The Boy’s Pa Shows Bravery in the Jungles in Africa—Four Gorillas
Chase Pa—The Boy and His Pa Don’t Sleep Much at Night—The Boy
Discovers a Marsh Full of Wild Buffaloes.
I do not know whether Pa is an expert in hypnotism or what it is, but he
certainly delivers the goods when he goes after a wild animal in the
jungles of Africa, and he shows bravery at times that astonishes
everybody, but he admits that he is a coward at heart, and would run if
anybody pulled a gun on him, and I guess he would, but you turn him
loose in a wild animal congress and he will be speaker and make the
whole bunch get on their knees.
I was scared when Pa wanted to have a cage with iron bars hauled into
the jungle where the gorillas live, and insisted that he be left there
alone for two days, with rations to last a week, as he said he expected
to have some gorilla boarders to feed, but Mr. Hagenbach let Pa have his
way, and the cage was hauled about eight miles into the black
wilderness, with great trees and vines and suckes and gorillas all
around him, but Pa insisted on having a phonograph full of jig tunes,
and when we got the cage located and Pa in it and were ready to leave, I
cried, and the whole crowd felt as though we would never see Pa alive
again, and it was a sad parting.
When we left Pa he was cooking some bacon on an oil stove in the cage
and frying some eggs for his dinner, and as we took the trail back to
camp, in silence, we could smell the bacon frying, and when we got a
mile or so away we heard music and stopped to listen and could plainly
hear the phonograph playing “There will be a hot time,” and Mr.
Hagenbach said it reminded him of a dirge.
It was a long two days before we could go back and find Pa’s remains,
but the second day we hiked out through the jungle and into the woods.
Pa had told us that when we came after him to come quiet and not disturb
the menagerie, so when we got near the place where we left Pa we slowed
down and crept up silently and peeked through the bushes and a sight met
our eyes that scared me.
There were four big gorillas and several little ones around the cage,
and some were gnawing ham bones and others were eating dog biscuits, but
it was so silent in the cage that I thought Pa had been killed and that
the gorillas were eating him, so I yelled, “Pa, are you all right?” and
he answered back, “You bet your sweet life I am all right,” and then we
prepared to go the cage, when Pa said for us to climb trees, and just
then the gorillas started for us with their teeth gleaming, and we all
shinned up the trees around the cage, and we had front seats at the
biggest show on earth. Pa told us that the gorillas that treed us were
afraid we were going to harm him, and they proposed to protect him.
He said he had been feeding the animals for two days and had got their
confidence so he could make them understand what he wanted them to do.
“Now watch ’em dance when I turn on the music,” and then Pa gave them
the “Merry Widow” waltz, and by gosh if a big gorilla didn’t put his arm
around his wife, or some other gorilla’s wife, and dance barefooted
right there in front of the cage, and all the rest joined in, and the
baby gorillas rolled over on the ground and laughed like hyenas. Pa
stopped the music and called one big gorilla Rastus and told him to sit
down in the cactus, and the others did the same, and Pa repeated an old
democratic speech of his, and they clapped their hands just like a
caucus. “Well, what do you know about that already,” said Mr. Hagenbach,
and then he asked Pa how he was going to capture them.
[Illustration: Pa Stopped the Music and Repeated an Old Democratic
Speech of His and They Acted Just Like a Caucus.]
Pa said he had them in the cage several times and let them out, and when
we got ready to go to camp all he had to do was to let the phonograph
play “Supper is now ready in the dining car,” and they would come in and
he would slip out and lock the door and we could haul the cage to camp.
[Illustration: All He Had to Do Was to Play “Supper is Now Ready in the
Dining Car” on the Phonograph.]
Well, you ought to have seen my old gentleman call the whole bunch of
gorillas into the cage and feed them and see them act like a lot of boys
in camp, reaching for potatoes and bacon and wiping their lips on their
hairy arms, but none of them asked for napkins or finger bowls. When the
food was all gone they began to kick like boarders at a second-class
boarding house, and then Pa slipped out of the door and locked it, and
we came down out of the trees and surrounded the cage, and Pa acted as
barker and told us the names he had given to the gorillas.
Pa brought the phonograph out of the cage and set it going and the
gorillas began to dance. Mr. Hagenbach was so pleased that he fairly
hugged Pa, and we got ready to haul the cage to camp.
Pa always makes some mistake before he has a proposition well in hand,
and he did this time, of course. As we were about to start the gorilla
Rastus, who had become Pa’s chum, looked at Pa so pitiful that Pa said
he guessed he would let Rastus out and he and Rastus would walk along
ahead and get the brush out of the road, so he opened the door of the
cage and beckoned to Rastus, and the big gorilla came out with his
oldest boy, and Pa and the two of them took hold of hands and started on
ahead, and we started to haul the wagon by drag ropes, when the worst
possible thing happened. Rastus reached in Pa’s pistol pocket, where Pa
had just put a large plug of tobacco after he had bit off a piece, and
Rastus thought because Pa ate the tobacco he could, so he bit off about
half of the plug and ate it and gave his half-grown boy the rest of it,
and that was eaten by the boy. Pa tried to take it away from them, but
it was too late, and they were both mad at Pa for trying to beat them
out of their dessert.
It was not long before Rastus turned pale around the mouth, but his face
was so covered with hair that you couldn’t tell exactly how sick he was;
though, when he put both hands on his stomach, gave a yell and turned
some somersaults, we knew he was a pretty sick gorilla, and his boy
rolled over and clawed his stomach and had a fit.
Rastus had the most pained and revengeful look on his face I ever saw,
and he looked at Pa as though he was to blame.
Pa had one of the men get the medicine chest, and Pa fixed two seidlitz
in a tin cup, but before he could put in the water Rastus had swallowed
the powder from the white and blue paper and reached for a wash basin of
water, and before Pa could prevent Rastus from drinking it on top of
those powders, he had swallowed every drop of the water, and the
commotion inside of him must have been awful, for he frothed at the
mouth and the bubbles came out of his nose, and he rolled over and
yelled like a man with gout, and he seemed to swell up, and Pa looked on
as though he had a case on his hands that he couldn’t diagnose, while
Rastus’ boy just laid on the ground and rolled his eyes as though he
were saying his “Now I lay me,” and Mr. Hagenbach said to Pa he guessed
he had broke up the show, and Pa said, “Never you mind, I will pull them
both through all right.”
Finally the siedlitz powder fiz had all got out of Rastus’ system and he
seemed to be thinking deeply for a moment, and then he got off his
haunches and looked steadily into Pa’s eyes for a minute, and then he
took Pa by one hand and his boy with the other and started right off
through the jungle, Pa pulling back and yelling to us to rescue him from
the gorilla kidnapers, but Rastus walked fast and before he had got
ought of sight he had picked his sick boy up and carried him under his
arm and both were groaning, and he held on to Pa’s hand and went so fast
that Pa’s feet only hit the high places.
The gorillas in the cage looked at them disappear and tried to get out
of the cage to go along, but they couldn’t get out.
Finally Mr. Hagenbach said me, “Hennery, I guess your Pa has got what is
coming to him this time. Rastus will probably drag your Pa up a tree and
eat him when his appetite comes back, but we can’t help him, so we
better haul the cage and the gorillas that have not had any tobacco to
camp, and in a day or two we will all come out here and find your
father’s bones and bury them.”
And then we all went to camp, and the poor gorillas just remained
listlessly in the cage, mourning as though they knew Rastus and his boy
were dead. We fed them everything we could spare, but they would not
eat, and by watching them we found there was a case of jealousy in the
cage, as two male gorillas seemed to be stuck on a young female, and
they were scrapping all the time.
Gee, but we needed Pa worse than ever to settle the gorilla dispute, but
we all felt that Pa was not of this earth any more, and the camp took on
an air of mournfulness, and they all wanted to adopt me, ’cause I was
alone in the world. There was not much sleep in camp that night, and the
next day we were going out with guns to find Pa’s remains and shoot
Rastus, but a little after daylight we heard the night watchman say to
the cook, who was building a fire, “Look who’s here, and what do you
know about that,” and he called the whole camp up, and we looked out
across the veldt and there came Pa astradle of a Zebra, with Rastus’ boy
up behind him and Rastus thoroughly subdued, leading the Zebra with a
hay rope Pa had twisted out of grass.
The whole camp came to attention and Pa scratched a match on Rastus’
hair and lighted a cigarette, and when he got near enough he said:
“Slept in the crotch of a tree all night. Gave Rastus and his boy a
drink of whiskey out of my flask and cured them of the tobacco sickness,
had some mangoes for breakfast, sent Rastus to catch a Zebra, and here
we are ready for coffee and pancakes.”
Pa got off his zebra, opened the door of the cage and pointed to it, and
Rastus and his boy got in, and Pa kicked Rastus right where the hair was
worn off sitting down, and Rastus looked at Pa as though that was all
right and he deserved it. Then Pa closed the door, washed his hands and
sat down to breakfast, and when Mr. Hagenbach said, “Old man, you have
got Barnum and Forepaugh skinned a mile,” Pa said, “O that is nothing; I
have located a marsh full of wild Buffaloes, and we will go out there
and get a drove of them in a few days.
“They are the ugliest and fightingest animals in the world, but I will
halter break some of them and ride them without any saddle.” Mr.
Hagenbach said he believed it, and Pa said, “Hennery, one spell I
thought you would be an orphan, but whiskey saved you. When they got a
big drink of whiskey they began to laugh, and then fell on my neck and
cried, just like a white man when he is too drunk to fight. Well, I am
going to take a nap,” and Pa laid down on a bale of hay and slept all
day, and the crowd talked about what a hero he was.
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