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"Is the salt good, Mother?" asked Umboo, for he had only had a little in his life, and as I told you, hardly remembered it." "Very good, indeed," said Mrs. Stumptail. "You shall soon see and taste for yourself." So along through the jungle, half way between the two lines of fence, went the elephants, little and big.
"Oh, dear!" said the elephant boy. "I don't believe anyone can get this tree down, Mother!" "Nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Stumptail. "Don't be such a baby. Think hard, Umboo! You can easily uproot that tree and get all the nuts you want. Let me see you do it!" Umboo wanted to grow up to be a big, strong smart elephant.
So he turned about, and walked off another way, the other elephants following him. "Who put the fence there, Mother?" asked Umboo. "I do not know," answered Mrs. Stumptail. "Perhaps the hunters did, so we could not get into their gardens and eat the corn and other things that grow there.
Tusker and the others banged into it, but the gate held firmly. "Well, if we can't get out, what are we going to do?" asked Umboo of his mother. "We shall have to stay here until the hunter-men come, I suppose," answered Mrs. Stumptail. "Will they shoot us?" asked Umboo. "I hope not," his mother said. But Umboo need not have been afraid of that. Elephants in India are worth too much to shoot.
"Oh, I never could drink all that water," said the baby elephant. "No one expects you to!" said his mother, with an elephant laugh. "But we are going to swim across it to get on the other side." "What is swimming?" asked Umboo. "It means going in the water, and wiggling your legs so that you will float across and not sink," said Mrs. Stumptail.
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.
"Learn to behave yourself then," said Umboo's mother. "I'm going to tell my father on you!" cried the mischievous little elephant. "Well, it won't do you any good," said a heavy voice behind him, and there was Keedah's father himself swimming along. "I saw what you did to Umboo," went on the old gentleman elephant, "and Mrs. Stumptail did just right to tap you with her trunk.
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.
Stumptail had a back, with humps in, as the camels have, Umboo would have fallen off into the water," said the lion, as he opened his big mouth in a sleepy yawn, showing his big, white, sharp teeth. "My mother's back was big and strong," said Umboo. "It was flat, and not humpy, like a camel's, though their backs are all right on the desert.
What do you mean by going off by yourself this way?" "I went to see if I could knock over a big palm tree when the ground was soft from rain," said Umboo. "And did you do it?" asked Mr. Stumptail. "I did," answered Umboo. "I knocked over a big tree.
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