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首页 » 儿童英文小说 » Umboo, the Elephant 乌姆布大象15章节 » CHAPTER II ON THE MARCH
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CHAPTER II ON THE MARCH
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 Umboo, the big circus elephant, was unchained from the stake in the circus tent to which he was made fast, and led out by one of the men.
 
"Oh, where are you going?" asked Horni, the rhinoceros1, who had been taking a little doze2, and who woke up, just as the men came in. "I thought I heard some one say you were going to tell a story, Umboo," spoke3 the rhinoceros.
 
"I was going to, and I started it," the elephant answered, "but now I must go out and help push a wagon4 loose from where it is stuck in the mud. I'll be back pretty soon, for it is no trouble at all for me to push even a big circus wagon."
 
"Yes, you are very strong," said Chako, the monkey. "Well, don't forget to come back and tell us about the jungle. That will make us forget the heat."
 
"Come, Umboo!" called one of the men, as he loosed the heavy elephant chains. "You must help us with the wagon."
 
Out of the circus tent walked the big elephant. He could understand some of the things the circus men said to him, just as your dog can understand you, when you call:
 
"Come here, Jack5!" Then he runs to you, wagging his tail. But if you say:
 
"Go on home, Jack!"
 
How his tail droops6, and how sadly your dog looks at you, even though you know it is best for him to go back, and not, perhaps, go to school with you, like Mary's little lamb.
 
So, in much the same way, Umboo knew what the men wanted of him. He was led across the circus lot, outside the big, white tent, that was gay with many-colored flags, and as Umboo swayed along, some boys, who were watching for what they might see, caught sight of the great elephant.
 
"Hey, Jim! Here's one of the big ones!" shouted one boy.
 
"Maybe he's going to take a drink out of the canal," said another.
 
"Maybe they're going to give him a swim," spoke a third boy.
 
But the men had something else for Umboo to do just then. They led him to where one of the big wagons7, covered with red and gold paint, and shiny with pieces of looking glass, was stuck fast in the mud on a hill. For it had rained the day before the circus came to show in the town, and the ground was soft.
 
"Now, Umboo!" called the circus man, who was really one of the elephant keepers, and who gave them food and water, "now, Umboo, let us see if you can get this wagon out of the mud, as you did once before. The horses can not pull it, but you are stronger than many horses."
 
The horses, with red plumes8 on their heads, were still hitched9 to the wagon. There were eight of them, but they had pulled and pulled, and still the wagon was stuck in the mud.
 
"Are you going to help us, Umboo?" asked one of the horses who knew the elephant, for the circus animals can talk among themselves, just as you boys and girls do. "Are you going to help us?"
 
"I am going to try," Umboo answered. "You look tired, horsies! Take a
little rest now, while I look and see which is the best way to push.
Then, when I blow through my nose like a trumpet10 horn, you pull and
I'll push, and we'll have the wagon out of the mud very soon!"
Umboo was led up to the back of the wagon. He looked at where the wheels were sunk away down in the soft ground, and then, being the strongest and most wise of all the beasts of the world, the elephant put his big, broad head against the wagon.
 
"Now, then, horsies! Pull!" he cried, trumpeting11 through his trunk, which was hollow like a hose. "Pull, horsies!"
 
The horses pulled and Umboo, the elephant, pushed, and soon the wagon was out on firm, hard ground.
 
"That's good!" cried the circus man. "I knew Umboo could do it!"
 
Then he gave the elephant a sweet bun, which he had saved for him, and back to the tent went Umboo.
 
"Now, please go on with your story!" begged Chako. "Tell us what happened in the jungle."
 
"I will," said Umboo, and this is the story he told. Umboo was only one of a number of baby elephants that lived with their fathers and mothers in the deep, green jungles of India. Not like the other jungle beasts were the elephants, for the big animals had no regular home. They did not live in caves as did the lions and tigers, for no cave was large enough for a herd12 of elephants.
 
And, except in the case of solitary13, or lonely elephants, which are often savage14 beasts, or "rogues," all elephants live in herds—a number of them always keeping together, just like a herd of cows.
 
Another reason why elephants do not live in one place, like a lion's cave, or in a nest or lair15 under the thick grass where a tiger brings up her striped babies, is that elephants eat so much that they have to keep moving from place to place to get more food.
 
They will eat all there is in one part of the jungle, and then travel many miles to a new place, not coming back to the first one until there are more green leaves, fresh grass, or new bark on the trees which they have partly stripped.
 
So Umboo, the two-hundred-pound baby elephant, lived with his mother in the jungle, drinking nothing but milk for the first six months, as he had no teeth to chew even the most tender grass.
 
"Well, are you strong enough to walk along now?" Umboo's mother asked him one day in the jungle, and this was when he was about half a week old.
 
"Oh, yes, I can walk now," said the baby elephant, as he swayed to and fro between his mother's front legs, while she stood over him to keep the other big elephants, and some of the half-grown elephant boys and girls, from bumping into him, and knocking him over. "I can walk all right. But why do you ask me that?" Umboo wanted to know.
 
"Because the herd is going to march away," said Mrs. 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."
 
"Oh, I can march all right," said Umboo, telling his story to the circus animals in the tent. "Look how fast I can go!"
 
Out he started from under his mother's body, striding across a grassy16 place in the jungle. But Umboo was not as good at walking as he had thought. Even though he weighed two hundred pounds his legs were not very strong, and soon he began to totter17.
 
"Look out!" cried his mother. "You are going to fall!" and she reached out her trunk and wound it around Umboo, holding him up.
 
"Hello!" trumpeted18 Mr. Stumptail, coming up just then with a big green branch in his trunk. "What's the matter here?"
 
"Umboo was just showing me how well he could walk," said his mother, speaking elephant talk, of course. "I told him the herd would soon be on the march, and that he must come along."
 
"But we won't go until he is strong enough," said Umboo's father. "Here," he said to Mrs. Stumptail, "eat this branch of palm nuts. They are good and sweet. Eat them while I go and see Old Tusker. I'll tell him not to start to lead the herd to another part of the jungle until Umboo is stronger."
 
Then, giving the mother elephant a branch of palm nuts, which food the big jungle animals like best of all, Mr. Stumptail went to see Tusker, the oldest and largest elephant of the jungle—he who always led the herd on the march.
 
"My new little boy elephant is not quite strong enough to march, yet," said Mr. Stumptail to Tusker. "Can we wait here another day or two?"
 
"Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Stumptail," said the kind, old head elephant. "You know the herd will never go faster than the mothers and baby elephants can travel."
 
And this is true, as any old elephant hunter will tell you.
 
"Thank you," said Mr. Stumptail, to Tusker; for elephants are polite to each other, even though, in the jungle, they sometimes may be a bit rough toward lions and tigers, of whom they are afraid.
 
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. "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 stylish19, let me tell you."
 
"Oh, then it's all right," said Umboo, who was called by that name because he had made that sort of noise or sound through his nose, when he was a day old. And elephants and jungle folk are named for the sort of noises they make, or for something they do, or look like, just as Indians are named.
 
So Umboo played in the deep jungle forest with the other little elephant boys and girls until his mother and father saw that he was strong enough to walk well by himself.
 
"Now we will start on a long march!" called Tusker one day. "The jungle here is well eaten, and, besides, it is no longer safe for us here. So we will march."
 
"Why isn't the jungle safe here any more?" asked Umboo of his mother.
 
"I'll tell you," answered Tusker, who heard what the little elephant asked. "The other day," went on the big chap, "I went to the top of the hill over there," and he pointed20 with his trunk. "I heard up there a noise like thunder, but it was not thunder."
 
"What was it?" asked Umboo, who liked to listen to the talk of the old herd-leader. The other little elephants also gathered around to listen.
 
"It was the noise of the guns of the hunters," said Tusker. "They are
coming to our jungle, and where the hunters come is no place for us.
So we must march away and hide. Also there is not much food left here.
We must go to a new jungle-place."
Raising his trunk in the air Tusker gave a loud call. All the other elephants gathered around him, and off he started, leading the way through the green forest.
 
"Now if I go too fast for any of you baby elephants, just squeak21 and I'll stop," said the big, kind elephant. "We will go only as fast as you little chaps can walk."
 
"You are very kind," said Mrs. Stumptail, helping22 Umboo, with her trunk, to get over a rough bit of ground.
 
On and on marched the elephants to find a new place in the jungle, where they would be safe from the hunters, and where they could find more sweet bark, leaves and palm nuts to eat. Umboo walked near his mother, as the other small elephant boys and girls walked near their mothers, and the bigger elephants helped the smaller and weaker ones over the rough places.
 
Pretty soon, in the jungle, the herd of elephants came to what seemed a big silver ribbon, shining in the sun. It sparkled like a looking glass on a circus wagon, though, as yet, neither Umboo, nor any of the other big animals had ever seen a show.
 
"What is that?" asked Umboo of his mother.
 
"That is a river of water," she answered. "It is water to drink and wash in."
 
"Oh, I never could drink all that water," said the baby elephant.
 
"No one expects you to!" said his mother, with an elephant laugh. "But we are going to swim across it to get on the other side."
 
"What is swimming?" asked Umboo.
 
"It means going in the water, and wiggling your legs so that you will float across and not sink," said Mrs. Stumptail. "See, we are at the jungle river now, and we will go across."
 
"Oh, but I'm afraid!" cried Umboo, holding back. "I don't want to go in all that water."
 
Mrs. Stumptail reached out her trunk and caught her little boy around the middle of his stomach.
 
"You must do as I tell you!" she said. "Up you go!" and she lifted him high in the air.
 
"Oh, did she let you fall?" suddenly asked Chako, who, with the other animals in the circus tent, was eagerly listening to the story Umboo was telling. "Did she let you fall?"

点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 rhinoceros tXxxw     
n.犀牛
参考例句:
  • The rhinoceros has one horn on its nose.犀牛鼻子上有一个角。
  • The body of the rhinoceros likes a cattle and the head likes a triangle.犀牛的形体像牛,头呈三角形。
2 doze IsoxV     
v.打瞌睡;n.打盹,假寐
参考例句:
  • He likes to have a doze after lunch.他喜欢午饭后打个盹。
  • While the adults doze,the young play.大人们在打瞌睡,而孩子们在玩耍。
3 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
4 wagon XhUwP     
n.四轮马车,手推车,面包车;无盖运货列车
参考例句:
  • We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
  • The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。
5 jack 53Hxp     
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克
参考例句:
  • I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
  • He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。
6 droops 7aee2bb8cacc8e82a8602804f1da246e     
弯曲或下垂,发蔫( droop的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • If your abdomen droops or sticks out, the high BMI is correct. 如果你的腹部下垂或伸出,高BMI是正确的。
  • Now droops the milk white peacock like a ghost. 乳白色的孔雀幽灵般消沉。
7 wagons ff97c19d76ea81bb4f2a97f2ff0025e7     
n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 );铁路货车;小手推车
参考例句:
  • The wagons were hauled by horses. 那些货车是马拉的。
  • They drew their wagons into a laager and set up camp. 他们把马车围成一圈扎起营地。
8 plumes 15625acbfa4517aa1374a6f1f44be446     
羽毛( plume的名词复数 ); 羽毛饰; 羽毛状物; 升上空中的羽状物
参考例句:
  • The dancer wore a headdress of pink ostrich plumes. 那位舞蹈演员戴着粉色鸵鸟毛制作的头饰。
  • The plumes on her bonnet barely moved as she nodded. 她点点头,那帽子的羽毛在一个劲儿颤动。
9 hitched fc65ed4d8ef2e272cfe190bf8919d2d2     
(免费)搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 ); 搭便车; 攀上; 跃上
参考例句:
  • They hitched a ride in a truck. 他们搭乘了一辆路过的货车。
  • We hitched a ride in a truck yesterday. 我们昨天顺便搭乘了一辆卡车。
10 trumpet AUczL     
n.喇叭,喇叭声;v.吹喇叭,吹嘘
参考例句:
  • He plays the violin, but I play the trumpet.他拉提琴,我吹喇叭。
  • The trumpet sounded for battle.战斗的号角吹响了。
11 trumpeting 68cf4dbd1f99442d072d18975013a14d     
大声说出或宣告(trumpet的现在分词形式)
参考例句:
  • She is always trumpeting her son. 她总是吹嘘她儿子。
  • The wind is trumpeting, a bugle calling to charge! 风在掌号。冲锋号! 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译
12 herd Pd8zb     
n.兽群,牧群;vt.使集中,把…赶在一起
参考例句:
  • She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
  • He had no opinions of his own but simply follow the herd.他从无主见,只是人云亦云。
13 solitary 7FUyx     
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士
参考例句:
  • I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
  • The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际,显得十分壮美。
14 savage ECxzR     
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人
参考例句:
  • The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
  • He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。
15 lair R2jx2     
n.野兽的巢穴;躲藏处
参考例句:
  • How can you catch tiger cubs without entering the tiger's lair?不入虎穴,焉得虎子?
  • I retired to my lair,and wrote some letters.我回到自己的躲藏处,写了几封信。
16 grassy DfBxH     
adj.盖满草的;长满草的
参考例句:
  • They sat and had their lunch on a grassy hillside.他们坐在长满草的山坡上吃午饭。
  • Cattle move freely across the grassy plain.牛群自由自在地走过草原。
17 totter bnvwi     
v.蹒跚, 摇摇欲坠;n.蹒跚的步子
参考例句:
  • He tottered to the fridge,got a beer and slumped at the table.他踉跄地走到冰箱前,拿出一瓶啤酒,一屁股坐在桌边。
  • The property market is tottering.房地产市场摇摇欲坠。
18 trumpeted f8fa4d19d667140077bbc04606958a63     
大声说出或宣告(trumpet的过去式与过去分词形式)
参考例句:
  • Soldiers trumpeted and bugled. 士兵们吹喇叭鸣号角。
  • The radio trumpeted the presidential campaign across the country. 电台在全国范围大力宣传总统竞选运动。
19 stylish 7tNwG     
adj.流行的,时髦的;漂亮的,气派的
参考例句:
  • He's a stylish dresser.他是个穿着很有格调的人。
  • What stylish women are wearing in Paris will be worn by women all over the world.巴黎女性时装往往会引导世界时装潮流。
20 pointed Il8zB4     
adj.尖的,直截了当的
参考例句:
  • He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
  • She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。
21 squeak 4Gtzo     
n.吱吱声,逃脱;v.(发出)吱吱叫,侥幸通过;(俚)告密
参考例句:
  • I don't want to hear another squeak out of you!我不想再听到你出声!
  • We won the game,but it was a narrow squeak.我们打赢了这场球赛,不过是侥幸取胜。
22 helping 2rGzDc     
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
参考例句:
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。


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