Umboo, the Elephant | Page 7

hard as he could,
and hurt him."
"That was because the tiger was going to bite the elephant if he could,"
answered Umboo. "Elephants only have their tusks, and trunk and big
feet to fight with. They can't bite as you monkeys can, nor as lions and
tigers can. But my mother lifted me up in her trunk to put me on her
back."
"What did she want to do that for?" asked Humpo, the camel. "Was a
hunter coming with a gun?"
"No, but she was going to swim across the river with the rest of the
herd," answered Umboo, "and she knew I was too little to know how to
swim yet. I learned how later, though, and I liked the water. But this

time my mother took me across the river on her back."
"It's a good thing your mother didn't have a camel-back like Humpo,"
said Woo-Uff, with a sort of chuckling laugh.
"Why?" asked Horni, the rhinoceros.
"Because, if Mrs. 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.
My mother lifted me up on her back with her trunk, and there I sat
while she and the other elephants waded into the river."
And then the circus elephant went on telling his story.
Into the jungle river walked the elephants, the littlest ones on their
mothers' backs, and some, very small ones, held in their mothers' trunks,
which were lifted high in the air. These were the babies of the herd who
were too small to ride safely on the backs of the big creatures.
"Pooh! I'm bigger than you! I can swim like the other elephants!" said
Keedah; a large elephant boy, as he looked up and saw Umboo on his
mother's back. "I don't have to be carried across a river! I can swim by
myself."
"And so will my little boy, soon," said Mrs. Stumptail. "Swim on your
own side, Keedah, and don't splash water on Umboo."
But Keedah was a little elephant chap full of mischief, and he did not
do as he was told. Instead he filled his trunk with water and sprayed it
all over Umboo.
"Ouch!" cried the little elephant baby, for the water felt cold, at first.
"Stop it, Keedah!"

"Ha! Ha! I made you get wet, whether you swim or not!" laughed
Keedah. "I'll put some more water on you!"
"No you don't! Now you swim along!" suddenly cried Mrs. Stumptail.
"Get away!"
With that she tapped Keedah on his head with her trunk two or three
times, and, when an elephant wants to, it can strike very hard with its
long nose, even though it seems soft.
"Ouch! Ouch!" trumpeted Keedah as he swam out of reach of Mrs.
Stumptail. "Ouch! Let me alone!"
"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. Now be a good boy,
and don't shower any more water on the baby elephants."
So Keedah promised that he wouldn't, and Umboo clung as tightly as
he could, with his sprawly legs, to his mother's broad back as she swam
across the river.
The water was wide, at this part of the jungle, but elephants are good
swimmers. They can go in very deep water, and as long as they can
keep the tip end of their trunk out, so they can breathe, the rest of their
body can sink away down below the surface. And when the elephants
are in the water the flies, mosquitoes and other biting bugs of the jungle
can not harm them.
For, though the skin of elephants, rhinoceros beasts, and even the
hippopotami, is very thick, some bugs can bite through it enough to
give pain, and the animals don't like that. But in the water nothing can

bite them, unless it's a crocodile, and none of those big fellows would
come near a whole herd of elephants.
"What are we going to do when we get on the other side of the river?"
asked Umboo of his mother, as he reached his trunk down in the water
and took a little drink.
"Oh, we will rest a while, eat something, perhaps, and