TUM TUM IN THE CIRCUS
With Mappo chattering in his monkey language, and the elephants in the
lower part of the ship trumpeting through their trunks, there was so
much noise, that it is no wonder many of the animals were frightened.
"Oh, what is it? What is it?" Mappo chattered.
"I don't know," answered Tum Tum, "unless the hunters are coming after
us again," and, raising his trunk, he gave the call of danger, as he had
heard Mr. Boom, the big leader elephant, give it in the jungle.
"Hush! Be quiet!" called an old elephant near Tum Tum. "Why do you call
that way, brother?" he asked in elephant language.
"There is danger," replied Tum Tum. "I must tell the others to get out
of here."
"That cannot be done," said the old elephant. "We are in a ship, on the
big water, and if we got out now, in the ocean, we would surely drown.
Be quiet!"
"But why am I tossed about so?" asked Tum Tum. "Why can I not stand up
straight?"
"Because the ship is in a storm," answered the old elephant. "I know,
for I have been on a ship before. The wind is blowing and tossing the
ship up and down.
"But there is no danger. Only keep quiet, and, since you are the new
leader of the elephants, tell them to be quiet, or some of them may be
hurt. See, down come the sailors to see what is the trouble."
Surely enough, down came a whole lot of sailors, in white suits, to see
why all the elephants had trumpeted so loudly, and why Mappo, the merry
monkey, had squealed.
"Hush! Be quiet!" called Tum Tum to the other elephants. "Be quiet or I
shall beat you with my trunk, and make you."
When Tum Tum spoke that way, all the other elephants heard him, and they
grew quiet. Some, who had fallen on their knees, when the ship tossed
from side to side, now got up. They placed their big legs far apart, so
they could stand steadily.
"We will be all right when the storm passes," said the old elephant who
had spoken to Tum Tum.
Mappo picked himself up off the pile of hay, and, just then, his friend
the sailor came to get him.
"I guess you have been here long enough, Mappo," said the sailor. "You
might get hurt down here, with all these big elephants."
Mappo was glad enough to go, not that he felt afraid of the elephants,
but he knew that one of them might, by accident, fall on him, and an
elephant is so large and heavy that, when he falls on a monkey, there is
not much left of the little chap.
"Good-by, Tum Tum!" called Mappo to his big friend. "I'll come and see
you, when the storm is over."
"All right," answered Tum Tum. "And I hope the storm will soon be over,
for I do not like it."
The ship was swinging to and fro, like a rocking chair on the front
porch when the wind blows. But finally the elephants became used to it,
and some of them could even go to sleep. But Tum Tum stayed awake.
"There might be some danger," he thought to himself, "and if there was,
I could warn the others. I am the leader, and must always be on the
watch for danger, just as Mr. Boom would be, if he were here."
But I am glad to say no more danger came to the ship. It rode safely
through the storm, and in a few days, it was gliding swiftly over the
blue sea.
"What will happen to us, when the ship stops sailing?" asked Tum Tum of
the old elephant, who seemed to know so much.
"After it gets to the other side of the ocean," said the old elephant,
"we shall be taken out--we and all the animals. Then we shall go to the
circus."
"Is the circus nice?" asked Tum Tum.
"I have been in one or two, and I like them," said the old elephant,
whose name was Hoy. "There is hard work, but there is also fun."
"Tell me about the fun," said Tum Tum. "I do not like to hear about the
hard work."
"The work goes with the fun," said Hoy, "so I will tell you about both.
The hard work comes in marching through the hard city streets, that hurt
your feet. That is when we go in the parade. I know, for I have been in
many parades. But it is fun, too, for we elephants have a little house
on our backs, and men and women ride in it. Then the bands play, and the
people laugh and shout to see us pass by. Yes, that is fun," and the old
elephant, who had been sent to make the voyage in the ship, so that he
might keep the new, wild elephants quiet, shut his eyes as he thought of
the circus days.
"Is there other hard work?" asked Tum Tum.
"A great deal," said Hoy. "You will have to push heavy wagons about with
your head, and lift heavy poles, as you did in the lumber yard when you
came from the jungle. And then you will have to do tricks in the circus
ring."
"What are tricks?" asked Tum Tum.
"Tricks are what I call hard work, but they make the people in the
circus laugh," answered Hoy. "You will have to stand on your head, turn
somersaults and do many things like that."
"Now tell me about the fun," begged Tum Tum.
"Yes, there is some fun," spoke Hoy, slowly. "You will get nice hay to
eat, and water to drink, and the children in the circus will give you
popcorn balls and peanuts to eat. Also, you will wear a fine blanket,
all gold and spangles, when you march around the ring in the tent. But
now I am tired, and I want to go to sleep."
So the old elephant slept, and Tum Tum stood there, swaying backward and
forward in the ship, wondering whether he would like a circus.
It took several weeks for the ship to make the journey from jungle land
to circus land, and, during that period, Mappo, the merry monkey, came
down to see Tum Tum several times.
"I am going to be in the circus, also," said Mappo, when one day Tum
Tum spoke of the big show under the white tent.
"Are you?" asked the jolly elephant. "That will be nice. We'll see each
other."
"And will you take care of me, so the tiger won't get me?" asked Mappo.
"Indeed I shall!" cried Tum Tum through his big trunk.
At last the day came when the ship reached her dock, and the animals
were taken out. The chains were loosed from the legs of Tum Tum and the
other elephants, and they were hoisted up from the lower part of the
ship, and allowed to go ashore. Tum Tum was glad of it, for he was tired
of the water. But his journey was not over, for, with the others, he was
put in a railroad car, and hauled by an engine. At last, however, he
reached a big wooden building, and the old elephant, Hoy, said:
"This is where the circus stays in winter. Now you will begin to have
hard work, and also fun."
"Well," thought Tum Tum, as, with the other elephants, he marched toward
the big barn-like building, "if there is enough fun, I shall not mind
the hard work."
Then, as he felt rather jolly, after getting out of the big freight car,
Tum Tum picked up a piece of stick from the ground, and began tickling
another elephant in the ribs with it.
"Yoump! Umph! Woomph!" trumpeted this elephant. This was his way of
saying:
"Hi, there! What are you doing? Stop it!"
"Oh, that's only in fun!" laughed Tum Tum.
"Well, my ribs are too sore to want that kind of fun," the other
elephant said. "Now you just quit!"
But Tum Tum was so jolly that he wanted more fun, so he tickled another
elephant. This elephant, instead of speaking to Tum Tum, just reached
over with her long trunk, pulled one of Tum Tum's legs out from under
him, and down he went in a heap.
"Ha! Maybe you like that kind of fun!" cried the elephant who had made
Tum Tum fall.
"It didn't hurt me!" said Tum Tum, as he got up. But, after that, he was
careful not to play any jokes on this elephant.
It was very cold in this new land to which Tum Tum had come, for it was
winter. It was not at all like his green, hot jungle, and he was glad
when he was led, with the other elephants, into the big barn, where the
circus stayed in winter.