“Oh, my! But it’s hot! It is
just too hot for anything!” cried Chako, one
of the monkeys in the circus cage. “It is
hotter under this tent than ever it was in the jungle!
Whew!” and he hung by his tail and swung to
and fro from a wooden bar.
“In the jungle we could find a pool of water
where we could keep cool,” said another monkey,
who was poking around the floor of the cage, hoping
he could find a peanut. But there were only shells.
“I wish I could go back to the jungle,”
he chattered.
“What did you come away from the jungle for,
if you don’t like it in this circus?”
asked Woo-Uff, the big yellow lion, who lay on his
back in his cage, his legs stuck up in the air, for
he was cooler that way. “Why did you come
from the jungle, Chako?”
“I didn’t want to come,” answered
the swinging monkey. “But some white and
black hunters caught me, and a lot more of us chattering
chaps, and took us away from the jungle.”
“That’s right, my boy!” exclaimed
the deep, rumbly voice of Umboo, the biggest elephant
in the circus. “None of us animals would
have come away from the jungle if we could have had
our way. But, now that we are here, we must make
the best of it.”
“How can one make the best of it when it is
so hot?” asked Chako. “The sun shines
down on this circus tent hotter than ever it did in
the jungle. And there is no pool of water where
we can splash and be cool.”
“Oh, if water is all you want, I can give you
some of that,” spoke Umboo. “Wait
a minute!”
Near the elephants, of whom Umboo was one on a long
line, chained to stakes driven in the ground, was
a big tub of water, put there for them to drink when
they wanted to. Umboo put his long, rubbery hose
of a trunk down into this tub of water, and sucked
up a lot, just as you fill your rubber ball at the
bathroom basin.
“Look out now, monkeys!” cried the elephant.
“It’s going to rain!” and he sort
of laughed away down in his throat. He couldn’t
laugh through his nose, as his nose was his trunk,
and that was full of water. “Look out for
a shower!” he cried.
With that the elephant went:
“Woof-umph!”
Out from his trunk, as if from a hose, sprinkled a
shower of water. Over the cage of monkeys it
sprayed, wetting them as might a fall of rain.
“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.”
