Umboo, the Elephant by Garis, Howard Roger, 1873-1962

"Here comes some more!" cried Umboo, and again he dipped his trunk in the tub of water, sucked up some in the two hollow places, and again squirted it over the monkeys' cage.

"Oh, that's good! That's fine!" cried Chako. "That was like being in a jungle rain. I'm cooler now. Squirt some more, Umboo!"

"No, hold on, if you please!" rumbled another elephant. "It is all right for Umboo to splatter some water on you poor monkeys, but if he quirts away all in the tub we will have none to drink."

"That's so," said Umboo. "I can't squirt away all the water, Chako. We big elephants have to drink a lot more than you little monkeys. But when the circus men fill our tub again, I'll squirt some more on you."

"Thank you!" chattered Chako. "I feel cooler, anyhow. And we monkeys can't stand too much water. This felt fine!"

The monkeys in the cage were quite damp, and some began combing out their long hair with their queer little fingers, that look almost like yours, except that their thumb isn't quite the same.

"If Umboo can't squirt any more water on us, maybe he can do something else to help us forget that it is so hot," said Gink, a funny little monkey, who had a very long tail.

"What can he do, except squirt water on us?" asked Chako. "And I wish he'd do that again. It's the only thing to make us cooler."

"No, I wasn't thinking of that, though I do like a little water," spoke Gink. "But don't you remember, Umboo, you promised to tell us a story of how you lived in a jungle when you were a baby elephant?"

"Oh, yes, so he did!" exclaimed Chako. "I had forgotten about that. It will make us cooler, I think, to hear you tell a story, Umboo. Please do!"

"Well, all right, I will," said the big elephant, as he swung to and fro; because elephants are very seldom still, but always moving as they stand. And they sleep standing up--did you know that?

"I'll tell you a story about my jungle," went on Umboo. "But perhaps you will not like it as well as you did the story Snarlie the tiger told you."

"Oh, yes we will," said Snarlie himself, a big, handsome striped tiger in a cage not far from where the monkeys lived. "You can tell us a good story, Umboo."

"And make it as long as the story Woo-Uff, the lion, told us," begged Humpo, the camel. "I liked his story."

"Thank you," spoke Woo-Uff, as he rolled over near the edge of his cage where he could hear better. "I'm glad you liked my story, Humpo, but I'm sure Umboo's will be better than mine. And don't forget the funny part, my big elephant friend."

"What funny part is that?" asked Horni, the rhinoceros.

"Oh, I guess he means where I once filled my trunk with water and squirted some on a man, as I did on the monkeys just now," said the swaying elephant.

"Why did you do that?" Chako wanted to know.

"Well, I'll tell you when I get to that part of my story," said the elephant. "Now do you all want to hear me talk?"