Umboo, the Elephant by Howard R. (Howard Roger) Garis
page 40 of 121 (33%)
page 40 of 121 (33%)
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Indeed it was time to stop, for some of the smaller elephants were
quite tired out. Big elephants can hurry through the jungle very fast for as long as twenty hours at a time, stopping, perhaps, only during the very hottest part of the day. And when an elephant is very tired it begins to perspire, or "sweat," over each eye, and two little hollow places there look as though they had been wet with a sponge. In the cooler part of the shady jungle the elephants rested, some of them pulling down branches from the trees to get at the leaves or tender bark. Umboo began sniffing along the ground with his trunk. "What are you doing?" asked Keedah. "I am smelling for sweet roots," was the answer. "My mother showed me how to do it. Do you want me to show you?" "I learned that long ago," said Keedah. "Why I can even get palm nuts off a high tree by knocking the tree down. Can you do that? Smelling out earth-roots is nothing!" "I think it is something," spoke Umboo. "And, when I get a little bigger my mother is going to show me how to pull over, or knock down, a whole tree. But now I am hungry for roots." So Umboo kept on sniffing at the ground with his trunk. He was feeling quite hungry. Suddenly Keedah cried: "Ha! I have found some sweet roots! I am going to dig them up!" |
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