CHAPTER VIII UMBOO FINDS HIS MOTHER

 "Did the snake bite you?" asked Chako, the funny monkey chap, who was hanging by his tail, upside down, listening to the story told by Umboo. "Did the snake bite you?"

 

"Oh, can't you keep quiet?" asked Woo-Uff, the lion, in his deep, rumbly voice. "Let Umboo alone! He'll tell us what happened."

 

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Chako. "I was so anxious that I could hardly wait to hear. We monkeys are very much afraid of snakes, you know."

 

"So I have heard," said Woo-Uff. "Please go on, Umboo."

 

So Umboo told the rest of his story.

 

In the jungle he stood, with one foot raised, ready to crush the big snake.

 

"Please do not step on me!" hissed¹ the snake, for that was his way of talking. "Please do not put your big foot on me, elephant boy!"

 

"But I am afraid you will bite me," said Umboo.

 

"No, I'll not do that," answered the snake. "I do sometimes bite, when I am hungry, but I am not hungry now. Besides, you are quite too big to bite."

 

"Oh, ho, if you feel that way about it, all right," said Umboo, and he put his foot down, but not on the snake. "There are much larger elephants though, than I am. I wish I could see some of them now. Tell me," he asked the hissing² serpent, "did you see anything of the elephant herd³ on your travels through the jungle?"

 

"No, not exactly," the snake made answer. "But, as you were kind enough not to step on me, I will do you a favor. I will show you the way through the jungle to where the other elephants are.

 

"Can you do it?" asked Umboo.

 

"Surely," replied the snake. "We serpents are the wisest of all creatures, not even excepting you big elephants. For we have to stay so low down on the ground that we would easily be stepped on and killed by other beasts, if we were not wise enough to keep out of the way. So, though I have not seen your mother, or the elephant herd, I can find them for you."

 

"How did you know I was looking for my mother?" asked Umboo. "I did not tell you that."

 

"No, but you told the rhinoceros⁴," said the snake.

 

"Ha! Then you must have very good ears, Mrs. Snake, to have heard that, for it was a long way from here," said Umboo. "You must have very good ears indeed, though they are not as large as mine. In fact I can not see them at all."

 

"Never mind about my ears," said the snake. "I told you we serpents were very wise. We know many things. And now, if you please, follow me and I will show you the way through the jungle to where your mother is, and the rest of the herd. But as I have to crawl along on the ground, please be careful not to step on me. We snakes do not like to be stepped on."

 

"I'll be careful," promised Umboo.

 

Then the snake glided⁵, or crawled, along through the jungle, and Umboo, watching which way she went, followed, carrying in his trunk the branch of palm nuts for his mother.

 

On and on went the snake, now and then stopping to coil and raise her head above the ground so she might listen. The water drops glistened⁶ on her shiny scales, and she was very beautiful in color, though she was so dangerous and deadly.

 

"What are you stopping for?" asked Umboo at one time.

 

"I am trying to listen to hear the tramp of the herd of elephants," the snake answered. "Do not make any noise."

 

So Umboo stood still, and was very quiet, but he could hear nothing. However, the snake must have heard, for she uncoiled herself and started off another way, saying:

 

"Follow me, Umboo."

 

"How did you know my name was Umboo?" asked the elephant boy. "I did not tell you that."

 

"We serpents are wise, and know many things," was the answer, and

Umboo began to believe that.

"It is a good thing I met her," he said to himself, as he followed the glistening⁷ snake through the jungle. "I am glad I did not step on her as I was first going to do."

 

On and on through the jungle went Umboo, following the guiding snake, whose glistening scales and bright colors he could easily see amid the green leaves and bushes. At last the snake came to a stop and once more coiled and reared up her head.

 

"Make no noise, big elephant boy!" she hissed.

 

Umboo stood still and was very quiet.

 

"Ha! I thought so!" said the snake. "Go over that way," and she pointed⁸ with her head. "Walk about a mile, straight along, and you will come to your mother and the herd of elephants."

 

"How do you know?" asked Umboo.

 

"Because I can hear them," answered the snake. "I can hear the tramping of their big feet. I can hear them trumpeting⁹ through their long noses of trunks, and I can hear them tearing down the tree branches and stripping off the bark. That is how I know.

 

"I would go closer, and take you nearer to them, but some of them might step on me, without finding out first, that I would do them no harm. But you can easily find your way from here. Keep straight on," said the snake.

 

"Thank you, I will," answered Umboo. "I would give you some of these palm nuts, only I am saving them for my mother."

 

"Thank you," said the snake. "But I do not eat palm nuts. Take them on to your mother, elephant boy."

 

Then the snake glided away through the jungle, and, watching the end of her tail vanish under a bush, Umboo started off by himself. He had not heard the sounds spoken of by the serpent, but he knew the noises were such as a herd of elephants would make.

 

"She must have good ears, to hear what she heard," thought the elephant boy. "And yet her ears were not as large as mine."

 

So, flapping his own big ears, and wishing he could hear with them as well as the snake could with her small ones, Umboo stalked on through the jungle in the way she had told him to go.

 

It was not very long before he heard a crashing sound. Then he lifted his trunk, still holding the palm branch, and he sniffed¹¹ and snuffed. And then, to the long, rubbery nose of the elephant boy, came the wild smell of other jungle animals.

 

"Ah! Now I smell the herd!" he cried. "Now I am not lost any more!

Hurray!"

Of course when an elephant says "Hurray" it is different than the way you boys and girls say it. But it means the same thing.

 

On hurried Umboo. The crashing noises sounded more plainly now, and the elephant smell became stronger. Then, as he burst his way through the bushes, Umboo saw the other elephants standing¹² together in a little clearing in the jungle, and Umboo's mother seemed to be talking to them.

 

"Ha!" suddenly cried Keedah, the larger elephant boy, as he saw the lost one. "Here he comes now! Here is Umboo!"

 

Mrs. Stumptail swung around and started toward him.

 

"Where in the world have you been?" she asked. "Why, Umboo! I have been so worried about you, and so has your father! We were just going out into the jungle to look for you."

 

"That's what we were," said Tusker. "And hard work it would have been with night coming on. We want to travel to a new place, too, and looking for you would have held us back. What do you mean by going off by yourself this way?"

 

"I went to see if I could knock over a big palm tree when the ground was soft from rain," said Umboo.

 

"And did you do it?" asked Mr. Stumptail.

 

"I did," answered Umboo. "I knocked over a big tree. It was easy, and here is a branch of it for you, and it has some nuts on," and he handed his mother the one he had brought with him all the way through the jungle.

 

"Oh, thank you!" said Mrs. Stumptail. "You are a very good boy, Umboo, and I shall like these nuts very much. But why did you stay away so long?"

 

"I was lost," answered the elephant chap. "I could not find my way back after I knocked over the tree. I met a rhinoceros, but he could not tell me where you were. Then I met a kind snake, and she showed me how to find you."

 

"Well, don't get lost again," said Umboo's mother. "We are glad you have come back, for, as Tusker says, we are about to travel on, and we did not want to leave you behind. So get ready now, we are going to a new part of the jungle."

 

A little later the herd started off, and Umboo walked with some of the other young elephants, or calves¹³, as they are called. He told them the different things that happened to him when he was lost in the jungle.

 

On and on went the herd of elephants. They traveled nearly all night, and the next day they stopped to rest, for the sun was too hot for even such big, strong beasts.

 

Umboo and the others were feeding in a quiet part of the forest, when suddenly Tusker, who was always on the watch, no matter whether he was eating or not, gave a loud trumpet¹⁰ call.

 

"Ha! That means danger!" thought Umboo, who, by this time knew the meaning of the different calls. "I wonder what it can be?"

1 hissed   

发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对

参考例句：

• Have you ever been hissed at in the middle of a speech? 你在演讲中有没有被嘘过？
• The iron hissed as it pressed the wet cloth. 熨斗压在湿布上时发出了嘶嘶声。

2 hissing   

n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The steam escaped with a loud hissing noise. 蒸汽大声地嘶嘶冒了出来。
• His ears were still hissing with the rustle of the leaves. 他耳朵里还听得萨萨萨的声音和屑索屑索的怪声。 来自汉英文学 - 春蚕

3 herd   

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。

4 rhinoceros   

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。

5 glided   

v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔

参考例句：

• The President's motorcade glided by. 总统的车队一溜烟开了过去。
• They glided along the wall until they were out of sight. 他们沿着墙壁溜得无影无踪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 glistened   

v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Pearls of dew glistened on the grass. 草地上珠露晶莹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Her eyes glistened with tears. 她的眼里闪着泪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 glistening   

adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼里闪着晶莹的泪花。
• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼睛中的泪水闪着柔和的光。 来自《用法词典》

8 pointed   

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。

9 trumpeting   

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

10 trumpet   

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 sniffed   

v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• When Jenney had stopped crying she sniffed and dried her eyes. 珍妮停止了哭泣，吸了吸鼻子，擦干了眼泪。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The dog sniffed suspiciously at the stranger. 狗疑惑地嗅着那个陌生人。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

13 calves   

n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解

参考例句：

• a cow suckling her calves 给小牛吃奶的母牛
• The calves are grazed intensively during their first season. 小牛在生长的第一季里集中喂养。 来自《简明英汉词典》