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Updated: July 15, 2025
"And did you do your tricks in the circus?" asked Chako. "Oh, yes, I went in the ring, and heard the music play. Then all us elephants stood on our hind legs, and I played the hand organ, rang a bell, put pennies in my bank and did many tricks. And one I did I liked best of all." "What was that?" asked Horni, the rhinoceros. "It was firing a little brass cannon," answered Umboo.
"But I'll know him when I see him again," exclaimed Umboo, "and the next time he comes near me maybe I can play a trick on him." "I hope you can," said the other elephant. And now you wait and see what happened. The ship sailed on and on over the sea, each day coming nearer and nearer to America, which is the land of the circus.
But the herd will be moving away very soon, to hide in a dark part of the jungle, and we must go with them." As Umboo and his mother came out into an open part of the forest, where they had left the other elephants, when Umboo had been led away to be given his root-digging lesson, there was great excitement.
"What's sliding down hill?" asked Umboo, and of course, you understand, all this talk was in animal language. "Sliding down hill is fun," went on Keedah. "You know Old Tusker went up to the top of a place, called a hill, to look and see about the hunters in the jungle. Well, there is a hill on the other side of this river, and when we get across I'm going to the top of it and slide down.
There is one in Bridgeport, Conn., and another in New Jersey, on the Hackensack meadows. There the wild beasts are taken in charge, by men who know how to train them. And it was to a place like this that Umboo was taken. It was not at all like a circus, except for the number of wild animals about.
"It's all right, my elephant friend!" said the man from India. "Up! Up! Stand up! Stand on your hind legs, Umboo!" And Umboo had to do this whether he wanted to or not. The rope, on which the men were pulling, and which was fast to a hook in the ceiling of the barn over head, was lifting Umboo's front feet from the ground.
Umboo learned to lie down and "play dead," he learned to stand on a little stool, like an over-turned washtub, he learned to kneel down over a man stretched on the ground, and not crush him with the great body, weighing more than two tons of coal.
Keedah was doing this to his. "Yes, I see him," answered Umboo. "What about him?" "This," answered Batu, with a chuckling laugh that made him shake all over, for he was quite fat. "We will go up to him, as he stands with his back to the water, and while I am talking to him, and asking if his toe nails hurt, you can give him a push and knock him into the river." "Oh, yes, we'll do that.
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.
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.
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