TAMBA IN A BARN
With the smashed circus cars, the broken animal cages, with some of
the jungle beasts, including the elephants, cut and bruised, with
shoutings, growlings, roarings and tootings going on, the scene at the
circus train wreck was a terrible one. It was no wonder that Tamba, the
tame tiger, wanted to run away from it all and get to a quiet place.
And this he did.
He crawled out of his cage, that had been broken when it slipped off
the smashed car, and gave one last look at it in the darkness.
“Good-by, old cage!” said Tamba, softly, as he turned to run away.
“I’ve been in you for the last time. I’m never coming back to the
circus!”
Leaving the noise and confusion of the circus wreck behind him, Tamba
slunk off into the tall grass that grew in the fields beside the
railroad track. The accident had happened at a lonely place, and there
were no houses near at hand.
“Ha! This is a little like the jungle where I used to live!” thought
Tamba, as he slunk through the tall grass. “I can hide here until I see
which way to go to get back home.”
And Tamba was right. The grass grew long, as it did in the jungle, but
there were not so many trees and tangled vines as in India. Only at
night it seemed a very quiet, restful place to the tiger who had been
so shaken up in the wreck.
Tamba walked on and on through the darkness, not really knowing, and
not much caring, which way he went. All he wanted to do was to get away
and hide, and the tall grass was just the place for this.
In a little while Tamba came to a place where there was a small pool
of water. It had leaked from a pipe that filled the tank where the
railroad engines took their water. Tamba drank some, and then, finding
a place where the grass was taller and thicker than any he had yet
seen, he made himself a sort of nest and curled up in it.
“I can sleep here, and Nero, that big lion, can’t splash any water into
my nose and make me sneeze,” thought Tamba, as he snuggled up.
At first he could not get to sleep. He had been too much frightened by
the train wreck, though he was so far away now that he could not hear
the din, which still kept up. But at last Tamba closed his eyes, and
soon he was slumbering as peacefully as your cat sleeps before the
fire.
It was daylight when Tamba awakened, and, for a moment, he did not
remember where he was. He stretched out first one big paw after another
and then he called:
“Well, Tum Tum, what sort of day is it going to be?”
Tamba used to do this in the circus tent, for the jolly elephant was
so big that he could look over the tops of the cages and tell whether
or not the sun was going to shine. Most animals awaken before the sun
comes up――just as it begins to get daylight, in fact.
But Tum Tum did not answer Tamba this time. The jolly elephant was
badly hurt in the railroad accident, but of course the tiger did not
know this just yet. Tamba did know, however, that he had made a mistake.
“Oh, I forgot!” he said to himself. “Tum Tum isn’t here! I’m not in the
circus any more. I’m free, and I can go to my jungle. I must start at
once!”
Then Tamba arose, and stretched himself some more. He liked to feel the
damp earth under his paws, and he liked the feeling of the dry grasses
as they rubbed against his sides.
“Why, I feel hungry!” suddenly said the tiger. “I wonder where I can
get anything to eat in this, the beginning of the jungle.” You see,
Tamba still thought the jungle was close at hand, but, to tell you the
truth, it was far away, over the sea, and Tamba could not get to it
except in a ship.
The more Tamba thought about it the hungrier he became. He knew no men
would come to him now with chunks of meat, as they had used to come in
the circus.
“I must hunt meat for myself, the same as I did when I lived in the
jungle with my father and mother,” thought the tiger. “Well, I did it
once, and I can do it again. I wonder what kind of meat I can find?”
Tamba did not have to wonder very long, for he soon saw some big
muskrats, and he made a meal off them.
Then Tamba looked about him, and began to think of what he would do to
get to the deeper part of the jungle――the part where the trees grew. He
wanted to be in the thick, dark woods. All wild animals love the quiet
darkness when they are not after something to eat.
But it was now broad daylight, and Tamba knew he must be careful how
he went about. Men could easily see him during the day. He remembered
he had been told this in the jungle, years before, by his father. But
in the jungle Tamba was not so easy to see as he was on this railroad
meadow. The yellow and black stripes of a tiger’s skin are so like the
patches of light and shadow that fall through the tangle of vines in
a jungle, that often the hunters may be very close to one of the wild
beasts and yet not see it. The tiger looks very much like the leaves
and sunshine, mingled.
“But I guess if I slink along and keep well down in the tall grass no
one will see me,” thought Tamba. “That’s what I’ll do! I’ll keep hiding
as long as I can until I get to my jungle. Then I’ll be all right.
I’ll be very glad to see my father and mother again, and my sister and
brother. The circus animals were all very nice, but still I like my own
folks best.”
So Tamba slunk along, going very softly through the tall grass. If you
had been near the place you would probably have thought that it was
only the wind blowing the reeds, so little noise did Tamba make. Tigers
and such cat-like animals know how to go very softly.
All at once, as Tamba was slinking along, he heard the sound of men’s
voices talking. He knew them at once, though of course he could not
tell what they were saying. Besides the voices of the men, he heard
queer clinking-clanking sounds and the rattle of chains. Tamba knew
what the rattle of chains meant――it meant that elephants were near at
hand, for the circus elephants wear clanking chains on their legs,
being made fast by them to stakes driven into the ground.
“Ha! I had better look out,” thought Tamba. “Maybe those are the circus
men after me.”
The tame tiger was partly right and partly wrong. The voices he heard
were those of the circus men, and the chains clanking were those on the
legs of elephants. The men were trying to clear away what was left of
the circus wreck. Tamba had taken the wrong path, and had walked right
back to where he had started from.
“This won’t do!” he said to himself. “I must get farther away and hide!”
He peered between the tall grasses and dimly saw where the circus
men were working along the railroad tracks, lifting up some of the
overturned cars and cages. The elephants were helping, for they were
very strong.
“I’ll notice which way the sun is shining, and then I’ll know which way
to go to keep away from the circus men,” thought Tamba. Then he turned
straight about and ran off the other way.
On and on, over the big stretch of meadows and lonely land near the
railroad went the tiger until he had placed many miles between himself
and the scene of the wreck. In all this time Tamba did not see any men,
or any living creatures except some muskrats, many of which lived in
the swamp along the railroad. The muskrats were not glad to see Tamba,
for the tiger caught a number of them for food, but it could not be
helped.
No one saw Tamba sneaking along through the grass. If any one had seen
him they would have hurried to tell the circus men, for a general alarm
had been sent out, telling that some of the wild animals, including a
big, striped tiger, had got loose after the wreck.
But no one saw Tamba, and he saw no one, at least for a while. On and
on he went until night came again. Then he found another snug place in
among the dried grass where he curled up to sleep.
“My jungle is farther away than I thought it was,” said Tamba to
himself, as he awoke on the second morning of his freedom. “I must run
along faster to get there more quickly.”
After he had eaten and taken some water, he started off once again, and
then began a series of very strange adventures for the tame tiger.
Toward the close of the afternoon of the second day of his freedom
Tamba stepped out of a little patch of woods, into which he had gone
from the meadow, and there, in the light of the setting sun, the tiger
saw a red, wooden building which he seemed to know.
“Why, there’s a barn!” said Tamba to himself. “There’s a barn. I’ll
go in there and stay for the night. I wonder if there are any other
animals in it.”
The reason Tamba knew this was a barn was because, when he had first
joined the circus, he had been taken to a barn, and there was taught
some tricks. The circus folk and the animals lived in a big barn
instead of tents during the winter. So when Tamba saw this building he
knew, at once, that it was a barn.
Now it happened that this was a barn belonging to a farmer, who also
owned a house near by, but which Tamba could not see on account of the
trees. So, making sure that no one was about, Tamba walked toward the
barn, and, one of the doors being open, in walked the tiger.
He looked all around, as best he could, for it was not very light, and
he sniffed and smelled the smell of animals.
“Maybe some of my friends are here,” thought Tamba. “I’ll slink around
and see.”
So he walked softly and slinkingly to the middle of the barn floor, and
peered about, and, right after that, a very strange thing happened.