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Chunky, the Happy Hippo

<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V CHUNKY IS CAUGHT</h2> Chunky, the happy hippo, was not as jolly as he had been when playing water-tag in the river with Bumpy, his brother, and Mumpy, his sister. In fact, he was rather sad. Stuck fast in the mud as he was, he pulled and twisted and wiggled and turned, trying to get loose. But he could not. He was still held fast. “Oh, dear!” said Chunky again, in hippo talk. I guess this was about the tenth time he had said it. Then, all at once, he sort of smiled—that is, he opened his mouth, as if he were laughing, though I don’t suppose that jungle animals really either smile or laugh as you do. But, at any rate, Chunky, who was usually a jolly, happy little chap, made up his mind there was no use in feeling too bad about what had happened to him. “I am stuck in the mud—that’s true,” he said to himself; “but it is better than being held fast at the bottom of the river by a crocodile who has you by the nose. This is much better. [46] “I am out on the land, and I don’t have to hold my breath under water for fear of being drowned. And the mud doesn’t hurt me. In fact it is rather nice and soft,” continued the hippo boy. So Chunky made the mud go “squee-gee” between his toes, and tried to make himself think he was happy. But he was a little anxious, for he feared he had fallen into a trap. He had heard his father and mother, as well as the other big hippos, talk about traps set by hunters in the jungle. Some of the hunters were the black or brown people who lived in the big woods, and others were white hunters who came from far-off countries. And the traps they set were of different kinds. Some were nets, made of strong jungle vines. Others were great pits, or holes, dug in the ground and covered with leaves and grass, so the animals could not see them. Whenever they stepped on the grass scattered over the hole, the animals fell through and could not get out of the pit. Other traps were made of big stones or of logs, so fixed that they would fall on the animals that walked beneath them, and would hurt the animals very much. The hole-traps were the most common, though Chunky thought a mud trap was very good, for catching hippos. [47] “Anyhow it has caught me!” thought Chunky. Then he listened again, waving his ears to and fro for any sound that might tell him the hunters were coming to get him. But he heard nothing but the noises of the jungle, which he heard every day—the cries of the red and green parrots, the trumpeting of elephants afar off, the chatter of monkeys and, now and then, the roar of a lion. “I hope one of the lions doesn’t get me,” thought Chunky. “They could easily, now that I am fast in the mud.” Once more he tried to pull his feet loose, but could not. The mud was too sticky. Chunky was sinking deeper and deeper into it. But still he tried to be cheerful. “After all,” he thought to himself, in the queer way that such animals have of thinking, “it may not be so bad to be caught and taken to a circus. Tum Tum said it was jolly. Maybe it will be so for me.” So Chunky waited in the mud. He could not do anything to get himself loose. He put his nose down in the water and drank some, but it was not nice like the water of the river near which he lived. The water in the muddy pool where he was held fast was hot, and not at all tasty. “Still, it is better than none at all,” thought Chunky. “And it is a good thing I ate a good[48] breakfast this morning, or I would be hungry now.” And it was a good thing, I suppose, for there was nothing to eat near the jungle pool, and no sweet grass grew on the muddy bottom. All at once, after the happy hippo, who was not as jolly as he had been at other times, had tried again and again to get loose—all of a sudden, I say, he heard a noise back of him. He tried to look around to see what it was, but he could not turn far enough. The noise came closer. “Oh, I guess it’s the hunters!” thought Chunky, sadly. He tried very hard, now, to get loose, but it was of no use. He was just making up his mind that he would be caught and carried off to the circus, as Tum Tum had been, when he heard a voice shout, in animal talk: “Hello there! What’s the matter?” Then Chunky knew who it was! It was Tum Tum, the jolly elephant! “What’s the matter?” asked Tum Tum again, and he blew a big lot of air through his long hosey-nosey trunk, until it made a noise like a Christmas tin horn. “Oh, is that you, Tum Tum?” asked Chunky, and he felt ever so much better—more like his happy self. “Yes, it is I, Chunky,” answered the jolly elephant.[49] “But what is the matter with you?” “I’ve fallen into one of the hunter traps,” answered the hippo, “and now they’ll come and catch me and send me off to a circus as you were sent.” “Oh, no they won’t!” laughed Tum Tum. “Why not?” “Because you’re not in a trap at all,” Tum Tum said, laughing again. “But I’m stuck fast! Look!” and Chunky tried to pull himself loose, but he could not. “Oh yes, you are stuck all right,” laughed Tum Tum. “But don’t let that worry you. You are not in a trap. This is just one of those jungle pools with sticky mud at the bottom. I often got stuck in them myself, years ago.” “But how am I going to get out?” asked Chunky. “I’ve tried and tried and tried, but I can’t!” “I’ll help you,” said Tum Tum. “Just wait until I get hold of you with my trunk. Then I’ll pull you right out of that mud. Just you wait, Chunky!” So Chunky waited, and Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, going as close to the edge of the pool as he dared without danger of getting stuck in the mud himself, stretched out his trunk, and wound it around Chunky as if the little boy hippo were a bundle. [50] “Now, all ready!” cried Tum Tum. Then he gave a haul and a pull and another one. There was a squidgy-idgy sound, a sort of squeaking in the mud, just as when you step on a rubber ball, and out came Chunky as nicely as you please. “There you are!” cried Tum Tum, as he set the little boy hippo down on a firm place in the ground where Chunky could step without sinking in. “Now you’re all right!” “Yes, thank you, I am,” said Chunky, for, though you may not know it, jungle animals are often kind to one another, and they do not scratch or bite one another unless they are very hungry or very angry. So Chunky was polite to Tum Tum. “Take care, after this,” went on the elephant, “not to step into a pool when you can not see the bottom.” “I’ll be careful,” promised Chunky. Then he and Tum Tum walked through the jungle, and the elephant reached up, with his long trunk, and picked green leaves off the trees, putting them where Chunky could get them. [51] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_p051.jpg" width-obs="405" height-obs="600" alt="" title="" /> <div class="caption">“Out came Chunky as nicely as you please”</div> </div> [52] For many months after this Chunky lived in the jungle on the edge of the river, which he had known ever since he was a baby hippo. He ate lots of green grass and roots, learning to dig the last from the bottom of the river with his big front teeth. And Chunky grew to be a large hippo, though he was not yet full size, and only about a year old. Mumpy, his sister, and Bumpy, his brother, also grew larger and stronger, as they also ate grass and roots. After having lived for quite a while in their home among the reeds near the place in the river where the crocodile had caught Chunky, the hippo family moved on to a new spot, where the grass was better and where there were not so many crocodiles. “It is getting too dangerous around here for the little ones,” said Mrs. Hippo one day, when the little-girl hippo who lived next door had been carried off by one of the biting animals. So Chunky and his family moved away. It was very easy for them to move. All they had to do was to walk on the ground or swim in the river. They did not have to pack up or take anything with them. That is one of the nice parts of being a jungle animal. It’s so easy to move. “I hope I’ll see Tum Tum again where we are going,” thought Chunky, remembering how the jolly elephant had helped him. “I like him very much.” But though the hippo boy looked all over the jungle, near his new home, he did not meet Tum Tum. Sometimes he could hear the wild elephants[53] trumpeting in the forest, or crashing their way among the big trees. But Chunky could not see any of them, and he wondered if the hunters, led by Tum Tum, were after the big animals to catch them for a circus. And then, one day, after Chunky had been playing in the river with his brother and sister, and had gone on shore to rest, he thought it would be nice to take a walk by himself. “Maybe I’ll have an adventure, just as Tum Tum did, and somebody will put it in a book,” said Chunky to himself. He did not know what was going to happen to him, or he would not have wished for the kind of adventure that came to him. So, saying nothing to any of the other hippos about what he was going to do, Chunky set off by himself. He walked along and along, now and then stopping to chew a bit of grass in his big mouth, when all at once he happened to see a path leading off through the jungle. “Maybe if I go along that path,” thought Chunky to himself, “I’ll meet Tum Tum again. I wish I could. I’ll try it!” So he started off along that path. But he had not gone very far when, all at once, he felt the ground sinking away from under him, just as it feels to you when you go down in an elevator.[54] Down and down went Chunky, and a lot of sticks and leaves went with him. “Oh, I’m going to be stuck in the mud again!” he cried. But he was not. Instead, he suddenly landed with a hard bump and a thump on the ground. It was quite dark around him. Chunky looked up. He could see some blue sky above him, but all around were walls of dark, brown earth. “Why!” exclaimed Chunky, “I’m in a hole—a deep hole! I must try to get out!” So he raised himself up a little on his hind feet—not very far for he was very heavy—and he tried to reach the top of the hole. But Chunky could not. The top was far above his head. Then he looked around him once more. All he could see was dirt, sticks and leaves. “Oh, I know what’s happened!” cried Chunky. “I’ve fallen into a pit-trap! That’s it! I’ve fallen into a trap, and I’m caught! Oh, dear!” Then Chunky was not the happy hippo—at least just then. He was sad. For he really had walked across a hidden pit along the jungle path, and was caught. There was no getting out of the deep hole. Chunky was surely caught. <hr class="chap" /> [55] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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