CHUNKY IN THE CIRCUS
Chunky began to feel quite happy again. He felt that these were more
like the times when he had been in the jungle. But he did not open his
mouth to smile or to laugh, and there was a very good reason for this.
If he had opened his mouth, as he was swimming in the stormy ocean, he
would have swallowed a lot of salty water, and he did not want to do
that. So he kept his mouth closed tightly, and his nose holes also,
whenever a wave broke over him, which often happened.
“Yes, I’ll swim back to shore and go to my jungle again,” thought
Chunky to himself. “I guess I don’t want to be in a circus, even if Tum
Tum said it was so jolly. I’m glad my cage fell and broke so I could
get out.”
So Chunky began to swim. I have told you that hippos are very good
swimmers and divers in the water, and Chunky was one of the best. Even
if his legs were very short, he knew how to use them to paddle himself
through the ocean waves, and he was soon swimming in fine style.
At first Chunky liked it, but, after awhile, he became tired.
“I wonder how much farther away the shore is,” thought Chunky. “I ought
to be there pretty soon. And I wonder if I can get down to the bottom
of this big pond of water and dig up some grass roots to eat. I guess
I’ll try that.”
Taking a long breath, so he would not have to come up to breathe for
about ten minutes, Chunky let himself sink under the waves. Down and
down he went, quite a distance in the ocean, but he did not come to the
bottom. That was more than a mile down, and quite too far for Chunky to
sink.
As he was floating around in the water, big fish brushed by him, and
tried to talk to him, but he could not understand what they said. They
were asking him what kind of fish _he_ was, and, of course, he was not
a fish at all!
Then, all of a sudden, a big shark, with a large mouth and very sharp
teeth, made a rush for Chunky, intending to bite him.
“My!” thought the hippo. “This is as bad as the crocodile! I must get
away from here!”
He began swimming toward the top as fast as he could go, and the shark
for some reason or other, not liking to go too near the surface,
stopped following Chunky.
For two or three hours Chunky swam about in the ocean, and by that
time the storm had commenced to die down. The wind did not blow so hard
and the rain did not come down so heavily. The waves, too, were not so
large.
“But it’s queer I don’t get to shore,” thought Chunky. He did not know
what a big place the ocean was, especially when one falls overboard in
the middle of it, as the young hippo had done.
Chunky was beginning to feel tired now. He raised his head as far out
of the water as he could, and looked all about him. Afar off he saw a
black speck, and he remembered, once, when he had swum far out in the
jungle river, and looked back, the shore had seemed to him but a black
speck.
“That must be the shore,” thought Chunky. “I’ll swim toward that. Then
I’ll be all right.”
So Chunky swam toward the black speck, which, though it got larger, did
not seem large enough for the shore. And then Chunky noticed a queer
thing. When he stopped swimming, which he did now and then to rest his
legs, the black speck seemed to be coming toward him.
And then, all at once, a lot of black smoke came out of the black speck
and Chunky knew what it was. It was the very ship off which he had
fallen earlier in the day during the storm.
“Well,” thought Chunky to himself, “if I can’t get to shore, and it
doesn’t seem as if I was going to, I suppose I may as well go back to
that floating house. At least I can rest there, and, even if I have to
go to the circus, maybe it will be as jolly as Tum Tum said it would
be. Yes, I’ll go back to the ship.”
At first, those on the steamer knew nothing of Chunky’s swimming about
in the ocean. They knew he had fallen overboard when his cage fell and
broke, but, if they thought any more about it, they must have thought
the hippo was drowned. And so there was much surprise when one of the
sailors cried:
“I see something in the water! It looks like a big, black pig!”
“A black pig!” exclaimed the captain. “More likely it’s a shark or a
whale!”
However, the captain had the ship steered toward Chunky, where he was
swimming, and then, looking through a telescope, the captain saw what
really was in the water, and cried:
“Why, there’s that hippo we lost overboard! Get ready, men, and we’ll
hoist him on deck again! Lower a boat.”
The ship was steered close to Chunky where he floated in the water.
Then a rowboat was lowered, with some sailors in it, carrying ropes to
put about the hippo and hoist him on deck again. Of course Chunky might
have dived down, and, keeping under water, out of sight, he could have
swum far away. But he was tired, and quite ready to go back on deck
again.
The small boat came close to him. At first some of the sailors were
afraid, and one called:
“Look out that he doesn’t open his big mouth and bite our boat in two!”
“Oh, he won’t do that!” said one of the animal men, who was in the
rowboat with the sailors. “This hippo is very good-natured and happy.”
And Chunky showed that he was by letting the sailors put ropes around
him in the water, for they could not lift him out unless they did this.
Once the ropes were fastened about Chunky, he was towed to the side
of the ship, and there, by means of a derrick, he was hoisted on deck
again.
“There you are!” cried the animal man. “I’m glad to get you back again,
Chunky.”
And so Chunky had fallen overboard and got back on the ship again, for
the vessel had not moved far from the spot where, in the storm, the
hippo had slid off the deck.
Chunky was so tired from his swim, and from having been in the water
so long, that he was very easy to handle. He made no trouble at all,
though he had been wild in the jungle only a few weeks before, and had
never seen a man, white or black. He was put in another cage, and then
the ship kept on, for the storm was over.
“Oh, so you are back with us again!” cried Gimpy, when he saw Chunky.
“Yes,” was the answer. “I started to swim to shore, but it was too far.
I got tired, and then I saw this ship and swam toward it. I am glad to
be back.”
“And we are glad to have you back,” said Short Tooth. “We were lonesome
without you. Now tell us about your adventure.”
“I didn’t have any adventure,” said Chunky, in surprise.
“Yes you did!” declared a monkey in the cage next to Chunky’s.
“Falling overboard was an adventure. I’ve heard Tum Tum tell about his
adventures, and some that Mappo, the merry monkey, had, and some of
them were no more exciting than yours. Tell us about it.”
“Well, I didn’t suppose that was an adventure,” said Chunky. “But I’ll
tell you about it,” and he did, just as it is set down in this book,
which tells many more of Chunky’s adventures.
“Well,” said the lion, who had listened to Chunky’s tale, “if _I_ ever
get off this ship I’ll never come back.”
“Maybe you’ll be glad to,” said the happy hippo. “I was.”
So the ship steamed on and on with its load of wild animals. There were
one or two other storms, but they did no damage, and no more cages
slid overboard. Another and larger tank was built for the hippos on
deck, and in this they took long baths each day. The animal men, for
there were several of them, would come around to feed and talk to the
different beasts. One special man always came to the hippos, and they
learned to know him and watch for him, for he brought them long, yellow
sweet vegetables every day. They were carrots, of which the hippos grew
very fond, though they never had had any in the jungle.
“Why are you so good to the hippos?” one of the sailors asked this
animal man one day.
“I want them to know and like me,” he answered. “Then I can teach them
a few tricks to do when they are in the circus.”
“Ho! Ho!” laughed the sailor. “What tricks can a great, big clumsy
hippo do?”
“Well, not very many, it is true,” admitted the animal man. “Not as
many as an elephant. But maybe I can teach Chunky to do a few.”
The animal man seemed to like Chunky a little better than he did the
other two hippos, though he was kind to all three. Perhaps he saw that
Chunky was a little smarter than Gimpy or Short Tooth.
After many days of steaming the ship came, at last, to a big city.
Chunky did not know it was a city, but he knew it was quite different
from his jungle. There were only a few trees here and there, and he
could see no rivers with nice, muddy, oozy banks on which he might
sleep. And it was very noisy, not at all like the jungle, where the
only noises were the wind blowing in the trees, the howling of animals,
the chatter of the monkeys, and the songs and screechings of birds.
With the other animals, some of them still seasick, and most of them
very lonesome for the forest or jungle they had left, Chunky was
hoisted off the ship in his cage and put on a big wagon. He was drawn
through the city, but he could see nothing of it, for his cage was
covered with a big sheet of canvas, such as tents are made of.
Then Chunky was taken to a large building, where his cage was set down
among those containing Gimpy, Short Tooth, the lion, the monkeys and
others.
“What place are we in now?” asked Chunky of the monkey who knew Mappo
and Tum Tum. “Is this the circus?”
“No, I guess it is just the beginning of it,” was the answer. “Tum Tum
said the circus was a jolly place. This isn’t!”
And it was not, for it was just a sort of barn, or storehouse, where
the animals were kept until they were sold to circuses or park
menageries.
For more than a month Chunky stayed in this animal barn. Every day he
could go into a tank, specially made for him and the other hippos, and
have a nice swim, though not for very far.
And every day Chunky had grass or hay or bran-mash to eat, with
carrots, apples and other fruit. In fact he had much nicer things to
eat than he had had in the jungle, and he liked them very much.
One day the man who looked after Chunky, feeding him and seeing that
the hippo had plenty of water to drink and swim in, came to the cage,
looked in, and said:
“I think you are tame enough now, to be taught a trick or two.”
“You can’t teach a hippo tricks!” said another man. “They are too
clumsy to stand on their heads.”
“Well, I wouldn’t teach this one that kind of trick,” returned the
first man. “But I think I can get him to open his mouth wide when I
tell him to, and I’ll teach him to raise one leg and stand on only
three. They are not very hard tricks, but they will be something for
the circus, if ever we sell Chunky to one.”
Of course Chunky did not understand this talk, nor did he know what the
man wanted when he stood in front of him and said:
“Open your mouth, Chunky! Open your mouth!”
Chunky did not open his mouth until he got ready, which was when he
wanted to take a bite of hay. And then, as he opened it wide, the man,
all of a sudden, gave Chunky some carrots, which he liked very much.
“Every time you open your mouth wide when I tell you to, I’ll give you
some carrots,” the man said.
Chunky did not understand this talk, either, but he soon came to know
that each time he opened his jaws as wide as he could when the man was
standing in front of him and making that, to Chunky, queer noise, he
would get one of the long, sweet, yellow vegetables; so, after a while,
all the man had to say was:
“Open wide, Chunky!”
Then the jaws would open like a big window, and you could look down
Chunky’s throat, which seemed to be lined with red flannel.
“Ha!” cried the man. “Chunky has learned to do a trick! Now he is ready
for a circus.”
And so Chunky was, for, besides learning to do the mouth trick, the
hippo had learned to be gentle, and not to try to bite the man who fed
him, knowing the man would not hurt him, but would be kind to him. The
man could go into the cage with Chunky and pat him on the head, and
Chunky rather liked that.
Then, one day something new happened to the hippo, who was quite happy
once more; happier than he had been in the jungle. Some men brought a
new, small cage up beside Chunky’s big one, in which he stayed with
Short Tooth and Gimpy, and Chunky was gently pushed into the small
cage. He went readily enough, for he saw a pile of carrots in the small
cage. Once inside, the door was shut and the cage was wheeled away.
“Oh! are you going to leave us?” asked Gimpy.
“Why, it seems so!” replied Chunky, rather surprised.
“Where are they taking you?” asked Short Tooth.
“I don’t know,” answered Chunky.
“I can tell you,” said an old elephant, who had lived in the animal
house many years. “You have been sold to a circus, Chunky, and they are
taking you there.”
And so it happened. The next day Chunky found himself in a circus, but
what happened to him there I’ll save for the next chapter.