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Updated: June 26, 2025
"The roots are here, mother," he said. "But how am I going to get them out? I can't eat them if they are under the dirt!" "How would you think you might get them out?" asked Mrs. Stumptail. "Come, be a smart elephant, Umboo. Use your brains. Elephants are the smartest animals in the world. Think a little and then see what you will do."
"What trick are you up to now?" "Well, this elephant laughed at your tail," said Umboo. "He said it was a little short one, and not long like his mother's!" "Don't mind that!" said Mrs. Stumptail, with a sort of laugh away down in her trunk. "All our family have short, or stumpy tails. That is how we get our name. The Stumptail elephants are very stylish, let me tell you."
Then the herd moved off, and Umboo's mother told him, as they hurried along, that an elephant's eyes can not see very far. "We have not a very sharp sight, like the hawks or the vultures," said Mrs. Stumptail, "so we have to depend on our noses.
Back to the mother elephant and Baby Umboo went Mr. Stumptail, to tell them there was no hurry about the herd marching away. And two or three days later Umboo had grown stronger and was not so wobbly on his legs. He could run about a little, and once he even tried to bump his head against another elephant boy, quite older than he was. "Here! You mustn't do that!" cried his mother.
Stumptail, which was the name of Umboo's mother. "They are going to march to another part of the jungle, and your father and I will march with them, as we do not want to be left behind. There is not much more left here to eat. We have taken all the palm nuts and leaves from the trees. We have only been waiting until you grew strong enough to march."
"Far into the jungle," answered Mrs. Stumptail. Umboo followed after her, brushing his way through the bushes, pushing aside even those that had thorns on them, for he never felt the sharp pricks through his thick skin, though, as I have told you, some kinds of bugs can bite their way through even this.
"What is going to happen now?" asked Umboo the big elephant boy of his mother, as the great creatures stood huddled together in the middle of the stockade, or trap. "What is going to happen now?" "Wait and see," advised Mrs. Stumptail, and she was much worried. I have called Umboo a "big" elephant boy, for he was small no longer.
Into it they rushed, the noise behind them sounding louder and louder now, with more guns shooting and more clappers clapping. Into the quiet of the stockade rushed Tusker, Mr. and Mrs. Stumptail, Umboo, Keedah and all the others.
"Does that mean it is all right, and that we can stop to rest?" asked Umboo. "I do not think so," said Mr. Stumptail. "That still is Tusker's danger call. Perhaps there are hunters ahead of us, as well as behind." Tusker stopped, and around him gathered the other elephants. "What is the matter?" asked Umboo. "See, boy," answered the old elephant. "There is a fence of big trees ahead.
There is only one place that is quiet, and that is straight ahead. We must go that way! Forward!" And straight ahead rushed the elephants, toward the place where there was no noise. As they went on Mr. Stumptail looked to either side and saw where the two lines of fence came together into a place like a big ring, and the ring also had a fence around it. "Look, Tusker!" cried Umboo's father.
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