UMBOO IS LOST
Umboo wanted to grow up to be a big, strong smart elephant. He wanted
to be like Tusker, the leader of the herd, and he thought if he were
as tall, and strong as that mighty fellow he would have no trouble at
all in uprooting the tree.
"There must be some way of doing it," said Umboo to himself as he
looked up at the palm nuts on top of the tree, and then he glanced at
his mother who was watching him. Of course Mrs. Stumptail herself
could easily have pulled the tree for Umboo, as it was not very large,
but she did not want to do this. Just as your mother wants you to
learn to lace your own shoes, or button them, and tie your hair
ribbons.
As he stood thinking of what best to do, Umboo scraped with his feet
in the dirt around the roots of the tree. Soon he uncovered some of
the roots. They were not a kind he liked to eat, but, as he saw the
roots laid bare, a new idea came into the head of the elephant boy.
"Ha! I know what I can do!" he said. "I can make the roots loose with
my long tusks, and then it will be easy to push the tree over with my
head. The roots won't hold it up any more!"
"That's it!" exclaimed his mother. "I was wondering how long it would
take you to think of that. And it is better that you should think of
it for yourself than that I should tell you. Now you will never
forget. So loosen the dirt around the roots, Umboo, and then see what
happens."
Kneeling down, Umboo put his tusks under the roots and pried them up,
as he used to pry the sweet ones up which he liked to eat. In a little
while he had broken many of the big roots. Then he stood up, backed
away from the tree, and rushed at it to strike it with his big head
which was like a battering-ram.
Once, twice, three times Umboo hit the tree. It shivered and shook,
and then, because the roots no longer held it up, over it went with a
crash.
"Hurray!" cried Umboo, or what meant the same thing in elephant talk.
"Now I can get the palm nuts!"
"Yes," said his mother. "You have learned something else."
With the tree lying flat on the ground, it was easy for Umboo to reach
the palm nuts with his trunk. He pulled them off and ate them, first,
though, giving his mother some. For elephants, and other animals, know
how to be kind and polite, though of course, they are not so good at
it as are you boys and girls.
As Umboo and his mother were eating the palm nuts, along came Keedah.
"Hello!" cried the other elephant boy. "How did you get the palm tree
down, Mrs. Stumptail?"
"I did it," said Umboo.
"You?" cried Keedah. "No! You are not strong enough for that!"
"No, I wasn't strong enough to knock this tree over with my head, or
pull it down with my trunk, until I loosened the dirt at the roots,"
said Umboo. "After that it was easy."
"Well, you are getting to be like us bigger boys," said Keedah. "May I
have some of the palm nuts, Umboo?"
"Yes," was the answer, for Umboo felt a little proud at what he had
done, and, like a real person, he wanted others to know it.
"Did you ever knock down a palm tree?" asked Umboo of Keedah.
"Often," was the answer. "I learned to dig at the roots just as you
did. But when it rains you don't have to do that."
"Why not?" Umboo wanted to know.
"Because the rain water makes the dirt soft around the roots, and we
don't have to dig it loose with our tusks. Wait until some day when it
rains, and you'll see how easy it is to knock over bigger trees than
this."
And Umboo found that this was so. About a week after that it rained
hard, and to the hot, tired and dusty elephants in the jungle the
cooling showers were a delight. The rain soaked into the ground, until
it was wet and soft, like a sponge.
Umboo, splashing in a mud puddle, walked away from where he had been
standing near his mother.
"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. Stumptail.
"I am going to see if I can do as Keedah said he could do, and knock
over a tree without digging at the roots," answered the elephant boy.
"The ground is rain-soaked now, and soft."
"Very well," spoke his mother. "You may try it. But don't go too far
away. The herd may move on through the jungle, and then you would be
lost."
"I'll be careful," promised Umboo.
Off started the elephant boy, splashing through the mud and water. He
did not need to wear rubber boots, or take an umbrella. In fact he
would not have known what to do with either, though once, in a circus,
I saw an elephant with an umbrella. But then I saw one with a hand
organ, too, and you'd never see that in the jungle.
But Umboo's big feet were made for walking in mud and water, and his
thick skin, though bugs could bite through it at times, did not let
any rain leak through to wet him. There was plenty on the outside,
however, just as there is outside your rubber coat.
"I'll just go off by myself and knock a great big tree over with my
head," thought Umboo. "Then the other elephants will see what I can
do. I wonder if it will be easy, on account of the ground being soft
from the rain?"
On and on through the jungle wandered Umboo. He was big enough to
travel by himself now, though of course he did not want to leave his
mother, nor the herd, which was like home to him. He was one of a big
family of elephants, some being his sisters, his brothers or his
cousins.
All around him, through the forest, Umboo could hear the other
elephants crashing about in the wet. They were looking for good things
to eat, and none of them went very far away from the others. They
wanted to be near where they could hear Tusker sound his trumpet call
of danger, if he had to do so.
But Umboo being young, and perhaps rather foolish, thought he could go
off as far as he pleased into the jungle.
"I can find my way back again, after I have knocked over a big tree,"
he thought to himself. "It will be easy."
The elephant boy saw several trees with bunches of palm nuts on them,
but none was large enough for him. He wanted to pick out an extra
large one; not as big, of course, as his mother or father or Tusker
could have butted over, but still one bigger than the other trees he
had been used to knocking down.
At last, when he had tramped on quite a distance through the mud and
water of the jungle, Umboo saw before him a fine, large palm tree.
Growing in the top, so far up that he could not reach any except the
very lowest, and littlest, ones, were a number of clusters of palm
nuts.
"Ah! That's the tree I'll knock down!" thought Umboo.
He went up to it, and looked at the ground around the roots. It was
soft and spongy as he stepped on it, and water oozed out.
"This ought to be easy," said the elephant to himself. "Very easy!"
He put his head against the trunk of the tree and pushed. At first the
tree only swayed a little, as though blown by the wind. Then the
elephant boy, who was quite strong now, pushed harder and harder. Then
he drew back his head and struck the palm tree a hard blow.
And then, all of a sudden, over it went, the roots pulling loose from
the soft, wet ground. Over the tree went, falling with a crash!
"Ah ha!" laughed Umboo. "That's the way to do it! Keedah was right! It
is very easy to knock over a tree when the ground is soft and muddy.
Now for some good nuts to eat."
With his trunk Umboo pulled the palm nuts off the tree and stuffed
them into his mouth. An elephant's trunk is to him what your hands are
to you children.
After he had eaten as many of the nuts as he wanted (and you may be
sure that was quite a number, for elephants have big appetites) Umboo
tore off a large branch, with nuts clinging to it and started off
through the jungle with it.
"I'll take this back to the herd with me," he thought. "My mother or
father may like it. And I can show it to Keedah. He can tell by the
size of this branch that the tree I knocked over must be a big one.
Then I'll bring him here and show him the tree. I'm almost as big and
strong as he is."
So thinking, Umboo went on through the forest. Each tree, leaf and
vine was dripping water, for it was still raining hard. Steam arose
from the ground, for the earth was hot and the water was warm, as it
always is in the jungle.
Perhaps it was this steam, which was like a fog, rising all around
him, that puzzled Umboo. And most certainly he was puzzled, for, when
he had been walking quite a distance, he suddenly stopped and
listened.
"This is strange," he said to himself. "I don't hear any of the other
elephants. And I ought to be back with the herd now."
He listened more carefully, flapping his ears which were, by this
time, about as large as a baby's bath tub. They were still growing. To
and fro Umboo moved his ears, listening first one way and then the
other. He could hear the patter of the rain, and the chatter of a
monkey now and then, also the fluttering of the big jungle birds,
with, every little while, the rustle of a snake. But the elephant boy
could not hear the noise made by the other elephants.
"I guess I haven't walked far enough," he said to himself. "I must go
along through the jungle some more. But I did not think I came as far
as this when I was looking for a tree to knock over."
So, taking a tighter hold of the branch of palm nuts in his trunk, off
started Umboo again, splashing through the muddy puddles. He looked
this way and that, and he listened every now and then, stopping to do
this, for he made so much noise himself, as he hurried along, that he
could hear nothing else.
"Well, this is certainly funny!" thought Umboo, when he had stopped
and listened about ten times. "I can't hear any other elephants at
all. I wonder if they could have gone away and left me?"
Then he knew, that, though the other animals might have gone away and
left him, his father and mother would not do this.
"And," thought Umboo, "if there had been any danger from hunters and
their guns, Tusker would have sounded his call, and I would have heard
that. I guess I haven't gone back far enough."
Then he hurried on again, but, after awhile, when he had listened and
could hear nothing of the herd of elephants, and could not see them
through the trees, Umboo began to be afraid.
"I guess I must be lost!" he said. "That's it! My mother said it might
happen to me, and it has. I'm lost!"
And so he was! Poor Umboo was lost in the jungle, and the rain was
coming down harder than ever!