"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 grassy
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 totter.

"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!" trumpeted Mr. Stumptail, coming up just then with a big green
branch in his trunk. "What's the matter here?"