umboo. "It was almost better to be lost in the jungle, as I was, than it is to be here, for then I had enough to eat.

But of course I was lonesome without you," he said to his mother. "But I am hungry now."

"Perhaps they will let us out, or feed us soon," she said.

And, a little while after this, a noise was heard at the strong gate of the trap. It was slowly opened, but the elephants that were caught did not rush out. They feared more danger.

And then, to the surprise of Umboo and the others, in through the gate came great big elephants, and on the tops of their heads sat men, dressed in black clothing. And the men had strong ropes in their hands.

As soon as Tusker saw these men, and smelled them, he cried through his trunk:

"Ho, Brothers! Here is danger indeed! I smell the man-smell, even though it comes with other elephants like ourselves. We must get away from the danger!"

Tusker rushed at the gate, but before he could reach it two of the new elephants, who were tame, hurried toward him. The men on their heads threw the big ropes about Tusker, and he was pulled by the two elephants over toward a tree in the stockade, where he was made fast.

Tusker tried, with all his strength to break the ropes, but they only slipped easily around the tree, from which the bark had been taken to make it smooth and slippery for this very purpose.

"Be quiet, big, wild elephant," said one of the tame ones with a man on his head. "Be quiet and tell your friends to be quiet also. No one will hurt them. They will have food to eat, and sweet water to drink, if they are quiet."

Tusker heard this, and so did some of the other wild elephants. They were hungry and thirsty.

"Will you give us water to drink?" asked Tusker, for his trunk and mouth were very dry.

"You shall have water enough to swim in," answered one of the keonkies, or tame elephants.

"And may we eat?"

"You shall have all the palm nuts you want. That is if you are quiet."

"Then," said Tusker to Umboo, and the other wild elephants, "we may as well take it easy and be quiet. Raging about will do us no good, and we must eat and drink."

So most of the wild elephants became quiet. Some of them still tore around, trumpeting, but the big tame elephants pulled them with ropes to the trees where they were made fast. Mrs. Stumptail, and the other mother elephants, soon calmed down, and the boys and girls, like Umboo and Keedah, did as their mothers did.

In a short time the wild elephants were all either tied fast to trees, or were led away between two of the tame ones. Umboo was taken away from his mother.

"Oh, where am I going?" he cried to the tame elephants, one on either side of him. "I want to stay with you, Mother! Where are you taking me?"

"Do not make such a fuss, elephant boy," spoke one of the tame ones.

"You will come to no harm, and you will see your mother again. You are going to go to school. You are young, and you will learn much more easily than some of the big elephants. Also you will have good things to eat and water to drink. Be nice now, and come with us."

Umboo had to go along whether he wanted to or not, for the big, tame elephants would pull him by the ropes. They led him to a sort of stable, and there he found some green fodder, some palm nuts and a tub of water. And Umboo drank the water first, for he was very thirsty.

Then he ate and he felt better, though he wondered what had become of his mother.

But he did not wonder long, for elephants, and other animals, are not like boys and girls. They grow up more quickly, and get ready to go about for themselves, getting their own food, and living their own lives. And Umboo was big enough, now, to get along without his mother.

"Were you once living in the jungle, as I was?" asked Umboo of Chang, which was the name of one of the tame elephants.

"Surely," answered Chang, "I was as wild as Tusker, your big herd-leader. But when I was caught in the trap, as you were, and sent to school, I found the life here was much easier than in the jungle. It is true I have to do as the mahouts tell me, but they treat me kindly, they feed me and I never have to go thirsty, and when my toe nails get too long they smooth them down for me with a rough brick. Also they scrub my skin to keep away the biting bugs. You will like it here, Umboo, and soon you will go to school and learn how to pile the teakwood logs."

"And will I ride men on my head?" asked Umboo.

"Yes, you will learn to do that, and many things more," said Chang.

But even he did not know all the wonderful things that were to happen to Umboo, nor how he was to go in the circus.

CHAPTER XII

UMBOO IS SOLD

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.