UMBOO IS SOLD
Umboo, the big elephant boy, did not at once begin to learn the
teakwood log-piling lesson. Just as in school you do not learn to read
the first day, so it was with Umboo. He had to be trained by his
keeper and the keonkies, or tame elephants.
And, after the first feeling of being sorry at having been taken away
from his mother, Umboo grew to like the new life. His mother was sent
to another big stable, farther away, though Umboo saw her once in a
while. With him, however, were many of the wild elephants he had known
when the herd was in the jungle. Keedah was one of these elephants.
"I don't like it here at all!" snarled Keedah, when he had been led up
beside Umboo, a few days after they had all been caught in the trap.
"I don't like it, and I'm not going to stay!"
"What are you going to do?" asked Umboo.
"I am going to run away," said the elephant boy, whom Umboo had once,
in fun, knocked into the river. "I am going to run away, and go out in
the jungle."
"Oh, no. I wouldn't do that if I were you," quietly said one of the
tame elephants, coming up behind Keedah just then, and the half-wild
elephant was so surprised that he nearly dropped a wisp of hay he was
eating.
"If you ran away we should have to run into the jungle after you,"
went on the tame elephant. "And when we brought you back you would not
have a nice time. It is better to do as you are told, and to learn to
do what the black and white men tell you. For then you will be kindly
treated, and have plenty to eat. And the work you will learn to do,
after you go to school, as you and Umboo will go, will not be hard.
Take my advice and stay where you are."
"Well, I guess I'll have to," said Keedah, with a funny look at Umboo.
"I didn't know he heard me," he whispered, as if the tame elephant
were a teacher in school, which, in a way, he was.
And then began long days and months of lessons for Umboo and the other
wild elephants. They were not wild any longer, for the first thing
they learned was that the tame elephants would help them, and next
that the white and black men would be kind to them and feed them. So
the jungle elephants, who used to roam about with Tusker for their
leader, lost most of their wildness, quieted down, and were sent to
different places in India to work in the lumber yards, or to carry
Princes on their backs.
Umboo and his mother had to say good-bye, but they hoped to meet
again, and though for a time Umboo felt sad, he soon forgot it as he
had many things to learn.
One of the first was to let a man come near him to pat his trunk, and
to feed him. In the beginning Umboo was very much afraid, because he
smelled the man-smell, which Tusker had so often said meant danger.
But Umboo grew to know that not all men were dangerous. For, though
some might be hunters, with guns and sharp arrows, those who had
caught the wild elephants were kind to the big animals.
"I wonder why I am afraid of the man?" thought Umboo. "He is much
smaller than I am. His head hardly comes up to my tusks, and some of
the tame elephants are even larger than I. Why are we so afraid of the
men as to do just as they tell us?"
Of course Umboo did not know, but it is because man, who is also an
animal, is put in charge of all the beasts of the jungle, the woods
and fields. Animals are given to help man, and to feed him. And as a
man has more brains--that is he is smarter than animals--he rules over
them. Thus it is that even great elephants, and savage lions and
tigers, as well as horses, know that man is their master, and must do
as he wants them to.
So, though he could see that he was larger than a man, Umboo did not
think much farther than this, and so he never made up his mind that,
if he wanted to, he could run away, and that no one man could hold
him. But perhaps it was just as well as it was, and that the elephant
remained gentle and did as he was told, not trying to use his great
strength against his friends.
One of the first things Umboo learned was to walk along, when he was
told to do so in the Indian language.
At first Umboo did not know what this word meant. But his keeper
gently pricked him with a sharp hook, called an "ankus," and to get
away from the prick, which was like the bite of a big fly, Umboo
stepped out and walked away.
"Ha! That is what I wanted you to do, little one," said the Indian,
speaking to Umboo as he might to a child. And indeed the Indian
mahouts consider their elephants almost like children.
When Umboo had learned that a certain word meant that he was to walk
along, he was taught two others, one of which meant to go to the left,
and the other to go to the right. Then, in a few weeks, he learned a
fourth word, which meant to stand still, and then a fifth one, which
meant to kneel down.
And though, at first, the elephant boy did not like doing the things
he was told to do, as well as he had liked playing about in the
jungle, he soon grew to see that his life was easier than it had been
with Tusker and the others.
He never had to hunt for food, as it was brought to him by the
keepers. Nor was he ever thirsty. And, best of all, he never had to
drop what he was eating and run away, crashing through the jungle,
because Tusker, or some other elephant had trumpeted the call of:
"Danger! I smell the man-smell!"
Umboo was used to the man-smell now, and knew that no harm would come
to him. He knew the men were his friends.
And so he who had once been a wild baby elephant, grew to be a tame,
big strong beast, who could carry heavy teakwood logs on his tusks,
and pile them in great heaps near the river, where they were loaded
upon great ships. Umboo did not know the boats were ships, but they
were, and soon he was to have a ride in one. But I have not reached
that part of his story yet.
Sometimes, instead of being made to pile the logs in the lumber yard,
Umboo would be taken into the forest, where the Indians cut the trees
down. The forest was something like the jungle where the boy elephant
had once lived with Tusker and the others, and where he had played,
and once been lost.
In the forest were great trees of teakwood and these the elephant
workers had to drag out so they could be loaded upon carts, with great
wooden wheels, and brought to the river. One day Umboo and Keedah were
taken together to the teak forest.
"Now is our chance, Umboo," said the other elephant after a while as
they went farther and farther into the woods. "Now is our chance!"
"Our chance for what?" asked Umboo, speaking in elephant talk, of
course, and which the Indian keepers did not always understand.
"This is our chance to run away and go back to the jungle," went on
Keedah. "When the men are not looking, after we have hauled out a few
big logs, we will go away and hide. At night we can run off to the
jungle."
"No," said Umboo, shaking his trunk, "I am not going to do it. If we
run away they will find us and bring us back. Besides, I like it in
the lumber yard. It is fun to pile up the big logs, and lay them
straight."
"Pooh! I don't think so," said Keedah, who had not given up all his
wild ways. "I am going to run!"
And so, watching his chance, when the Indian men were not looking,
Keedah sneaked off into the dark part of the woods. In a little while
he was missed, and the keepers, with shouts, started after him. They
tied Umboo to a tree with chains, leaving him there while they went to
hunt Keedah.
"They need not have chained me," thought Umboo. "I would not run away.
I like my men friends too much, for they are good to me."
The keepers got other elephants and hunted Keedah in the forest. For
three days they searched for him, and at last they found him and
brought him back. For Keedah had forgotten some of his wildness, and
did not know so well how to keep away from the men who were after him,
as he had known when he lived in the herd, with Tusker to lead the
way.
So Keedah, tired and dirty, and hungry too, it must be said--for he
had not found good things to eat in the woods--Keedah was brought
back. And he was kept chained up for a week, and given only water and
not much food. This was to tame him down, and make him learn that it
did not pay to run off when he was taken to the teakwood forest.
"I wish I had done as you did, and stayed," said Keedah sorrowfully to
Umboo. "I am not going to run away any more."
So Umboo and the other wild elephants who were caught at the same time
as he was, stayed around the lumber camp, and did work for their white
and black masters. Sometimes a few of the elephants were sold, and
taken away by Indian Princes, to live in stables near the palaces, to
have gold and silver cloths fastened on their backs, and then the
howdahs, in which rode the rich Indians, would be strapped on.
Sometimes other wild elephants were brought in, having been caught as
Umboo had been. And once Umboo helped to tame one of these little wild
ones, telling him to be nice, as he would be kindly treated and have
food and water.
And one day new adventures came to Umboo.
By this time he was a big, strong elephant, nearly fully grown, for it
was now many years since he had been a baby in the jungle. And one
day, as he was standing near a pile of lumber, that he had helped to
build, one of the white men, whom he knew, and who had been kind to
Umboo, took a handkerchief from his white, linen coat pocket, and
wiped his face, for the day was hot.
Then a little spirit of mischief seemed to enter Umboo. And this
little spirit, or fairy, seemed to whisper:
"Take his handkerchief out of his pocket with your trunk, Umboo, and
make believe wipe your own face with it. That will be a funny little
trick, and will make the men laugh, and maybe they will give you some
soft, brown sugar." This the elephants like very much.
Umboo saw the edge of the handkerchief sticking out of the man's
pocket. Very softly the elephant reached put his trunk and took it.
Then Umboo flourished the piece of white linen in the air, as the man
had done, and pretended to use it, though Umboo's face was much larger
than the man's, and really needed no handkerchief.
The man turned around, as he heard his friends laughing, and when he
saw what Umboo had done the man smiled and said:
"Ha! That elephant is too smart to be piling lumber. I heard the other
day where I could sell one to go in a circus. I'll sell Umboo! He will
make a good circus elephant, to do tricks."
And so Umboo was sold, though at first he did not know what that was,
nor where he was to be taken. He only thought of how the men laughed
when he took out the handkerchief from the pocket.