CHUNKY’S NEW FRIENDS
Along through the jungle jogged the black men, carrying the cage with
Chunky in it. Now and then the black men would sing a funny song. At
least it would have sounded queer to you, for it was like a lot of
coughs, sneezes, hiccoughs and giggles. But it was a song the men often
sang as they marched, so the way would not seem so long, nor their
burdens so heavy, and Chunky was quite a heavy load, let me tell you!
After a while the men stopped in the jungle, to make a fire and cook
something to eat. Farther back, the other black hunters who had caught
Chunky and sold him to the white man, were doing the same thing. They
had found a deer, which one of them speared, and they cooked it.
The cage, with Chunky in it, was set down in the jungle, not far from
the fire the men made to cook their meal. This was the first time the
hippo had seen a blaze, and, for a time, he was frightened, as are all
jungle animals at the sight of fire. But, after a bit, when Chunky
found that the fire did not come near him, he was not so much afraid.
But he was very hungry for some grass, and he wanted very much to swim
in a lot of water, and wallow in the mud.
Pretty soon, when it had grown dark in the jungle, and the black men
were eating their meal, along came the white hunter.
“Have you given that little hippo anything to eat?” he asked the black
men.
“No,” they answered, “we have not.”
“Well, you’d better do so,” said the white man. “He is hungry, as well
as you. And I want him to be nice and fat and strong when I put him on
the ship to take him to America to the circus. Get him some grass and
water.”
Then two or three of the black men, putting their fingers in their
mouths, and sucking them, which was their way of cleaning them instead
of using napkins, went down to the river bank, near which they were
camped, and pulled up a lot of grass for Chunky. They also brought him
water in hollow gourds, which were as large as a water pail. They knew
the hippo liked lots of water.
My! how thirsty Chunky was! He drank almost a barrel full, it seemed,
and then he ate some of the grass the men tossed into his cage. It
tasted good, and he felt better after that.
The men went to sleep around their jungle fire then, and Chunky,
having had something to drink and something to eat, fell asleep also.
You might have thought, being carried away from his home as he was,
Chunky would have felt so bad that he could not sleep. I know you
would, but animals are not like that――especially jungle animals. As
long as Chunky had enough to eat he was pretty well satisfied.
And though back in the jungle his father and mother missed him, they
did not worry much. When night came and Chunky was not home, Bumpy and
Mumpy, his brother and sister, asked Mrs. Hippo:
“Where is Chunky?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “He may be lost in the jungle or he may
have gone away. He is getting old enough, now, to look after himself. I
guess he is all right.”
And so, after a little while, Chunky’s folks forgot all about him, and
went to sleep too. They did not know that the little boy hippo was
being taken on a long journey.
Early in the morning Chunky, in his wooden cage, awoke in the jungle
camp. It is so hot in Africa that when hunters travel they do so early
in the morning and late in the afternoon. At mid-day the sun is too hot
to walk out in it.
So, after breakfast, Chunky being given more grass and water, the black
men picked up his cage again and set off. As they went along under the
jungle trees, Chunky could hear, overhead, many monkeys chattering away.
“Oh, look at that poor hippo the hunters have caught,” said one. “Isn’t
it too bad! I wouldn’t want to be in a cage.”
“Oh, I don’t mind it so much as I did at first,” said Chunky, speaking
to the monkeys in jungle talk, which the black men and white men could
not understand. “I’ve had enough to eat and drink and no one is hurting
me. No crocodiles can get me here.”
“Well, you certainly are a happy chap,” went on the monkey who, by
leaping from branch to branch overhead in the trees, easily kept up
with the marching men carrying Chunky. “What makes you so jolly?”
“I guess I must have caught it from Tum Tum, the elephant,” was the
answer, and Chunky actually opened his big mouth as if he were smiling.
“Oh, I know Tum Tum!” cried one of the monkeys. “He’s a jolly elephant
who once was in a circus. And he knows a friend of ours.”
“Who?” asked another chattering chap.
“Mappo, the merry monkey,” was the answer. “Don’t you remember Mappo,
who used to live in the jungle with us?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Well, he went away, and, for a long time we did not see him.”
“Yes,” said the other monkeys. “That’s so!”
“Well, he was caught and sent to a circus, and that is where Tum Tum
was, only he’s out now. Maybe you’ll go to a circus, Chunky,” said the
monkey.
“Maybe,” agreed the happy hippo, who smiled again. “I guess it won’t be
so bad. Tum Tum was telling me about it. Yes, I think I would like to
go to a circus.”
“Tum Tum said Mappo liked it,” put in another monkey, with a queer
twist to his tail. “Mappo did tricks, and he had a lot of adventures
and had a book written about him.”
“Do you know what that is like?” asked Chunky. “I heard Tum Tum speak
of adventures and a book.”
“No, I don’t know,” was the answer. “I never heard of a book except
from Tum Tum, and I don’t believe he really knows what it is.”
“Well, perhaps if I go to a circus I shall find out,” went on Chunky.
“Do you want us to go and get Tum Tum, and have him break your cage
with his big feet and strong trunk, so you can get out?” asked a
white-whiskered monkey.
Chunky thought about this for a while, as the black men carried him
through the jungle, while the monkeys leaped along in the tree tops
overhead.
“No,” said the hippo boy after a while. “I guess you don’t need to
bother Tum Tum, though it’s kind of you to offer. I sent a little bird
to find him, but I guess my elephant friend is too far away.
“Besides, I think I won’t try to break loose. I feel very good here,
though I wish my cage was a bit larger. But I’ve had water to drink,
and sweet grass to eat, and I am having a nice ride. I think I’ll stay
longer and see what else happens to me. I want to have some adventures
and be put in a book.”
“All right, then we won’t get Tum Tum,” said the monkey who had offered
to try to find the elephant. “And, Chunky, if you do get in a circus,
and see our old friend Mappo, give him our love, will you?”
“I’ll certainly do that!” promised the hippo boy.
Then, all at once, the hissing of a snake was heard, and as monkeys are
very much afraid of snakes, they gave loud chatters and scurried away
through the jungle, leaving Chunky in his cage being carried along by
the black hunters.
For many mornings and afternoons the white men and their black helpers,
who were out to get live animals for circuses and parks in big cities,
traveled on through the jungle. They caught two more hippos, though
neither was as large as Chunky, and they caught other animals and
birds, all of which were carefully put in cages to be carried to the
ship to go across the sea.
Chunky felt happier now that he had some friends with him, and he was
especially glad there were two more hippos.
“Now I shall not be lonesome,” he said to his new friends, in animal
talk. “How did you come here?”
“I was caught in a big net as I went through the jungle,” said Short
Tooth, one of the hippos that had one tusk which was shorter than the
other.
“And I was caught as I was swimming in the river with my mother,” said
the other hippo, which was named Gimpy by Chunky and Short Tooth. Gimpy
walked a little lame from having stepped on a sharp stone when he was a
baby, cutting his foot.
So the three hippos were kept in cages close together, and were carried
through the jungle, down toward the seacoast, with the other wild
animals. Chunky made friends with them all, for he was a happy chap,
and tried to look on the bright side of everything――as much as any
animal can.
“We might be a good deal worse off,” he said to a young lion who was
grumbling because he had been caught and put in a cage. “Just think,
here we have all we want to eat without ever going after it.”
“Burr-r-r-r-r!” growled the lion. “I don’t like it at all! I want to
get out of here!” and he leaped about, scratching and clawing at the
wooden bars of his cage until the black hunters cried in fright and ran
away. But one of the white men came and stood near the lion’s cage and
spoke to the lion, which was a small cub.
“Be quiet!” said the white man, though of course the lion could not
tell what the man was saying. “Be quiet, little King of Beasts! You
shall have good meat to eat, clean water to drink and you need never
hunt for food again. Besides, you are going to be in a circus! Be
quiet!”
And the man spoke in such a kind way that the lion was quiet.
Then the white man, who was the head, or chief, of the others out
looking for live wild animals, came over to where the hippos were in
their cages.
“Three of you, eh?” he said, though of course Chunky could not
understand what he said. “Three nice hippos! Well, you will be worth a
lot of money if I can get you across the ocean safely and to the big
city. There I can sell you to a circus or a menagerie in the park.
“Ha! You are a fat, chunky chap!” the man went on, looking at our
hippo. “And you seem quite contented. I should even say you were happy
by the way you smile,” continued the white man, for, just then, Chunky
opened his mouth as wide as he could. Perhaps he was only yawning,
sleepy-like, but it looked like a big laugh.
“Yes, you are quite fat, I think Chunky would be a good name for you,”
went on the white hunter, and so the hippo was named over again, the
same name his mother’s friend had given him in the jungle.
For many more days the white and black men traveled on with the live
animals they had caught. Then, one morning, after quite a long march,
Chunky noticed that the black men suddenly stopped singing and broke
into loud cries. They seemed quite happy.
“What do you suppose has happened?” asked Gimpy, as he stood up in his
traveling cage.
“I don’t know,” answered Short Tooth. “Maybe they have caught an
elephant.”
“I hope it’s my friend, Tum Tum,” thought Chunky. “I’d like to see him
now.”