Chunky, the Happy Hippo: His Many Adventures
Date: 2020-05-15T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Hippopotamidae -- Juvenile fiction

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Title: Chunky, the Happy Hippo: His Many Adventures

Author: Richard Barnum

Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers

Release date: May 15, 2020 [eBook #62135]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62135

Credits: Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHUNKY, THE HAPPY HIPPO: HIS MANY ADVENTURES ***

“There was Alice on Chunky’s broad back!”

Kneetime Animal Stories

CHUNKY
THE HAPPY HIPPO

HIS MANY ADVENTURES

BY

RICHARD BARNUM

Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Mappo, the
Merry Monkey,” “Tum Tum, the Jolly
Elephant,” “Tinkle, the Trick Pony,”
“Lightfoot, the Leaping Goat,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

WALTER S. ROGERS

PUBLISHERS
BARSE & CO.
NEW YORK, N. Y.            NEWARK, N. J.

Copyright, 1918
by
BARSE & CO.

Chunky, The Happy Hippo

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

CHAPTER | | PAGE
I | Chunky has a Laugh | 7
II | Chunky is Surprised | 17
III | Chunky is Bitten | 26
IV | Chunky in the Mud | 36
V | Chunky is Caught | 45
VI | Chunky Takes a Trip | 55
VII | Chunky’s New Friends | 66
VIII | Chunky on a Ship | 75
IX | Chunky Falls Overboard | 84
X | Chunky in the Circus | 91
XI | Chunky’s New Trick | 102
XII | Chunky and the Little Girl | 112

ILLUSTRATIONS

| PAGE
“There was Alice on Chunky’s broad back!” | Frontispiece
“He went in backward and made a great splash” | 15
“It was the crocodile that had bitten Chunky” | 35
“Out came Chunky as nicely as you please” | 51
“The little hippo boy was being taken away” | 65
“Splash! That was Chunky himself falling overboard” | 87
“‘Now he is smiling at you!’” | 109

CHUNKY,
THE HAPPY HIPPO

CHAPTER I
CHUNKY HAS A LAUGH

Once upon a time, some years ago, but not so long that you could not easily remember if you tried, there lived in a muddy river of a far-off country called Africa, a great, big, animal-baby named “Chunky.” He was not a fish, though he could stay under water, not breathing at all, for maybe ten minutes, and that is why he swam in the muddy river so much. He did not mind the mud in the river. He rather liked it, for when he sank away down under the dark, brown water no one could see him.

And Chunky did not want any of the lions or tigers, or perhaps the black African hunters to see him, for they might have hurt him.

But, for all that, Chunky was a happy, jolly, little animal-baby, and would soon grow up to be a big animal boy, for he ate pecks and pecks of the rich, green grass that grew on the bottom and banks of the African river.

Now, I suppose, you are wondering what sort of animal-baby Chunky was. In the first place he was quite large—as large as the largest fat pig on your grandfather’s farm. And Chunky really looked a little like a pig, except that his nose was broad and square instead of pointed.

Chunky was a hippopotamus, as perhaps you have guessed. But, as hippopotamus is quite a long and hard word for little boys and girls to remember, I will first tell you what it means, and then I will make it short for you, so you will have no hard work at all to remember it, or say it.

Hippopotamus means “river-horse”; and a great many years ago when people first saw the queer animals swimming in the African rivers, they thought they were horses that liked to be in the water instead of on land. So that is how the hippopotamus got its name of river horse. But we’ll call them hippos for short, and it will do just as well.

Chunky was called the happy hippo. And he was very happy. In fact when he opened his big mouth to swallow grass and river weeds you might have thought he was laughing.

Chunky lived with Mr. and Mrs. Hippo, who were his father and mother, in a sort of big nest among the reeds and bushes on the bank of the river. Near them were other hippos, some large and some small, but Chunky liked best to be with his own folks.

Besides his father and mother, there was Mumpy, his sister, and Bumpy, his brother. Funny names, aren’t they? And I’ll tell you how the little hippos happened to get them.

One day, when Chunky didn’t have any name, nor his brother or sister either, a great, big, fat hippo mother came over to see Mrs. Hippo. The visitor, whose name was Mrs. Dippo, as we might say, because she liked to dip herself under the water so much—this Mrs. Dippo said, talking hippopotamus talk of course:

“My, what nice children you have, Mrs. Hippo.”

“Yes, they are rather nice,” said Mrs. Hippo, as she looked at the three of them asleep in the soft, warm mud near the edge of the river. You may think it queer for the little hippo babies to sleep in the mud. But they liked it. The more mud they had on them the better it kept off the mosquitoes and other biting bugs.

“Have you named them yet?” asked Mrs. Dippo.

“Not yet,” answered Mrs. Hippo. “I’ve been waiting until I could think of good names.”

“Well, I’d call that one Chunky,” said Mrs. Dippo, pointing with her left ear at the largest of the three little hippos. Mrs. Dippo had to point with her ear, for she was too heavy to raise one foot to point and stand on three. She had only her ears to point with. “I’d call him Chunky,” said Mrs. Dippo.

“Why?” asked Mrs. Hippo.

“Oh, because he’s so jolly-looking; just like a great, big fat chunk of warm mud,” answered Mrs. Dippo. “Call him Chunky.”

“I will,” said Mrs. Hippo, and that is how Chunky got his name.

“Now for your other two children,” went on Mrs. Dippo. “That one,” and she pointed her ear at Chunky’s sister, “I should call Mumpy.”

“Why?” Mrs. Hippo again asked.

“Oh, because she looks just as if her cheeks were all swelled out with the mumps,” answered Mrs. Dippo. For animals sometimes have mumps, or pains and aches just like them. But Chunky’s sister didn’t have them—at least not then. The reason her cheeks stuck out so was because she had a big mouthful of river grass on which she was chewing.

“Yes, I think Mumpy will be a good name for her,” said Mrs. Hippo, and so Chunky’s sister was named. Then there was left only his brother, who was younger than Chunky.

Just as Mrs. Dippo finished naming the two little animal children, the one who was left without a name awakened from his sleep and got up. He slipped on a muddy place near the bank of the river and bumped into Chunky, nearly knocking him over.

“Oh, look out, you bumpy boy!” cried Mrs. Hippo, speaking, of course, in animal talk.

“Ha! That’s his name!” cried Mrs. Dippo, with a laugh.

“What is?” asked Mrs. Hippo.

“Bumpy!” said Mrs. Dippo. “Don’t you see? He bumped into Chunky, so you can call him Bumpy!”

“That’s a fine name,” said Mrs. Hippo, and Bumpy liked it himself.

So that is how the three little hippos were named, and after that they kept on eating and growing and growing and eating until they were quite large—larger even than pigs.

One day, Mr. and Mrs. Hippo and most of their animal friends were quite far out in the river, diving down to dig up the sweet roots that grew near the bottom. Chunky, Mumpy and Bumpy were on the bank lying in the sun to get dry, for they had been swimming about near shore.

“Are you going in again?” asked Mumpy, of her brothers, talking, of course, in the way hippos do.

“No, I’ve been in swimming enough to-day,” said Bumpy. “I’m going back into the jungle and sleep,” for the river where the hippos lived was near a jungle, in which there were elephants, monkeys and other wild animals.

“I’m going in the water once more,” said Mumpy. “I haven’t had enough grass to eat.”

“I haven’t, either,” said Chunky, who was fatter than ever and jollier looking. “I’ll go in with you, Mumpy.”

So the two young hippos walked slowly down to the edge of the deep, muddy river. Far out in the water they could see their father and mother, with the larger animals, having a swim. Chunky and Mumpy walked slowly now, though they could run fast when they needed to, to get away from danger; for though a hippo is fat and seems clumsy, and though his legs are very short, he can, at times, run very fast.

And as they went slowly along, Chunky and Mumpy looked about on all sides of them, and sniffed the air very hard. They were trying to see danger, and also to smell it. In the jungle wild animals can sometimes tell better by smelling when there is danger than by looking. For the tangled vines do not let them see very far among the trees, but there is nothing to stop them from smelling unless the wind blows too hard.

“Is everything all right, Chunky?” asked Mumpy of her brother, as she saw him stop on the edge of a patch of reeds just before going into the water, and sniff the air very hard.

“Yes, I think so,” he answered in hippo talk. For his father and mother had taught him something of how to look for danger and smell for it—the danger of lions or of tigers or of the black or white hunter men who came into the jungle to shoot or catch the wild animals.

“Come on, Mumpy!” called Chunky. “We’ll have another nice swim.”

“And we’ll get some more sweet grass to eat—I’m hungry yet!” replied the little girl hippo; for animals, such as elephants and hippos who live in the jungle or river, need a great deal of food.

Out to the edge of the river went Chunky and his sister. They saw some other young hippos—some mere babies and others quite large boys and girls, as we would say—on the bank or in the water.

Just as Chunky and Mumpy were going to wade in, they noticed, on a high part of the bank, not far away, a fat hippo boy who was called Big Foot by the jungle animals, as one of his feet was larger than the other three.

“Watch me jump into the river!” called Big Foot.

Then, when they were all looking, and he thought, I suppose, that he was going to do something smart, he gave a jump and splashed into the water. But something went wrong. Big Foot stumbled, just as he jumped, and, instead of making a nice dive, he went in backward and made a great splash.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Chunky, wagging his stubby tail. “Ho! Ho! I can jump better than that, and I’m not as large as you, Big Foot! Ha! Ha!” and Chunky laughed again. “That was an awful funny jump!”

Big Foot climbed out of the water up on the bank. His eyes, which seemed like lumps or bumps on his head, appeared to snap at Chunky as he looked at him and Mumpy.

“Some one laughing at me, eh?” growled Big Foot in his deep voice. “Ha! I’ll show you! Why are you laughing at me?” he asked, and he went so close to Mumpy that he bumped into her and almost knocked her into the river.

“Here! You let my sister alone!” bravely cried Chunky, stepping close to Big Foot.

“Well, what did she want to laugh for when I splashed in the water?” asked Big Foot.

“I didn’t laugh,” answered Mumpy, speaking more gently than did the two boy hippos.

“Yes, you did!” exclaimed Big Foot, angrily.

“He went in backward and made a great splash”

“No, she didn’t laugh. I laughed,” said Chunky, and his sister thought he was very brave to say it right out that way. “I laughed at you, Big Foot,” said Chunky. “You looked so funny when you fell into the water backwards. Ha! Ha!” and Chunky laughed again.

“So! You’ll laugh at me, will you?” asked Big Foot, and his voice was more angry. “Well, I’ll fix you!” and with a loud grunt, like a great big pig, he rushed straight at Chunky.

CHAPTER II
CHUNKY IS SURPRISED

“Oh, Chunky!” cried Mumpy, as she saw Big Foot rushing at her brother. “Oh, Chunky, come on home!”

“Pooh! I’m not afraid of him!” said Chunky, as he stood still on the river bank and looked at the on-rushing Big Foot.

“I’ll go and call father,” went on Mumpy, as she waded into the water and began to swim out toward the grown hippos where they were having fun of their own in the river.

“I’ll show you that you can’t laugh at me!” grunted Big Foot, who came on as fast as he could. “I’ll bite you and push you into the river, and see how you like that.”

“Pooh! I’m not afraid!” said Chunky again, but really he was, a little bit.

Of course, if you had been in the jungle, or hidden among the reeds on the bank of the African river, you would not have understood what Chunky and Big Foot said. In fact, you would not even have guessed that they were talking; but they were, all the same, though to you the noises they made would have sounded only like grunts, squeals and puffings. But that is the way the hippos talk among themselves, and they mean the same things you mean when you talk, only a little different, of course.

“Oh, look! Big Foot is going to do something to Chunky!” cried the other boy hippos, and they gathered around to see what would happen. For fights often took place among the jungle animals. They did not know any better than to bite, kick and bump into one another when they were angry.

“I’ll fix you!” said Big Foot again.

“Pooh! I’m not afraid,” answered Chunky once more, just as you may often have heard boys say.

To tell the truth, Chunky would have been glad to run away, but he did not like to do it with so many of his young hippo friends looking on. They would have thought him a coward. So he had to stand and wait to see what Big Foot would do.

On came the larger hippo boy, and, all of a sudden, when he was quite close to Chunky, he gave a jump and bumped right into him. Chunky tried to get out of the way, but he was not quick enough.

The next minute he found himself slipping into the river, for Big Foot had knocked him off the bank. But Chunky did not mind falling into the water. He had been going in anyhow for a swim with his sister. Chunky was not hurt. No water even went up his nose, as it does up yours when you fall into the water. For Chunky could close his nose, as you close your mouth, and not a drop of water got in.

“There, I told you I’d fix you for laughing at me!” growled Big Foot, as he stood on the bank and watched Chunky swimming around in the water. “If you laugh at me any more I’ll push you in again!”

“Oh, you will, will you?” exclaimed a voice back of Big Foot. “Well, you just let my Chunky alone after this! He can laugh if he wants to, I guess!”

And with that Mrs. Hippo, who had quickly swum to shore when Mumpy told her what was going on, gave Big Foot a shove, and into the water he splashed.

“Ha-ha!” laughed all the other hippo boys and girls, as they saw what had happened. “Look at Big Foot! Ha-ha-ha!”

Big Foot was very angry because Mrs. Hippo had pushed him in. But when he saw all the others laughing at him, he knew that he could not knock them all into the water, as he had knocked Chunky, so he made the best of it.

“Ha-ha!” laughed Chunky. “So you’re here too, Big Foot! I saw my mother push you in. She’s awful strong, she is! I hope she didn’t hurt you. She didn’t mean to if she did. Here are some nice sweet grass roots I dived down and pulled up off the bottom of the river. Have some?” and Chunky held out some in his mouth.

Now Big Foot liked grass roots very much indeed, as did all the hippos. So, though he still felt a little angry, he took them from Chunky, and when the big boy hippo, with one foot larger than his other three, had swallowed the sweet, juicy roots he felt much better.

“They were good,” he said. “Thanks! And say, I hope I didn’t hurt you when I shoved you into the river just now, Chunky.”

“No, you didn’t,” Chunky answered. “And I hope my mother didn’t hurt you when she shoved you in.”

“Ho! Ho! I should say not!” answered Big Foot, and he laughed now. “I’m sorry I got mad,” he went on. “Come on, have a game of water-tag!”

“All right,” said Chunky, “I will. Come on, Mumpy!” he called to his sister. “We’re going to have a game of water-tag.”

“Let’s all play!” cried Bumpo, who had not after all gone away. Then he slid down the river bank into the water.

“Yes, we’ll all play tag!” chimed in the rest of the hippos, and they were soon swimming and diving about in the water, splashing and bumping into one another almost as you boys and girls play when you go in bathing at the beach in the summer. Only, of course, the hippos, being very big, made heavy splashes.

“This is lots of fun!” cried Chunky, as he tagged Bumpy and then dived to get out of the way, for sometimes the hippos “tagged back,” just as you children play.

“Yes, it’s jolly fun!” yelled Big Foot.

So the animal children swam, splashed and dived in the water, having much more fun than when the one was angry at the other and had pushed him into the river.

All of a sudden, Mrs. Hippo, who had stayed on the bank after making Big Foot behave, gave a grunting cry.

“Quick!” she called in her own language. “Swim ashore, all you little hippos! Swim ashore, quick!”

“What’s the matter?” asked Big Foot. He thought he was too large to mind without first asking questions.

“Don’t stop to talk! Swim ashore as fast as you can!” cried Mrs. Hippo.

Chunky, Bumpy and Mumpy, her own three children-hippos, did as they were told, and paddled for shore as fast as they could. For, though a hippopotamus is a very big animal and looks very clumsy, there are few as large as he who can swim so well or so fast, or dive so easily.

On and on toward shore swam the hippo children, who, a few seconds before, had been playing tag. Last of all came Big Foot. As yet neither he nor any of the others knew why Mrs. Hippo wanted them to come ashore.

Big Foot partly turned in the water and looked back. Then he saw what it was. A big crocodile, which is something like an alligator, only with a longer and more slender nose, or snout, its mouth filled with long, sharp teeth, was swimming after the little hippos.

“Is that why you wanted us to come ashore?” asked Big Foot of Chunky’s mother, calling to her as he swam toward land.

“Yes, indeed it is!” she answered, in her big deep voice. “And don’t stop to ask any more questions! Hurry!”

So they all hurried and got safely into shallow water, where the crocodile dared not come, bold and hungry as he was. He thought perhaps big Mrs. Hippo would step on him and smash him. A crocodile can grab hold of a baby hippo, and take it away, but dare not touch a big hippo. So this crocodile, with an angry snap of his teeth, turned and swam back into the middle of the river again, to wait for another chance to grab a tender, baby hippo.

“My! how frightened I was!” said Mrs. Hippo, when she saw that her own and the rest of the animal children were safe. “I saw the crocodile coming toward you, but you didn’t see him because you were playing tag so hard.”

“It’s a good thing you called to us to swim out of his way,” said Big Foot. “I’m much obliged to you, Mrs. Hippo, and I’m sorry I pushed your Chunky in!”

“Oh, you didn’t hurt me!” laughed Chunky, as he stood on the bank and looked out to the middle of the river, where he could just see the nose of the crocodile in the water, as the long animal swam away.

And then Chunky had another surprise, for escaping from the crocodile surely was one. All of a sudden, out from the jungle flew a lot of birds, and before the hippos knew what was happening the birds began to settle down on their backs.

“Oh, look!” cried Chunky. “What are the birds going to do?” he asked his mother. “Are they going to bite me?”

“No; don’t be afraid, silly little hippo boy!” she answered, with a loud laugh. “The birds just came to get the snails and water bugs that are sticking to your back. The river is full of snails, and when you go in to swim they stick to you. The birds like to pick them off and eat them, and that’s what they’re doing now.”

And that is just what the birds were doing. Out of the jungle they had flown, and they circled around and lighted, one after another, on the broad, flat backs of Chunky and the other hippo children. The skin of a hippo is very thick—two inches in some places—but there are tender spots where mosquitoes, or bad bugs like that, can bite. But on the backs of the hippos nothing could bite through, and even when the birds picked off the water spiders and snails with their sharp bills the hippos did not feel it.

“Isn’t it funny to have birds on your back?” said Chunky to Big Foot.

“Oh, it has happened to me before,” said the larger hippo boy. “Of course you’re young yet—you’ve got lots to learn.”

“Well, I’m glad the birds can get something to eat off me,” laughed Chunky in his jolly way. He laughed, in his own fashion, more than any of the other hippos, and seemed quite happy, so much so that often, when he was spoken of, he was called “Chunky, the happy hippo.”

Here and there fluttered the birds on the backs of the hippos, picking off the water insects, which might get under the folds of the skin of Chunky and his mates and pain them. So the birds not only got a meal for themselves but they helped the animals.

After a while all the bugs and snails were picked off and the birds flew back into the jungle. Chunky watched them as they sailed above the tree tops, and then he, too, walked slowly into the deep woods.

“Where are you going?” asked his sister.

“Oh, off into the jungle to have a sleep,” he answered. “Want to come along?”

“No,” she said. “I’m going with some of the other hippo girls to roll in the mud.”

So Chunky went into the jungle by himself. On and on among the trees he wandered, making his way through the tangled vines, breaking them off without any trouble, because he was very strong.

All at once Chunky heard a funny noise, like a big horn blowing, and, looking up, he saw, standing in front of him, a big animal, much taller than himself. And this animal had two big long white teeth sticking out in front, and he seemed to have two tails, one longer than the other.

“Oh dear!” thought Chunky. “This is a terrible beast! I wonder if he will bite me as the crocodile tried to;” and in order to get away, Chunky turned to run back through the jungle.

CHAPTER III
CHUNKY IS BITTEN

“Hold on there! Wait a minute! Don’t be afraid! Wait for me, little hippo chap!” cried the big animal to Chunky.

“Oh, no! You’ll bite me!” answered Chunky, as he crashed his way through the jungle.

“Bite you? I wouldn’t bite you for the world. I never bite anything except the grass and leaves I chew for my dinner. I might tickle you with my trunk, if I wanted to have some fun, but I’d never bite,” and the big animal talked in such a kind way that Chunky no longer felt frightened. He stopped and looked back.

“What do you mean—tickle me with your trunk?” he asked, speaking animal talk, of course. “Do you mean with one of your two tails?”

“I haven’t two tails,” answered the big animal. “The little one is a tail, to be sure, but the other is my trunk, or nose. See! I can wiggle it any way I like to;” and this he did.

“My! that’s wonderful!” cried Chunky. “I can wiggle my tail, even if it is shorter than yours, and I can open my mouth real wide, but I can’t make my nose go as yours does. And so you call it a trunk! What do you do with it?”

“It is like a hand to me,” said the big animal. “I pick up in it things to eat, and I pull off the leaves of trees that grow above my head on the high branches. What is your name, little hippo boy?”

“My name is Chunky. And what is yours?”

“I’m called Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, and I’m in a book,” said the big animal. “Now don’t ask me what a book is, for I don’t know. All I know is I’m in one and the book is about a lot of my adventures.”

“What’s adventures?” asked Chunky.

“Things that happen to you,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. “If I had tickled you with my trunk, that would have been an adventure.”

“And if the crocodile had bitten me when I was out playing water-tag a while ago, would that have been an adventure?” asked Chunky.

“It would,” said Tum Tum. “But that’s all I know about a book—I’m in one, and there’s a picture of me. I had a lot of adventures in the jungle, and then I was caught and taken away far off and put in a circus. There I had lots of fun.”

“Why aren’t you in the circus now?” asked Chunky.

“Well, I’m getting too old to do circus tricks any more, though I feel as jolly as ever,” answered Tum Tum. “So the man who owned me said he’d take me out of the circus and bring me back to the jungle to help train any wild elephants he might catch. That’s why I’m back in the jungle. I’m going to help tame and train wild elephants, which the hunters, who are with the man who owns me, are going to try to catch.”

“Ha! So there are hunters here, are there?” cried Chunky, for he had heard his father and mother speak of these creatures, and they had told him always to keep out of their way.

“Yes, there are some hunters in the jungle,” said Tum Tum. “They are after elephants.”

“Do you think they’ll want a hippo?” asked Chunky anxiously.

“Well, I can’t tell. Maybe they might. Would you like to be caught and put in a circus?”

“Indeed I would not!” cried Chunky. “I want to stay in the jungle, and swim in the muddy river with my brother Bumpy and my sister Mumpy. We have lots of fun.”

“We had fun in the circus, too,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. “There I met Mappo, the merry monkey, and I know lots of other animals, about whom those things that are called books have been written.”

“Oh, tell me about the other animals!” begged Chunky. “Was there one like me?”

“Yes, there was a hippo in the circus,” said Tum Tum; “but he was old and big, and slept in his tank of water most of the time. I didn’t have much to say to him. But I like you.

“Then there were other animals in the circus, and out of it, too, for that matter, and I liked most of them. I met Squinty, a comical pig, and there was Don, a runaway dog, besides Flop Ear, a funny rabbit. They all have books written about them, and you’d be surprised at the many adventures my friends had.”

“I was surprised, just now, when the jungle birds perched on my back,” said Chunky.

“You’d be more surprised if you could read about my adventures in the book,” said Tum Tum, with a jolly twinkle in his eyes, as he reached his trunk up in a tree and pulled off some sweet, green leaves. “Have some,” he invited Chunky, and Chunky did.

“Well, I’m very glad to meet you,” said the little hippo boy, after a while, when he and Tum Tum had talked for some time, and the jolly elephant had told him a few of his adventures, especially of once having been in a fire when the circus barns caught, and of how he had helped save some of the animals from being burned, including Dido, a dancing bear.

“My! that was an adventure!” cried Chunky.

“Pooh! that’s nothing,” said Tum Tum. “Maybe I’ll have more adventures now that I’ve come to the jungle. What! you aren’t going, are you?”

“Yes, I guess I’d better go home,” said Chunky. “Some of those hunter friends of yours might try to catch me to put me in a circus, and I don’t want to go. Maybe I’ll see you some other time,” and away he went through the jungle toward the river, on the edge of which, amid the tall reeds, he lived with the other hippos.

“Good-bye!” called Tum Tum. “If ever you get caught by the hunters, and you don’t like it, I’ll help you get away if I’m around.”

“Thank you!” said Chunky, and he made up his mind never to be caught if he could help it. But you just wait and see what happens to the little hippo boy!

Chunky made his way through the jungle to where his father and mother had their home. It was not a house, or even a nest, such as birds live in, though I have called it a nest. It was just a place where the reeds and weeds were trampled down smooth to make a soft place for the hippos to sleep.

There was no roof over the top of the hippos’ house, if you can call such a place a house. There were no windows in it, nor doors, and when it rained the water came in all over. But Chunky and his brother and sister did not mind the wetness. They liked being in the water as much as being on dry land, and they spent more than half their time in the river, anyhow.

So, really, all they needed of a house was a place where they could lie down and sleep, and it was easy to make such a place. All Mr. and Mrs. Hippo had to do was to lie down in the weeds and reeds, roll over once or twice to make them stay down smoothly, and the house was made.

There was no furniture in it—neither tables nor chairs, and not even a piano or a talking machine. The hippos had no use for these things. All they needed was a place to lie down, and such a place need not even be dry. Then all else they wanted was something to eat, and this they could get on land or in the water.

“I think I like my home on the river bank better than the circus, even if Tum Tum did say it was jolly,” thought Chunky, as he crashed his way back through the jungle to where he had left his sister. She was out in the river now, playing water-tag with some of the other hippo boys and girls.

“Aren’t you afraid of the crocodile?” asked Chunky, as he, too, waded out to get some more grass roots, for he was hungry again. Hippos and elephants eat very often during the day.

“The crocodile has gone away,” answered Mumpy. “The big hippos swam around in the water and drove him to the other side of the river. We are not afraid. Come and play tag with us, Chunky.”

“Not now,” he answered. “I’m going to eat. After I eat I will play.”

Chunky waded out into the river until he felt the water coming up over his nose. Then he shut the breathing holes, so no water would run into them. It was just as if one of you boys had ducked your head under water and held your nose closed with your fingers, only Chunky did not need to hold his nose.

He could not have done so if he had wanted, for he had no hands, and he needed his four feet to walk on. For, though in deep water he could swim, as could the other hippos, he now wanted to walk along under water on the soft, oozy, muddy bottom of the river and eat grass and plant-roots.

Chunky had in his jaw some long, sharp teeth, called tusks. They were not as big as the tusks of Tum Tum the elephant, and they did not show when Chunky closed his big lips. But when he opened his mouth his tusks could easily be seen and so, too, could his other big teeth, called molars, which were used for grinding up the grass and other things he ate, just as your teeth grind, or chew, your food.

It was with his long, sharp tusks that Chunky dug up from the muddy bottom, or from the banks of the river, the roots which he loved so well. And now, as the boy hippo waded out, he opened his eyes under water to look about and to find a good feeding place.

“Ah, I shall have a fine feast!” thought Chunky to himself, as he saw, a little ahead of him, under water, a big clump of rich, green grass. “There must be some fine roots there.”

Walking along on the soft mud at the bottom of the river, the little hippo boy peered about, trying to decide which was the best place to begin his meal. The surface of the water was about a foot over his back, and he could see quite well, for the sun was shining overhead in the blue sky.

Opening wide his mouth, so he could use his tusk-like teeth to uproot the grass, Chunky began his feast. With a motion of his big head, which made the water above him boil and bubble, the hippo tore out a lot of the juicy roots, getting them into his mouth.

“Ah! but these are good!” he thought to himself. “I don’t believe that Tum Tum, even if he was in a circus, and was put in an adventure-book, ever had anything as good as this. Yum-yum!” said Chunky, or whatever it is hippos say when they have something good to eat.

Chunky was chewing away, wishing his sister Mumpy and his brother Bumpy were with him to enjoy the sweet grass roots, when, all of a sudden, Chunky felt something sharp nip him on the end of his nose.

“Ouch!” he cried to himself. “I must have run against a sharp stone.”

He tried to step backward, and then he felt the sharp pain again. This time he knew he had not struck himself.

“Something has bit me!” cried Chunky. “Oh, it must be a big fish! I must get out of here!”

He started to rise to the top of the water, so he could swim ashore, but, just as he did so, there came a third bite on his big nose, and he saw, right in front of him, a great big crocodile with a lot of teeth in his long jaws.

It was the crocodile that had bitten Chunky and which now had hold of his nose, hanging on like a mud turtle.

“Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!” blubbered Chunky, as he wiggled about under water, trying to get loose from the crocodile.

“It was the crocodile that had bitten Chunky”

CHAPTER IV
CHUNKY IN THE MUD

Poor Chunky was having a dreadful time. Never before had he been caught by a crocodile. It would not have been so bad, he thought in his hippo way, if it had happened on top of the water. There some of the big animals might have seen him and they would have helped him. But down under the muddy river—who could help him there?

Chunky flopped about in the water, sticking his feet deep down in the muddy bottom, and pushing back as hard as he could, trying to get his nose loose from the crocodile’s teeth. But the crocodile held fast to the hippo.

“Let me go! Let me go!” blubbered Chunky, speaking in a strange way because his mouth was partly closed by the crocodile.

“Indeed and I’ll not let you loose!” answered the crocodile. “I want you for my supper!” At least he might have answered that if his mouth had not been busy holding fast to Chunky’s nose.

Chunky pulled and pulled and pulled, but still he could not get loose, and the crocodile was slowly, but surely, dragging him out to a deeper part of the river, when, all at once, there was a great splashing in the water, and something big and heavy sank down beside the little hippo boy.

“Get away from here, Mr. Crocodile!” a voice shouted, sounding like thunder under the water. “Leave my Chunky alone.”

And then a great, big body began pushing and shoving the crocodile, and Chunky saw that it was his father who had come to save him.

Mr. Hippo, being big and strong, squeezed the crocodile up against the hard bank of the river, down under the water, and nearly squeezed the breath out of him. So the crocodile was very glad, indeed, to take his jaws off Chunky’s nose and let the little hippo go. Then, with another shove of his big body, Mr. Hippo thrust the crocodile far out into the river. The crocodile made a snap at Mr. Hippo, trying to bite him, but the big hippo floated out of the way just in time, and that was the end of the fight.

“Oh dear!” cried Chunky to his father, who swam up beside him under water. “Oh dear! How my nose hurts!”

“Yes, I guess it does, little chap,” said Mr. Hippo. “Come along with me and I’ll get your mother to put a grass poultice on it. Or you can hold it in the soft, cool mud on the edge of the river. That will cure it.”

Of course I don’t mean to say that sick animals really doctor themselves, but if you ever see your cat or dog eat grass, you may be sure it is doing it because it feels ill, so, in a way, it is taking medicine.

And if you have ever watched a dog when it has been stung by a bee, you may have seen him go to some place where there is cool, wet mud that he can lie down in, and so get some plastered on the stung place, to make it pain less. So he takes this kind of medicine.

In the jungle wild animals, when they are shot, or hurt by one of their own kind, or by another kind, get away if they can, where they can drink water and let some of it wash up on their wound. Water, mud and some kinds of grass and leaves are jungle medicines for the animal folk.

And that is what Mr. Hippo meant. He did not mean that Mrs. Hippo would make a real grass poultice for Chunky’s sore nose, only that she might chew up some grass until it was soft and mushy and then her little boy hippo could lay his nose against it to make the bites of the crocodile feel better.

“Where have you been?” asked Mrs. Hippo, as she saw Mr. Hippo and Chunky coming home.

“Oh, the boy got into trouble—one of those crocodiles,” said the father hippo, in his own kind of talk. “We’ll have to move away from here, I guess, if many more crocodiles come to this river.”

Jungle animals do move from place to place; hippos, monkeys and elephants especially. They stay around one spot until they have eaten all the good food there, or until all the water is gone, and then they move on to a new home. Sometimes they move from one place to another because of danger, such as crocodiles or snakes might make.

“Oh, Chunky, your nose is bleeding!” said Mrs. Hippo.

“That’s where the crocodile bit me,” he answered.

His mother showed him a place where he could lie down and put his nose in some soft mud. Then she brought him some sweet lily-plant roots to eat, and made a little cushion of soft grass for his sore nose to rest on that night.

Chunky did not sleep very well. His nose pained him too much, but he did not cry. Wild animals do not know anything about crying, no matter how much pain they may feel. In the morning the sore nose was a little better, but Chunky could not go to play with his brother and sister and the other young hippos. He had to stay on the river bank.

Still he was quite happy, for all the other animals were kind to him, and brought him nice things to eat. Mumpy and Bumpy came to see him, and told him what fun they were having playing water-tag and other games in the river.

“I wish I could play!” said Chunky.

“Oh, but you can’t go into deep water until your nose gets better!” said his mother. “You must stay on shore. Perhaps you might go in wading, but even then you must keep your head out of water. In a few days you will be better, and then you can have fun.”

“Did you see any crocodiles?” asked Chunky of Bumpy.

“No. But if I do I’ll step on ’em and make ’em go away!” he answered boastfully.

“Better not try that!” said Mr. Hippo. “You are not yet big enough to fight the crocodiles. Leave that to me!”

For three days Chunky had to keep out of the deep part of the river. He could only wade about and splash near shore, not diving or swimming. And as he had been used to going far out in the water ever since he was a tiny baby, he missed this very much indeed.

But at last his nose was almost well, and his mother said it would be good for him to go in the water. Then Chunky was happy. He splashed in the river, dived away down to the bottom, rolled over and over in the mud and swam about as much as he pleased.

“Glad to see you!” cried Big Foot, for he and Chunky had become good friends since their little quarrel. “Is your nose all well?”

“Almost,” Chunky answered. “But I don’t want to see any more crocodiles!”

“I should say not!” agreed Big Foot. “But when I get larger I’m going to fight them, same as your father did.”

Then Chunky played with the other hippos in the water, diving and having games of what you would call tag, until finally Big Foot said:

“Oh, come on! Let’s wade ashore and go into the jungle!”

“All right!” agreed Chunky. “Maybe we can have some fun there.”

So into the jungle they went, trampling their way through the thick tangle of vines, chasing one another and grunting like pigs; and indeed they looked something like pigs as they pushed their noses in wet and muddy places to get at the sweet roots underneath.

All at once Big Foot, who was walking ahead, cried:

“Look out, Chunky! I hear something coming! Maybe it’s a crocodile!”

“Crocodiles don’t come this far into the jungle,” said Chunky.

“Well, it’s something!” went on Big Foot. “Oh, look what a big animal, Chunky! I’m going to run back to the river! I’m afraid!”

Chunky looked at the animal to which Big Foot was pointing with his ears, and then the little hippo laughed.

“You don’t need to be afraid of him!” he said.

“Why, do you know him?” asked Big Foot.

“Yes, that is Tum Tum, the jolly elephant,” was the answer. “I met him here in the jungle the other day, and he told me about being in a book and having adventures. Hello, Tum Tum!” cried Chunky in jungle talk.

“Hello yourself,” answered the big, jolly elephant. “I see you have a friend with you.”

“Yes, Tum Tum, this is Big Foot,” said Chunky, waving his ears toward the other hippo. Big Foot, though older than Chunky, had never seen an elephant before, and he was much surprised. Just as Chunky had supposed, Big Foot thought Tum Tum had two tails, but he soon learned better, and he, too, liked the jolly elephant.

“What are you doing here in the jungle?” asked Chunky of his big friend.

“Oh, I’m looking to see if there are some wild elephants about, so the men with whom I am staying can catch them and train them for a circus,” was the answer.

“Are there men hunters around here?” Big Foot asked in an awed and very rumbling whisper.

“Yes, they are back in the jungle, and they will soon be here,” answered Tum Tum.

“Then we’d better run!” cried Big Foot to Chunky. “My folks always told me to look out for hunters.”

“That’s right!” agreed Chunky. “We had better go back to the river.”

“Oh, don’t be in a hurry,” said Tum Tum. “The hunters are not here yet. I can hear them coming long before they can see you, and I’ll tell you in time for you to get away. Still, maybe you would like to be caught and sent to a circus.”

“Not me!” cried Big Foot.

“Nor I,” added Chunky, though the more he thought about it the more he wished he could have some adventures, such as Tum Tum had had, many of them being written about in a book like this one you are reading.

So the elephant and the two hippos stayed in the jungle for some little time, talking. Then, all of a sudden, Tum Tum raised his big ears, lifted his trunk, sniffed the air, and said:

“The hunters are coming now. You had better run if you do not want to be caught. Good-bye! I hope I’ll see you again some day.”

“Good-bye!” called Chunky and Big Foot to Tum Tum, and then the hippos went back to their river, while Tum Tum began his search for wild elephants.

It was two or three days after this that Chunky, who had gone off by himself up along the river bank to look for a certain kind of sweet grass, had another adventure.

The little hippo was thinking of what Tum Tum had said about the circus, and how nice it was there, when, all of a sudden, Chunky stepped into a pool of water, which he did not think was very deep. But it was, and the worst of it turned out to be that under the water was some very sticky mud. So sticky, in fact, that Chunky sank down deep in it, being quite heavy and fat for his age. He tried to pull out his little short, stumpy legs, one after the other, but he could not. He only sank deeper and deeper in the mud. He was held fast there.

“Oh, dear!” thought Chunky. “I’m stuck tight! I wonder if this can be a trap of the hunters to catch me for the circus. Oh, I wish Tum Tum were here to help me out! Oh, dear!”

CHAPTER V
CHUNKY IS CAUGHT

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.

“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.

“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 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. “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.

“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.

“Out came Chunky as nicely as you please”

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 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. 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.

CHAPTER VI
CHUNKY TAKES A TRIP

Poor Chunky did not know what to do. He could hardly move around on the bottom of the hole, because it was so small. It had not been made to catch him, but he did not know that. The black hunters who had dug the pit hoped to catch in it a small deer. Chunky was really a little too big for the pit-trap, but it was too late to think of that now. He was in it.

“Oh dear!” thought Chunky, “I wonder if any of my friends will come to help me out? I wish Tum Tum would come. He could lift me out with his strong trunk. I’ll call him.”

So, in a sort of grunting voice, Chunky called:

“Tum Tum! where are you? Please come and get me out of the hole!”

After he had called the name of his big animal friend Chunky kept still and listened. He could hear nothing but the sounds of the jungle all about him. He could not see anything except the earth sides of the deep pit.

“Tum Tum! where are you? Come and help me out of this hole!” called the hippo boy, in animal talk of course.

But no one answered him. He could hear the birds in the jungle making their queer noises, not at all like the sweet sound your canary makes. The birds screamed instead of singing, though now and then one or another would utter a pleasant note.

And the monkeys! How they chattered! Other animals ran here and there through the jungle, going to get something to eat or something to drink. None of them, however, paid any attention to Chunky’s calls. Tum Tum did not answer him, because the jolly elephant was far away; and if any of the other jungle animals heard what Chunky was saying, they did not reply to him. Perhaps they, too, were in some sort of trouble, or they may have been busy.

“Well, I guess no one is coming to help me out of this hole,” said Chunky to himself, after a while. “Oh, dear! I wish I’d been more careful, and had not stepped on the dried leaves over the hole. Then I wouldn’t have fallen in!”

But it was too late to think of that now. Chunky knew he must try to get out before the black or white hunters came, for that he was in a pit dug by these men the hippo boy very well knew. Tum Tum, as well as his father and mother, had told him about such places and had warned him to be careful.

“I must get out!” thought Chunky.

So he turned and twisted himself about on the bottom of the pit, and tried to raise himself up to look over the top, but he could not. In the first place he was too heavy to raise himself up very far on his hind legs. If he had been Lightfoot, the leaping goat, about whom some stories have been told you, Chunky might have done this, or he might even have jumped out of the pit. But, as it was, he could only bob up a little way and then drop back again.

“Maybe I could dig my way out with my big, long teeth, the same as I dig up the grass roots at the bottom of the river,” thought Chunky to himself. “Oh, dear! I wish I were back in the river now! I’m going to try to dig myself out.”

But though Chunky’s front teeth, or tusks, answered well enough for digging up grass or lily roots on the bottom of the river, where the mud was soft, they were not made for digging in the hard, earthen sides of the pit. The hippo boy could only make a few scratches, and these did him no good.

“It’s of no use!” sadly thought Chunky. “I guess I’ll have to stay here. But if only Tum Tum would come! I’ll call him again!”

So lifting up his head, with his big, broad nose pointing toward the opening at the top of the pit, Chunky called:

“Tum Tum! Please come and help me!”

He waited, but no one answered. The jolly elephant was still far away. Pretty soon, however, a little bird perched itself on top of a tree where it could look down into the pit. The bird saw the hippo and heard his big voice calling.

“My! what a funny way you have of singing,” remarked the bird.

“I am not singing,” answered Chunky.

“Not singing? Then what do you call it?” asked the bird, looking down at Chunky, its little head on one side, just as your canary often looks at you.

“No, I wasn’t singing,” went on Chunky. “I can’t sing—at least not like you. I was calling for my friend Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, to come and help me get out of this hole.”

“What did you want to go and get in the hole for?” asked the bird, somewhat pertly.

“I didn’t want to,” Chunky explained patiently. “I fell in. This isn’t a regular hole. It’s a trap. It was all covered with leaves, sticks and grass, and I didn’t see it until I stepped right into it. Now I can’t get out unless my friend Tum Tum comes and lifts me out with his big, strong trunk, as he lifted me out of the mud. Oh, if Tum Tum were only here!”

“Maybe I can find him for you,” said the bird kindly, realizing now that Chunky was in a sad plight.

“I wish you would!” exclaimed Chunky. “You can fly all over the jungle. Perhaps you will see Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. If you do, please tell him to come and help me.”

“I will,” promised the bird.

“And tell him to hurry, please,” went on Chunky. “If I don’t get out of here soon, the black or white hunters—whoever made this pit—will come and get me, and then maybe they’ll put me in a circus.”

“What’s a circus?” asked the bird.

“I don’t know, but Tum Tum does,” answered Chunky. “He was in one long ago. He can tell you what a circus is when you find him to ask him to come to help me.”

“So he can!” chirped the bird. “Well, I’ll go off and see if I can find your jolly elephant friend for you. Good-bye, Chunky. Don’t worry; I’ll get Tum Tum to help you.”

“Good-bye, birdie, and thank you,” said the hippo boy.

Then the bird flew away across the jungle, and the hippo stayed at the bottom of the pit-trap, waiting for what would happen next. Though he did not know it, his real adventures had begun, and he was to have a great many.

Away flew the bird over the jungle, but it did not find Tum Tum, at least in time to be of any use to Chunky. The jolly elephant was helping the white hunters catch some wild elephants for the circus. And, while this was going on, along came the black hunters who had dug the pit into which Chunky had fallen. The black hunters were Africans, and they had on very little clothing, for it was very hot.

Along the jungle path they came, with their spears and guns—for the white hunters had sold the black hunters guns—jabbering and talking in their own language. This would have sounded very queer to you, but no queerer than your talk would sound to those black Africans. And it sounded queer to Chunky, who heard it, down in the bottom of the pit as he was. But then his way of talking in animal language sounded queer to the black hunters, so matters were even, you see.

“I wonder if we have caught anything in our trap,” said one black hunter to another, as he walked along the jungle.

“I hope we have a nice deer, so we can have a good meal,” observed another.

They were close, now, to the pit they had dug, and the black men walked more softly along the jungle path, for they wanted to see what was in their trap without being seen. One of them went carefully up and looked in. When he saw Chunky, the hippo boy, at the bottom, the black man gave a cry of delight.

“Oh, we have caught a hippo! We have caught a young hippo!” he shouted, leaping about and waving his sharp spear over his head. “It is much better than a goat or a pig, for we shall have much more meat to eat. Ho! for the hippo!”

Of course the black hunter talked in his own language which his friends, the other hunters, understood. They gathered with him about the edge of the pit and looked down. They could see poor Chunky there, though, of course, they did not know his name.

“Ha!” cried the black hunters. “We shall have a fine meal now! We shall have lots to eat!”

For the reason they had dug the pit in the jungle was to get something to eat. They had no store or market where they could go to buy anything. When they were hungry they had to hunt pigs, elephants or hippos with their guns or spears, or trap them in pits or nets.

“We must get him out of the pit,” said the first black hunter. “We cannot cook him and eat him if he is down there.”

Chunky did not understand what the men were saying, and he did not know what they were going to do to him. But he soon found out. The men brought long ropes, made from twisted jungle vines, and lowered them down into the pit. They did not dare jump down themselves, for though Chunky was only a little hippo, compared to the grown ones, still he was strong, and his big teeth could bite very hard. The black hunters wanted to tie him with ropes before they lifted him out.

So down into the pit they dangled their strong vine ropes. Chunky saw them coming and felt them on his back, but he could not get out of the way of them. Soon they were tangled about his legs and body, and then, all the black hunters pulling together, they lifted the hippo out of the hole.

Chunky grunted and wiggled, but it was of no use. He could not get away from the ropes that were soon wound all about him.

Then just as one of the black hunters was about to stick him with a spear, to kill him, suddenly there was a loud noise in the jungle that made the black hunters look in the direction from which it sounded.

They saw, coming toward them, some white men with black men—servants to carry their guns, tents and boxes of food. It was a party of white hunters out seeking wild animals.

“What have you there?” asked the leader of the white hunters of the head of the black hunters—the one who had first looked down at Chunky in the pit. “What have you there?”

“We have a small hippo,” was the answer.

“And what are you going to do with him?”

“We are going to eat him, for we are hungry, and he has much meat on him—he is nice and fat.”

“Oh, don’t kill him!” said the white hunter. “I will buy him from you alive, and I’ll take him to a far-off land where people who do not see many hippos can see him. I can sell him to a circus. Don’t kill the little hippo. Sell him to me. Then you can buy other things to eat.”

“Well, we will do that,” said the black hunter. “But how can you carry this hippo alive to a far country?”

“I’ll show you,” answered the white hunter. “Leave him to me. Here are lots of beads and copper rings and looking glasses that flash in the sun like silver. I will give you these for the hippo.”

The black hunters liked very much the pretty things the white man had, so they took them and let him take Chunky, though of course the white man, as yet, did not know the hippo’s name.

“Make me a strong cage of jungle vines and poles of wood,” said the white hunter to his black helpers. “In the cage we will carry the hippo through the jungle until we come to the ‘great water,’ as you call the ocean. There, in a ship, I can take him to America, where I live. Make me a strong cage for the hippo.”

So they made a strong cage for Chunky, and when he was put in it and the ropes slipped off him, he could stand up, and move about, though he could not get out. And oh! how hot and tired and cramped and thirsty he was! How he would have liked to take a swim in his river, dive down out of sight and chew some of the sweet grass roots! But this was not to be.

Chunky was caught, and was in a cage, and, pretty soon, many of the black men with the white hunter, taking hold of poles thrust through the cage, began carrying Chunky through the jungle.

The little hippo boy was being taken away. He was beginning a very long trip, and on it he was to have many adventures.

“Oh, dear!” thought Chunky, as he felt himself being lifted up and carried along. “I guess that bird didn’t find Tum Tum and tell him to come and help me! I wonder what is going to happen to me?”

And well might Chunky, the happy hippo, wonder. He did not feel very happy now, but better times were coming, though he did not know it.

“The little hippo boy was being taken away”

CHAPTER VII
CHUNKY’S NEW FRIENDS

Along through the jungle jogged the black men, carrying the cage with Chunky in it. Now and then the black men would sing a funny song. At least it would have sounded queer to you, for it was like a lot of coughs, sneezes, hiccoughs and giggles. But it was a song the men often sang as they marched, so the way would not seem so long, nor their burdens so heavy, and Chunky was quite a heavy load, let me tell you!

After a while the men stopped in the jungle, to make a fire and cook something to eat. Farther back, the other black hunters who had caught Chunky and sold him to the white man, were doing the same thing. They had found a deer, which one of them speared, and they cooked it.

The cage, with Chunky in it, was set down in the jungle, not far from the fire the men made to cook their meal. This was the first time the hippo had seen a blaze, and, for a time, he was frightened, as are all jungle animals at the sight of fire. But, after a bit, when Chunky found that the fire did not come near him, he was not so much afraid. But he was very hungry for some grass, and he wanted very much to swim in a lot of water, and wallow in the mud.

Pretty soon, when it had grown dark in the jungle, and the black men were eating their meal, along came the white hunter.

“Have you given that little hippo anything to eat?” he asked the black men.

“No,” they answered, “we have not.”

“Well, you’d better do so,” said the white man. “He is hungry, as well as you. And I want him to be nice and fat and strong when I put him on the ship to take him to America to the circus. Get him some grass and water.”

Then two or three of the black men, putting their fingers in their mouths, and sucking them, which was their way of cleaning them instead of using napkins, went down to the river bank, near which they were camped, and pulled up a lot of grass for Chunky. They also brought him water in hollow gourds, which were as large as a water pail. They knew the hippo liked lots of water.

My! how thirsty Chunky was! He drank almost a barrel full, it seemed, and then he ate some of the grass the men tossed into his cage. It tasted good, and he felt better after that.

The men went to sleep around their jungle fire then, and Chunky, having had something to drink and something to eat, fell asleep also.

You might have thought, being carried away from his home as he was, Chunky would have felt so bad that he could not sleep. I know you would, but animals are not like that—especially jungle animals. As long as Chunky had enough to eat he was pretty well satisfied.

And though back in the jungle his father and mother missed him, they did not worry much. When night came and Chunky was not home, Bumpy and Mumpy, his brother and sister, asked Mrs. Hippo:

“Where is Chunky?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “He may be lost in the jungle or he may have gone away. He is getting old enough, now, to look after himself. I guess he is all right.”

And so, after a little while, Chunky’s folks forgot all about him, and went to sleep too. They did not know that the little boy hippo was being taken on a long journey.

Early in the morning Chunky, in his wooden cage, awoke in the jungle camp. It is so hot in Africa that when hunters travel they do so early in the morning and late in the afternoon. At mid-day the sun is too hot to walk out in it.

So, after breakfast, Chunky being given more grass and water, the black men picked up his cage again and set off. As they went along under the jungle trees, Chunky could hear, overhead, many monkeys chattering away.

“Oh, look at that poor hippo the hunters have caught,” said one. “Isn’t it too bad! I wouldn’t want to be in a cage.”

“Oh, I don’t mind it so much as I did at first,” said Chunky, speaking to the monkeys in jungle talk, which the black men and white men could not understand. “I’ve had enough to eat and drink and no one is hurting me. No crocodiles can get me here.”

“Well, you certainly are a happy chap,” went on the monkey who, by leaping from branch to branch overhead in the trees, easily kept up with the marching men carrying Chunky. “What makes you so jolly?”

“I guess I must have caught it from Tum Tum, the elephant,” was the answer, and Chunky actually opened his big mouth as if he were smiling.

“Oh, I know Tum Tum!” cried one of the monkeys. “He’s a jolly elephant who once was in a circus. And he knows a friend of ours.”

“Who?” asked another chattering chap.

“Mappo, the merry monkey,” was the answer. “Don’t you remember Mappo, who used to live in the jungle with us?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Well, he went away, and, for a long time we did not see him.”

“Yes,” said the other monkeys. “That’s so!”

“Well, he was caught and sent to a circus, and that is where Tum Tum was, only he’s out now. Maybe you’ll go to a circus, Chunky,” said the monkey.

“Maybe,” agreed the happy hippo, who smiled again. “I guess it won’t be so bad. Tum Tum was telling me about it. Yes, I think I would like to go to a circus.”

“Tum Tum said Mappo liked it,” put in another monkey, with a queer twist to his tail. “Mappo did tricks, and he had a lot of adventures and had a book written about him.”

“Do you know what that is like?” asked Chunky. “I heard Tum Tum speak of adventures and a book.”

“No, I don’t know,” was the answer. “I never heard of a book except from Tum Tum, and I don’t believe he really knows what it is.”

“Well, perhaps if I go to a circus I shall find out,” went on Chunky.

“Do you want us to go and get Tum Tum, and have him break your cage with his big feet and strong trunk, so you can get out?” asked a white-whiskered monkey.

Chunky thought about this for a while, as the black men carried him through the jungle, while the monkeys leaped along in the tree tops overhead.

“No,” said the hippo boy after a while. “I guess you don’t need to bother Tum Tum, though it’s kind of you to offer. I sent a little bird to find him, but I guess my elephant friend is too far away.

“Besides, I think I won’t try to break loose. I feel very good here, though I wish my cage was a bit larger. But I’ve had water to drink, and sweet grass to eat, and I am having a nice ride. I think I’ll stay longer and see what else happens to me. I want to have some adventures and be put in a book.”

“All right, then we won’t get Tum Tum,” said the monkey who had offered to try to find the elephant. “And, Chunky, if you do get in a circus, and see our old friend Mappo, give him our love, will you?”

“I’ll certainly do that!” promised the hippo boy.

Then, all at once, the hissing of a snake was heard, and as monkeys are very much afraid of snakes, they gave loud chatters and scurried away through the jungle, leaving Chunky in his cage being carried along by the black hunters.

For many mornings and afternoons the white men and their black helpers, who were out to get live animals for circuses and parks in big cities, traveled on through the jungle. They caught two more hippos, though neither was as large as Chunky, and they caught other animals and birds, all of which were carefully put in cages to be carried to the ship to go across the sea.

Chunky felt happier now that he had some friends with him, and he was especially glad there were two more hippos.

“Now I shall not be lonesome,” he said to his new friends, in animal talk. “How did you come here?”

“I was caught in a big net as I went through the jungle,” said Short Tooth, one of the hippos that had one tusk which was shorter than the other.

“And I was caught as I was swimming in the river with my mother,” said the other hippo, which was named Gimpy by Chunky and Short Tooth. Gimpy walked a little lame from having stepped on a sharp stone when he was a baby, cutting his foot.

So the three hippos were kept in cages close together, and were carried through the jungle, down toward the seacoast, with the other wild animals. Chunky made friends with them all, for he was a happy chap, and tried to look on the bright side of everything—as much as any animal can.

“We might be a good deal worse off,” he said to a young lion who was grumbling because he had been caught and put in a cage. “Just think, here we have all we want to eat without ever going after it.”

“Burr-r-r-r-r!” growled the lion. “I don’t like it at all! I want to get out of here!” and he leaped about, scratching and clawing at the wooden bars of his cage until the black hunters cried in fright and ran away. But one of the white men came and stood near the lion’s cage and spoke to the lion, which was a small cub.

“Be quiet!” said the white man, though of course the lion could not tell what the man was saying. “Be quiet, little King of Beasts! You shall have good meat to eat, clean water to drink and you need never hunt for food again. Besides, you are going to be in a circus! Be quiet!”

And the man spoke in such a kind way that the lion was quiet.

Then the white man, who was the head, or chief, of the others out looking for live wild animals, came over to where the hippos were in their cages.

“Three of you, eh?” he said, though of course Chunky could not understand what he said. “Three nice hippos! Well, you will be worth a lot of money if I can get you across the ocean safely and to the big city. There I can sell you to a circus or a menagerie in the park.

“Ha! You are a fat, chunky chap!” the man went on, looking at our hippo. “And you seem quite contented. I should even say you were happy by the way you smile,” continued the white man, for, just then, Chunky opened his mouth as wide as he could. Perhaps he was only yawning, sleepy-like, but it looked like a big laugh.

“Yes, you are quite fat, I think Chunky would be a good name for you,” went on the white hunter, and so the hippo was named over again, the same name his mother’s friend had given him in the jungle.

For many more days the white and black men traveled on with the live animals they had caught. Then, one morning, after quite a long march, Chunky noticed that the black men suddenly stopped singing and broke into loud cries. They seemed quite happy.

“What do you suppose has happened?” asked Gimpy, as he stood up in his traveling cage.

“I don’t know,” answered Short Tooth. “Maybe they have caught an elephant.”

“I hope it’s my friend, Tum Tum,” thought Chunky. “I’d like to see him now.”

CHAPTER VIII
CHUNKY ON A SHIP

Standing up in the cage made of jungle vines, Chunky, the happy hippo—happy even though he had been caught and taken away from home—listened, hoping to hear the trumpeting of his friend, Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. But no such sound came. Instead, the black men shouted more loudly than before, and began dancing.

“What is it all about?” asked Chunky of some monkeys who had been caught a few days before. “Why are the men shouting?”

“I think it’s because they can see the ocean from the top of the hill,” returned one monkey. “I can smell the salt air. I remember it; for once, years ago, a troop of monkeys of which I was one, came down to the seashore. It smells now just as it did then.”

“But why should the black men be glad to get to the ocean?” asked Chunky.

“I can tell you why,” growled the lion. “It means they have come safely through the jungle with us animals, and do not have to march and carry us any more. I know, for I heard a lion friend of my father’s tell about it. He was caught and carried through the jungle to the sea, ready to be put on a big floating house and sent across the ocean. But he got away and ran back into the jungle.

“And now they are going to take us away. I’m not going! I’m going to break out of my cage!” and once more the lion roared and tried to break loose, but he could not.

“Quiet! Quiet!” said the white hunter in a gentle voice, but the lion roared, and would not be still.

“You are very silly,” said Chunky. “You can’t get out, and you may as well make the best of it. Being in a circus may not be so bad. Tum Tum liked it.”

“But I am not Tum Tum!” roared the lion, and he would not be quiet until they gave him a lot of meat. When he chewed on that he could not very well roar.

It was the sight of the ocean that had made the black men shout so joyfully, and soon Chunky, in his cage, was carried down to a spot from which he could see what, at first, he thought was a big river. But it was the sea, not a river.

“I think we’ll give the hippos a bath,” said the head white hunter to his men, though the animals, of course, did not know what he was saying. “The hippos like lots of water,” went on the man, “and they haven’t had a chance to get a good soaking since we caught them. Take their cages down to the ocean and dip them in, but don’t let the animals out.”

Chunky, Short Tooth and Gimpy did not know what was going to happen to them when they found themselves being lifted up again and carried forward. But they soon found out.

Long ropes were fastened to their cages, and they were dipped right down into the salty ocean. This was the first time Chunky or any of the other hippos had been in salt water, for the rivers where they lived in the jungle were of fresh water, though it was muddy. But salt water or fresh is all the same to a hippo, except for taking a drink. They like to swim in one as well as in the other, and often, when the jungle where the hippos live is near the sea, they spend all day in the ocean, near shore and travel inland at night to feed.

So, though it was the first time Chunky had had a salt bath, he and his two friends liked it. In their cages they sank away down on the sandy bottom of the ocean near the shore, closing their nose holes, so as not to swallow any of the briny water.

Short Tooth thought he could break out of his cage while he was in it under water, and he tried, but it was of no use. The black men knew how to make cages strong enough to hold even a young hippo.

“Ah ha! Now I feel fine!” cried Chunky, as they raised his cage out of the ocean, and he puffed and blew out the air from his nose, which he had kept closed under water. “I feel just dandy!”

Of course Chunky didn’t use the word “dandy,” but he used one in animal talk which means the same thing, only it would be too hard for you to pronounce if I put it in here.

“What makes you so happy?” asked one of the monkeys, who sat in his cage near the shore, really shivering, though the day was warm—shivering as he saw how the hippos liked the cool water.

“I am happy because I hope I am going to be in a circus,” said Chunky.

“Well, I’m not!” growled the lion; “though I am feeling a little better since they fed me.”

“Chunky is always happy,” said Gimpy. “He has been jolly ever since I’ve known him.”

“Yes, so he has,” added Short Tooth, as he stood up to let the water drip off him.

“Well, why shouldn’t I be?” asked Chunky. “It’s true I’ve been taken away from the river I liked so well, away from the jungle, away from my father and mother, away from Mumpy, my sister, and Bumpy, my funny brother. But what of that? I’d have had to leave them some day, anyhow, and why not now? Besides, I am going to be in a circus, and I may meet Mappo, the merry monkey.”

“I wish I could be jolly, like you,” said one of the monkeys.

“Well, just think what fun you may be going to have, and not about the trouble you’re in now, and you’ll be happy,” said the hippo, and he opened his mouth as wide as he could.

The black hunters, who were just then bringing up great quantities of grass for the hippos to eat, thought Chunky was opening his mouth to take a big bite of the food, but, instead, he was smiling because he felt so jolly. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, when a hippo is laughing, or when he is smiling, or when he just opens his mouth to eat, but once you learn to know the difference, you’ll never make a mistake. Chunky was smiling.

None of the other wild animals that had been caught in the jungle and brought to the sea, felt as happy as Chunky did, though the other two hippos were pretty jolly. Having a bath in the sea and getting sweet grass to eat made them that way, I guess.

And now began a busy time, for all the animal cages—in some of which were lions, big apes, snakes, monkeys, and deer with big horns, besides the hippos—had to be hoisted up into the ship, or the “floating house,” as some of the jungle beasts called it. In this ship the animals would be carried across the ocean from Africa to America, where they were to be put on exhibition in circuses or in zoological parks or in menageries.

Of course Chunky and his friends knew nothing of this. They did not even know what a circus was, though Chunky had heard Tum Tum talk about one, and about books and adventures.

“I shall be very glad to get to a circus, I think, and off this floating house, or whatever it is,” thought Chunky, when the ship had started. Chunky was in his cage up on deck, as were his two hippo friends and some of the larger animals. The others were under the deck, in the hold of the ship.

“I don’t like this at all,” Chunky said to the other hippos. “It’s too swishy-swashy like!”

He meant the ship was rolling to and fro, and pitching and tossing up and down with the waves, for it was soon out of sight of land, and going far away from Africa and the jungle.

Though Chunky and his friends were used to being tossed about in the river, when they played tag and other water games, this motion of the ship was different. It made some of the animals seasick, and the lion, especially, was quite sad and miserable. He grumbled and growled, but he was too sick to roar, and Chunky, too, did not feel as well as when he had been carried through the jungle in the vine cage.

“Still, I suppose I might be worse,” thought the hippo. “I might have nothing to eat or be chased by a crocodile,” and he sort of looked down cross-eyed at his nose, which was scarred by the teeth of the crocodile that had bit Chunky.

Indeed Chunky and the other animals had all they wanted to eat, and were kindly treated, for the men who had bought them from the black hunters wanted the animals to be well and strong when they were taken off the ship. So Chunky, Short Tooth, Gimpy and all the rest were well treated, though of course they were not allowed to go around loose.

On and on steamed the big ship with its load of animals. There was nothing much Chunky could do except eat and sleep and drink water. He wanted a bath, but there seemed to be no way of giving him one.

However, one day, as an animal man passed along the deck and looked in at the hippos, he saw that their skin was very dry and that it was getting hard and cracking open.

“That will never do!” he said to the captain. “We must fix it so the hippos can have a bath.”

“How can we?” asked another animal man.

“Very easily,” put in the captain. “I’ll get a big wooden tank up on deck. We can pump it full of sea water from a hose and let the hippos have a bath in it.”

“That will be just the thing for them!” said the animal man. “Get a tank for the hippos.”

The sailors soon made one, for I guess sailors can do almost anything. On deck a big wooden box as large as a room in your house, was set, and water was pumped into this. It was salt water from the ocean in which the ship was steaming along, but the hippos liked salt water to wash in as well as fresh, as I have told you.

“Now we’re all ready,” said the animal man. “We’ll hoist the hippos up, one at a time in their cages, and dip them into the tank.”

Chunky and the others rather hoped they might be allowed to come out of their cages and splash around loose in the water tank, but this could not be. They might have gotten out and run all about the ship, not knowing any better. So they had to stay in their jungle cages still.

“Oh, but this is fine!” cried Chunky, as he sank down in the water and let it soak into his hard, dry skin. “This is fine!”

“Just what we wanted!” said Short Tooth.

“Couldn’t be better!” gurgled Gimpy, as he let the water come up over his back.

“How happy those hippos seem,” said a giraffe. He had stuck his head out of a hole in the deck, for he was down below, though he could look out, as he was very tall and had a long neck.

“Yes, they are happy,” said the lion. “Especially the one they call Chunky. I never saw such a jolly chap. He thinks he’s going to have lots of fun in a circus; but wait until he sees how it is! Then he won’t open his big mouth and smile any more.”

The hippos liked the tank so much that the animal man said they could stay in it during the rest of the voyage. It was not so deep but what they could put their heads out to breathe, and this just suited Chunky and the others.

One day, when they had been steaming over the ocean a long while, the sun went under some clouds and it became very dark, though it was not night. The sailors ran here and there about the ship, making everything fast.

“We are going to have a bad storm!” cried the captain. “I hope none of the animals will get loose.”

“We must take the hippos out of the tank, and tie their cages fast on deck,” said the animal man. But, before that could be done, the storm came and the ship was in the midst of wind and rain.

CHAPTER IX
CHUNKY FALLS OVERBOARD

The storm was a very hard one, and it tossed the ship, large as she was, up and down and sidewise. Sometimes it seemed as if the steamer would go entirely down under the water, and again it seemed as if she would be tossed up to the angry clouds that blew along so fast overhead. The wind blew the rain so hard that the water drops sounded like hail stones.

“What shall we do about those hippos?” asked the animal man of the captain. “They are in the big tank, and that may slide overboard. It is so big you can not very well make it fast.”

“That is so,” answered the captain, who was wet through with the rain. “We had better lift the hippos out in their small cages. Those we can fasten to the deck more easily.”

So, though it rained and it blew, and the ship pitched and tossed, the sailors went to lift from the tank the small cages of the three hippos.

First they hoisted up, with long ropes, the cage which Short Tooth occupied. This hippo had not heard much of the storm, for he had stuck his head under water. But as soon as he was lifted out and felt the wind blowing across the deck, he knew there was great danger.

“Oh, I wouldn’t like to be in the ocean now!” thought Short Tooth, as he saw the big waves, almost as high as the masts of the ship.

“Nor I,” added Gimpy, as he, in his cage, was lifted out of the tank. “I’d be afraid.”

Then it came the turn of Chunky to be lifted out. The sailors fastened ropes to the top of his cage, and began to pull on them to raise him out of the tank. All the while the ship was pitching and tossing, sometimes almost going in under the big waves that sloshed around on deck near the tank in which the hippos had been living. Some of the bigger animal cages had been put below the deck to keep them from being washed away.

All of a sudden, just as Chunky’s cage was being lifted out, the ship was struck by a very big wave—the largest yet. At the same time the wind blew very hard and the rain came down twice as bad as before.

“The rope is slipping!” cried one of the sailors, who was helping lift Chunky out of the tank. “The hippo’s ropes are slipping!”

“Hold them—don’t let him go overboard!” yelled the animal man.

But one of the sailors must have gotten some rain in his eyes, or else the ship went too deep into the water. How it happened, I can’t exactly say, but the next instant the big water tank, in which Chunky and his two friends had been kept for a while, slid off the deck into the ocean.

At the same time a big wave struck the sailors who had hold of the ropes on Chunky’s cage. They let go, and down the cage crashed to the deck, with Chunky in it.

“Ugh!” grunted Chunky as he came down with a thump. “Ugh! This is no fun!”

And it was even less fun when the cage broke, just as another big wave came on deck. The first thing Chunky knew, he was out of his cage in which he had been kept ever since he was taken from the jungle pit. Out of the broken cage rolled Chunky, turning over and over on the slanting deck like a queer football rolling down a cellar door. The cage went one way and Chunky another.

“Look! Look!” shouted some of the sailors, but they could hardly be heard, for the storm was making so much noise. “Look! The happy hippo is out of his cage!”

And so Chunky was. I think it was nice of the sailors, even if they were all excited in the storm, to call Chunky the “happy hippo,” for if ever there was one, he was.

“Splash! That was Chunky himself falling overboard”

“Get him!” yelled the animal man! “Get that hippo! He’s the best of the three, and I want him for a circus! Get Chunky!”

But this was more easily said than done. The deck of the ship, pitched and tossed as it was in the storm, now looked like the slanting roof of a house. Anything that was not fast to it would roll off. The other hippo cages had been made fast. But Chunky’s, out of which he had been tossed when it fell and broke, now began to slide down the wooden deck toward the water. And Chunky himself, not being able to stand on the slippery deck, began to slide too. Right toward the ocean slid the hippo, not as happy now as he had been in the jungle.

“Splash!”

That was Chunky’s broken cage falling into the water off the deck of the ship.

“Look out that Chunky doesn’t fall in!” cried the captain.

Some of the sailors, with ropes in their hands, made a rush, intending to tie Chunky fast to the deck. But they were too late.

“Splash!”

That was Chunky himself falling overboard. Right into the salty ocean he fell, off the deck of the ship, and then the ship steamed on, leaving the hippo and his floating cage on the big ocean. For the ship had to steam on, or else the big waves would have made her sink.

As for Chunky, as soon as he found himself tossed into the water, he did what he had been taught to do by his mother and father when he was a little baby hippo. He closed his nose and mouth so he would not choke in the water. Fresh water or salt water, did not matter to Chunky. As soon as he jumped in, fell in, or was pushed in, shut went his nose and mouth!

Down, down, down in the ocean sank Chunky. He thought it safest to sink down quite a way at first, until he saw what would happen next. Besides, down under the waves it was quieter than on top, where they were being tossed about by the wind.

Hippos can dive, sink, float or swim as they please, almost like a big fish, but they can not stay under water more than about ten minutes without breathing. After ten minutes they have to come up to fill their lungs with air. Then they can dive again.

So Chunky dived down in the ocean. He did not know how deep it really was, and at first had an idea he might go to the bottom and perhaps find some grass or lily roots there.

But the ocean was not like his jungle river, as he very soon found. It was much deeper, and there did not seem, at least, in the part where he was, to be any grass or other roots.

“I guess I’d better not sink any deeper,” thought Chunky, after a bit. “I can’t find any place on which to stand. I’ll go up and get some air. I need it.”

So he swam toward the top, and when he stuck his head out of the water, to take a breath and to look around, he could see nothing except big waves, ever so much bigger than any he had seen in his river.

“Well, now that I am off that floating house, and out of my cage, now that I can do as I please,” thought Chunky to himself, as he swam along with just his nose and eyes out of water, “I guess I’ll go on shore and back to my jungle. I’m free now, and I won’t go to the circus. I’ll go back home.”

Ah, Chunky little knew all that was going to happen to him, and the adventures he was to have!

CHAPTER X
CHUNKY IN THE CIRCUS

Chunky began to feel quite happy again. He felt that these were more like the times when he had been in the jungle. But he did not open his mouth to smile or to laugh, and there was a very good reason for this. If he had opened his mouth, as he was swimming in the stormy ocean, he would have swallowed a lot of salty water, and he did not want to do that. So he kept his mouth closed tightly, and his nose holes also, whenever a wave broke over him, which often happened.

“Yes, I’ll swim back to shore and go to my jungle again,” thought Chunky to himself. “I guess I don’t want to be in a circus, even if Tum Tum said it was so jolly. I’m glad my cage fell and broke so I could get out.”

So Chunky began to swim. I have told you that hippos are very good swimmers and divers in the water, and Chunky was one of the best. Even if his legs were very short, he knew how to use them to paddle himself through the ocean waves, and he was soon swimming in fine style.

At first Chunky liked it, but, after awhile, he became tired.

“I wonder how much farther away the shore is,” thought Chunky. “I ought to be there pretty soon. And I wonder if I can get down to the bottom of this big pond of water and dig up some grass roots to eat. I guess I’ll try that.”

Taking a long breath, so he would not have to come up to breathe for about ten minutes, Chunky let himself sink under the waves. Down and down he went, quite a distance in the ocean, but he did not come to the bottom. That was more than a mile down, and quite too far for Chunky to sink.

As he was floating around in the water, big fish brushed by him, and tried to talk to him, but he could not understand what they said. They were asking him what kind of fish he was, and, of course, he was not a fish at all!

Then, all of a sudden, a big shark, with a large mouth and very sharp teeth, made a rush for Chunky, intending to bite him.

“My!” thought the hippo. “This is as bad as the crocodile! I must get away from here!”

He began swimming toward the top as fast as he could go, and the shark for some reason or other, not liking to go too near the surface, stopped following Chunky.

For two or three hours Chunky swam about in the ocean, and by that time the storm had commenced to die down. The wind did not blow so hard and the rain did not come down so heavily. The waves, too, were not so large.

“But it’s queer I don’t get to shore,” thought Chunky. He did not know what a big place the ocean was, especially when one falls overboard in the middle of it, as the young hippo had done.

Chunky was beginning to feel tired now. He raised his head as far out of the water as he could, and looked all about him. Afar off he saw a black speck, and he remembered, once, when he had swum far out in the jungle river, and looked back, the shore had seemed to him but a black speck.

“That must be the shore,” thought Chunky. “I’ll swim toward that. Then I’ll be all right.”

So Chunky swam toward the black speck, which, though it got larger, did not seem large enough for the shore. And then Chunky noticed a queer thing. When he stopped swimming, which he did now and then to rest his legs, the black speck seemed to be coming toward him.

And then, all at once, a lot of black smoke came out of the black speck and Chunky knew what it was. It was the very ship off which he had fallen earlier in the day during the storm.

“Well,” thought Chunky to himself, “if I can’t get to shore, and it doesn’t seem as if I was going to, I suppose I may as well go back to that floating house. At least I can rest there, and, even if I have to go to the circus, maybe it will be as jolly as Tum Tum said it would be. Yes, I’ll go back to the ship.”

At first, those on the steamer knew nothing of Chunky’s swimming about in the ocean. They knew he had fallen overboard when his cage fell and broke, but, if they thought any more about it, they must have thought the hippo was drowned. And so there was much surprise when one of the sailors cried:

“I see something in the water! It looks like a big, black pig!”

“A black pig!” exclaimed the captain. “More likely it’s a shark or a whale!”

However, the captain had the ship steered toward Chunky, where he was swimming, and then, looking through a telescope, the captain saw what really was in the water, and cried:

“Why, there’s that hippo we lost overboard! Get ready, men, and we’ll hoist him on deck again! Lower a boat.”

The ship was steered close to Chunky where he floated in the water. Then a rowboat was lowered, with some sailors in it, carrying ropes to put about the hippo and hoist him on deck again. Of course Chunky might have dived down, and, keeping under water, out of sight, he could have swum far away. But he was tired, and quite ready to go back on deck again.

The small boat came close to him. At first some of the sailors were afraid, and one called:

“Look out that he doesn’t open his big mouth and bite our boat in two!”

“Oh, he won’t do that!” said one of the animal men, who was in the rowboat with the sailors. “This hippo is very good-natured and happy.”

And Chunky showed that he was by letting the sailors put ropes around him in the water, for they could not lift him out unless they did this.

Once the ropes were fastened about Chunky, he was towed to the side of the ship, and there, by means of a derrick, he was hoisted on deck again.

“There you are!” cried the animal man. “I’m glad to get you back again, Chunky.”

And so Chunky had fallen overboard and got back on the ship again, for the vessel had not moved far from the spot where, in the storm, the hippo had slid off the deck.

Chunky was so tired from his swim, and from having been in the water so long, that he was very easy to handle. He made no trouble at all, though he had been wild in the jungle only a few weeks before, and had never seen a man, white or black. He was put in another cage, and then the ship kept on, for the storm was over.

“Oh, so you are back with us again!” cried Gimpy, when he saw Chunky.

“Yes,” was the answer. “I started to swim to shore, but it was too far. I got tired, and then I saw this ship and swam toward it. I am glad to be back.”

“And we are glad to have you back,” said Short Tooth. “We were lonesome without you. Now tell us about your adventure.”

“I didn’t have any adventure,” said Chunky, in surprise.

“Yes you did!” declared a monkey in the cage next to Chunky’s. “Falling overboard was an adventure. I’ve heard Tum Tum tell about his adventures, and some that Mappo, the merry monkey, had, and some of them were no more exciting than yours. Tell us about it.”

“Well, I didn’t suppose that was an adventure,” said Chunky. “But I’ll tell you about it,” and he did, just as it is set down in this book, which tells many more of Chunky’s adventures.

“Well,” said the lion, who had listened to Chunky’s tale, “if I ever get off this ship I’ll never come back.”

“Maybe you’ll be glad to,” said the happy hippo. “I was.”

So the ship steamed on and on with its load of wild animals. There were one or two other storms, but they did no damage, and no more cages slid overboard. Another and larger tank was built for the hippos on deck, and in this they took long baths each day. The animal men, for there were several of them, would come around to feed and talk to the different beasts. One special man always came to the hippos, and they learned to know him and watch for him, for he brought them long, yellow sweet vegetables every day. They were carrots, of which the hippos grew very fond, though they never had had any in the jungle.

“Why are you so good to the hippos?” one of the sailors asked this animal man one day.

“I want them to know and like me,” he answered. “Then I can teach them a few tricks to do when they are in the circus.”

“Ho! Ho!” laughed the sailor. “What tricks can a great, big clumsy hippo do?”

“Well, not very many, it is true,” admitted the animal man. “Not as many as an elephant. But maybe I can teach Chunky to do a few.”

The animal man seemed to like Chunky a little better than he did the other two hippos, though he was kind to all three. Perhaps he saw that Chunky was a little smarter than Gimpy or Short Tooth.

After many days of steaming the ship came, at last, to a big city. Chunky did not know it was a city, but he knew it was quite different from his jungle. There were only a few trees here and there, and he could see no rivers with nice, muddy, oozy banks on which he might sleep. And it was very noisy, not at all like the jungle, where the only noises were the wind blowing in the trees, the howling of animals, the chatter of the monkeys, and the songs and screechings of birds.

With the other animals, some of them still seasick, and most of them very lonesome for the forest or jungle they had left, Chunky was hoisted off the ship in his cage and put on a big wagon. He was drawn through the city, but he could see nothing of it, for his cage was covered with a big sheet of canvas, such as tents are made of.

Then Chunky was taken to a large building, where his cage was set down among those containing Gimpy, Short Tooth, the lion, the monkeys and others.

“What place are we in now?” asked Chunky of the monkey who knew Mappo and Tum Tum. “Is this the circus?”

“No, I guess it is just the beginning of it,” was the answer. “Tum Tum said the circus was a jolly place. This isn’t!”

And it was not, for it was just a sort of barn, or storehouse, where the animals were kept until they were sold to circuses or park menageries.

For more than a month Chunky stayed in this animal barn. Every day he could go into a tank, specially made for him and the other hippos, and have a nice swim, though not for very far.

And every day Chunky had grass or hay or bran-mash to eat, with carrots, apples and other fruit. In fact he had much nicer things to eat than he had had in the jungle, and he liked them very much.

One day the man who looked after Chunky, feeding him and seeing that the hippo had plenty of water to drink and swim in, came to the cage, looked in, and said:

“I think you are tame enough now, to be taught a trick or two.”

“You can’t teach a hippo tricks!” said another man. “They are too clumsy to stand on their heads.”

“Well, I wouldn’t teach this one that kind of trick,” returned the first man. “But I think I can get him to open his mouth wide when I tell him to, and I’ll teach him to raise one leg and stand on only three. They are not very hard tricks, but they will be something for the circus, if ever we sell Chunky to one.”

Of course Chunky did not understand this talk, nor did he know what the man wanted when he stood in front of him and said:

“Open your mouth, Chunky! Open your mouth!”

Chunky did not open his mouth until he got ready, which was when he wanted to take a bite of hay. And then, as he opened it wide, the man, all of a sudden, gave Chunky some carrots, which he liked very much.

“Every time you open your mouth wide when I tell you to, I’ll give you some carrots,” the man said.

Chunky did not understand this talk, either, but he soon came to know that each time he opened his jaws as wide as he could when the man was standing in front of him and making that, to Chunky, queer noise, he would get one of the long, sweet, yellow vegetables; so, after a while, all the man had to say was:

“Open wide, Chunky!”

Then the jaws would open like a big window, and you could look down Chunky’s throat, which seemed to be lined with red flannel.

“Ha!” cried the man. “Chunky has learned to do a trick! Now he is ready for a circus.”

And so Chunky was, for, besides learning to do the mouth trick, the hippo had learned to be gentle, and not to try to bite the man who fed him, knowing the man would not hurt him, but would be kind to him. The man could go into the cage with Chunky and pat him on the head, and Chunky rather liked that.

Then, one day something new happened to the hippo, who was quite happy once more; happier than he had been in the jungle. Some men brought a new, small cage up beside Chunky’s big one, in which he stayed with Short Tooth and Gimpy, and Chunky was gently pushed into the small cage. He went readily enough, for he saw a pile of carrots in the small cage. Once inside, the door was shut and the cage was wheeled away.

“Oh! are you going to leave us?” asked Gimpy.

“Why, it seems so!” replied Chunky, rather surprised.

“Where are they taking you?” asked Short Tooth.

“I don’t know,” answered Chunky.

“I can tell you,” said an old elephant, who had lived in the animal house many years. “You have been sold to a circus, Chunky, and they are taking you there.”

And so it happened. The next day Chunky found himself in a circus, but what happened to him there I’ll save for the next chapter.

CHAPTER XI
CHUNKY’S NEW TRICK

Chunky thought the circus was a very queer place. When the cage, on wheels, in which he was kept, was drawn up for the first time on the lot where the circus tent was pitched, the happy hippo thought he had never before seen so many people. There was a big crowd trying to get in the tents to look at the animals, watch the men and women ride horses around the ring, jump from the trapezes, and see the clowns do their funny tricks. Of course Chunky knew nothing of that. All he knew was that he had been brought to the circus. He knew this much because of what the elephant had said.

The circus happened to stop in the town where Chunky was being kept, and, as they needed a hippo, one of the men who owned the circus bought Chunky.

The circus had been traveling about from place to place, and Chunky’s wagon, of which half was a tank containing water in which he could float around, had been put on the car and hauled with the other circus wagons. At first Chunky was afraid of the train of cars, but he soon grew to like it.

So the hippo really came to the show in the middle of the season, when it was traveling from city to city. At what was the first performance for Chunky, his cage was wheeled into the animal tent, and placed in a ring next to a cage of monkeys on one side and a cage with a rhinoceros in it on the other.

“How do you do,” said Chunky, as politely as he could to the monkeys.

“Who are you?” asked one of the big monkeys.

“They call me Chunky, the happy hippo,” was the answer. “I used to live in the jungle, but I fell into a pit and was caught, put on a ship, and then I fell overboard into the ocean.”

“My! you’ve had a lot of adventures!” said the monkey.

“Did you say you just came from the jungle?” asked the rhinoceros.

“Well, not long ago,” answered Chunky.

“Oh, tell me about it!” begged the rhino. “I used to live in the jungle myself, and I would like to hear about it again, though it is much easier to live here in the circus, where you get all you want to eat. Tell me about the jungle.”

So Chunky told about swimming in the muddy river, of the crocodile that bit him, and how Tum Tum had pulled him out of the mud.

“Did I hear you speak of Tum Tum?” asked one of the elephants on the other side of the animal tent.

“Yes, I met him in the jungle,” said Chunky. “He said he used to be in a circus. Perhaps you knew him.”

“Know him? I should say I did!” trumpeted a large elephant. “Why, Tum Tum used to be in this very circus! He was such a jolly fellow! We were all sorry to see him go.”

“Who’s that you’re speaking of?” asked a bear, who came into the tent just then. He was dressed up like a clown.

“We were speaking of Tum Tum,” said one of the elephants. “Here is a hippo who has just joined our circus. He met Tum Tum in the jungle.”

“I have been wondering what had become of him,” went on the bear, who had been out in the ring doing some funny tricks with a clown.

“Did you know Tum Tum?” asked Chunky.

“I should say so!” laughed the bear. “My name is Dido, and I’m a dancer. Why, Tum Tum once saved me and some other animals from a fire when we were shut in our cages. He opened mine and the others’, and let us out, so we did not get burned. Tum Tum is a great elephant! He has a book written about his adventures. And so have I!”

“So I heard,” said Chunky, and then he told more of the things that had happened to him.

“You’ll have a book written about you before you know it,” said one of the monkeys. “You’ve had as many adventures already as Mappo, who was one of us once.”

“Yes, I met friends of his in the jungle,” said Chunky.

Then he and the circus animals talked for some time, discussing together how the show moved from place to place and how the animal cages were put on railroad cars and hauled many miles, from one big city to another.

Out in the other tent there was music, as Chunky could hear. It was not like the music the black Africans of the jungle made, and which Chunky had heard when he and the other hippos ate at night near the jungle towns. But it was music that Chunky liked.

“Well, it is time for us to go into the rings and do our tricks,” said one of the elephants, as the men came in to lead them away.

“I wish I could do tricks outside my cage,” said Chunky.

“Can you do any tricks at all?” asked Dido, the dancing bear.

“Yes, I can open my mouth wide, and eat carrots,” said the happy hippo. “See!” and he did his one and only trick.

“Well, that is very nice,” said Dido, “but I guess it would hardly do for the circus ring. You have to jump through hoops, or stand on your head or turn somersaults to get taken out to the rings or the platforms in the big tent, where the people sit down to watch you.”

“I guess I’ll never be able to do any of those tricks,” said Chunky. “I have only one.”

But in a few days he learned another. It happened this way.

Every circus day his wagon stood in a ring with the others in the animal tent, and the people used to crowd about to look at him, at the elephants, at Dido and the others. Then Chunky’s trainer, who had been told about the mouth-opening trick, would call:

“Open, Chunky!” and open would go his big mouth.

“Oh-o-o-o-o!” all the people would cry, and one little boy said:

“I wouldn’t want to fall down his throat. I’d never get up again—never!”

“No, indeed!” said the little boy’s mother.

So Chunky did his only trick, and wished he could do more, and pretty soon he did. One day a keeper was tossing loaves of bread to the elephants who stood in line, that time, next to Chunky’s wagon. One of the loaves was not thrown straight, and went toward Chunky’s cage.

Now the happy hippo happened to be hungry; so he opened his mouth as wide as he could, as he saw the loaf of bread coming his way, and right in it went. And Chunky chewed it with his big teeth, and it tasted very well.

“Ha!” cried Chunky’s keeper, who had seen what happened. “If he could do that every day it would make a good trick. I’ll try it.”

Chunky learned this trick very easily. Whenever he saw his friend, the keeper, standing in front of the cage with a loaf of bread in his hand, Chunky knew what was going to happen.

“Catch this now!” the keeper would cry, and, as he tossed the loaf, the happy hippo would open his mouth as wide as ever he could, and down it would go. Then the boys and girls in the circus tent would laugh and clap their hands, and even the big folks would smile, for the loaf of bread looked so small in Chunky’s big mouth.

“Now my hippo can do two tricks!” the keeper cried. “Maybe I can teach him some others.”

But if you have ever looked at a hippo in a circus or in a menagerie, you can easily see that they can not do very many tricks—not as many as an elephant or a horse. But, in time, Chunky learned to lie down and roll over outside his tank, and that was something to do. He also learned to stand on three legs, and raise the other toward his keeper when told to do so. Thus Chunky had four tricks he could do, and one day the man said:

“My hippo is getting so smart I think I can take him out in the big tent where the music is, and have him do his tricks there.”

This the man did, and Chunky was quite proud and happy. He opened his mouth wide when his master told him to.

“Now he is smiling at you!” the keeper would say to the circus crowds, and then the boys and girls would laugh. It seemed funny for a hippo to smile, but that is what Chunky meant it for. He was very happy now, and quite jolly among the other animals.

“He is almost as jolly as Tum Tum was, when he was here,” said the rhino. “And it needs some one to keep us animals jolly. When I think of the jungle where I used to live, I get lonesome.”

“Oh, well, the circus is a nice place!” Chunky would say, and then he would open his big mouth and smile in such a way that all the other animals had to laugh. So Chunky made them jolly whether they wanted to be or not. But most of them did.

Chunky stayed with the circus for a number of years, and grew very large and heavy, so that he weighed about five thousand pounds, or more than two tons of coal.

“‘Now he is smiling at you!’”

In fact Chunky grew too large for the circus, as he had to be carried around in a tank wagon, and could not walk, as the elephants did, to and from the trains. So one day Chunky was sold to a park in a big city, and the park had a menagerie in which different animals were kept, including some elephants, camels and giraffes.

In this park Chunky had a very fine and large cage, with a big tank at one end. Into this he could go whenever he wanted to, and stay as long as he liked.

Many people came to the park to see him, for he was one of the largest hippos in the world, it was said, and people seem to like to look at very large or very small things.

Chunky did not forget his tricks, though soon after he went to live in the menagerie he became too heavy to stand on three legs and raise the other. And he could hardly roll over when the keeper told him to.

But Chunky could still do his trick of catching a loaf of bread in his mouth, and he could open his jaws as wide as ever, and the children who came to the park to see the animals never were tired of watching the keeper make Chunky do his two best tricks.

One day when Chunky was in the dry part of his cage, at the end where there was no water tank, he saw a small animal run in between the heavy iron bars—that is, an animal much smaller than he was, but almost as large as Dido, the dancing bear, it seemed to Chunky.

“Ho! who are you that dares come into my cage without asking me?” inquired Chunky, though he did not speak crossly. “Do you belong to the park menagerie? If you do, you must have gotten out of your cage.”

“No, I don’t belong here,” answered the small animal. “I am Don; and I am a dog. Once I was a runaway dog, but I am not any more. I’ve had lots of adventures, and a book has been written about me.”

“My!” grunted Chunky. “It seems also every animal I meet has had a book written about him or her. Well, Don, I am glad to see you.”

“Have you had any adventures?” asked Don, with a friendly bark.

“Oh, yes, many of them,” answered Chunky. “If you want to lie down on that pile of hay, I’ll tell you about them.”

So Don lay down on the pile of hay in the cage, and Chunky told some of his jungle adventures. And, though the happy hippo did not know it, he was soon to have an adventure with Don.

CHAPTER XII
CHUNKY AND THE LITTLE GIRL

Chunky liked it very much in the park menagerie. He could do almost as he pleased. There was water always ready for him to swim in, and on cold days in winter it was made warm for him.

Chunky had all he wanted to eat, and, though it was not quite the same as he had had in the jungle, it was very nice and good for him. He could not go down to the bottom of his tank and dig up grass or lily roots, but one can’t have everything.

Though it had been quite jolly in the circus, Chunky liked it rather better in the park menagerie. For he did not have to be carted from city to city each night. The park stayed in one place, and the circus moved about nearly every day.

Nor was Chunky lonesome in the park, though there were not so many animals near him as there had been in the circus. But across from him were the elephants, in great big cages with iron bars in front, and next to him was a rhinoceros, almost like the one in the circus.

Chunky made friends with these animals, and often, even when crowds came in to see them, he and his friends could talk together in their own way.

Don, the runaway dog, about whom a book has been written, often came to the park, and he never failed to pay a visit to Chunky, slipping in between the bars of the hippo’s cage, and lying down on a pile of hay to talk.

“Did you ever live in the jungle?” asked Chunky of Don one day.

“Not that I remember,” Don answered. “I have lived in different places though, and once I caught Squinty, the comical pig, when he got out of his pen. Did you ever meet Squinty?”

“I don’t believe I did,” said Chunky. “He didn’t live in the jungle, did he?”

“No. In a pen. But he got out, and I had to lead him back by the ear. And did you ever meet my friend Blackie, the lost cat, or Flop Ear, the funny rabbit?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I did,” answered Chunky.

“Or did you ever know Lightfoot, the leaping goat, or Tinkle, the trick pony?” asked Don.

“Never,” answered Chunky.

“Well, you may. They’ve had lots of adventures, and books have been written about them,” went on Don. “If I meet Blackie or Tinkle on my way home, I’ll tell them to stop in to see you.”

“Do, please,” begged Chunky. “But where do you live, if you don’t come from the jungle?”

“Oh, I live in a house in this big city, not far from this park,” said Don. “I belong to a little girl who pats me and is very kind to me. She gives me nice things to eat.”

“I’d like to see her,” remarked Chunky. “I love children. Does she ever come to the park?”

“Oh, yes, when her mother or father brings her. She is too little to come alone. Some day when she comes I’ll walk along with her, and then I can tell you who she is. I’ll come into your cage and tell you.”

“All right,” said Chunky. “I’d like to see the little girl.” And he was going to, soon, in a queer way.

For some time Chunky lived in his cage in the park. Sometimes he thought of the jungle he had been taken away from, and he wondered what his brother and sister were doing—whether they were playing water-tag in the muddy river or sleeping in the soft grass.

Back in the African forest Mr. and Mrs. Hippo had given up thinking about Chunky. If they ever remembered him at all, it was only for a moment, to wonder what had happened to him that he did not come home the last time he went away. But they thought he had been killed by some other animal, or perhaps by the black or white hunters, and they knew it was of no use to try to find the happy hippo.

One day, just after Chunky had finished doing his trick of catching some loaves of bread tossed into his mouth by his keeper, the hippo heard a voice saying in animal talk:

“Well, Chunky, to-morrow I will bring my little girl mistress to see you,” and in ran Don, the dog.

“Will you, really? That will be fine!” said Chunky. “I’ll be glad to see any friend of yours.”

Then he opened his mouth wide, as the keeper told him to, and all the people laughed.

The next afternoon, as Chunky was about to go into his tank to have a cool swim, for the day was hot, he saw Don run in between the bars of the cage. The dog said:

“Here comes my little girl. I’ll bark three times when she gets right in front of you, so you’ll know which one is she. And do some of your tricks for her, please.”

“I’ll do them all except stand on three legs,” promised Chunky. “I’m too fat for that.”

“Thank you; that will be all right,” said Don.

Pretty soon a little girl, wearing a blue dress, and holding her father’s hand, came and stood in front of the hippo cage where Don was. The dog had run on ahead to tell Chunky who was coming. Don barked three times, as he had said he would, then he said:

“Do some nice tricks for my little girl!”

“I will,” said Chunky.

Then the hippo caught loaves of bread in his mouth, and opened his jaws as wide as he could. He even rolled over on the floor of his cage, but it was hard work, as he was very fat.

“Oh, Daddy! look at the funny hippo!” cried the little girl. “Isn’t he happy looking?”

“Well, yes, I guess you could call him happy when he smiles in such a broad grin,” answered her father. “He looks very jolly.”

Chunky liked so much the nice way the little girl laughed that he tried to do for her the trick of standing on three legs and lifting the other up in the air. But he could not, as he was too fat and heavy.

“I like that hippo,” said the little girl.

Of course Chunky could not understand just what she said, but he could tell, by the way she talked, that the little girl liked his tricks.

“I’ll do another one for her,” said the happy hippo to Don. “I’ll go in the water and roll over and over like a tub. Maybe she’ll like that.”

“I’m sure she will,” said Don.

So, down into the tank of water walked Chunky. The little girl had never seen anything like this before, and, very much excited, she let go of her father’s hand and cried:

“Oh, Daddy, he’ll be drowned!”

“No; hippos can stay under water a long time,” said her father, for by this time Chunky was out of sight. The waters had closed over his broad, flat back.

“Oh, he’s gone! My nice, happy hippo is gone!” cried the little girl, and before her father, or anyone else, could stop her, she ran right in between the bars of the cage toward the tank.

“Come back, Alice!” cried her father.

“Bow-wow!” barked Don, and that was his way of saying the same thing.

But the little girl did not come back. On she ran, right into Chunky’s cage, and her father was too big to squeeze in between the bars after her. Don ran in, though.

All at once the little girl stumbled and fell, right over the edge of the tank, into the water.

“Oh! Oh, my!” cried all the people.

Don the dog saw what had happened, and, while Alice’s father was trying to get the keeper to open the door of Chunky’s cage, so they could go in and get the little girl, Don was barking:

“Don’t hurt my little girl, Chunky! Don’t hurt her!”

This kind of talk—being animal language—Chunky could understand. Down under the water he had heard the splash as Alice fell in, and then he saw the little girl sinking down near him.

“This is no place for her!” quickly thought Chunky. “She is not a fish to live in the water. I must help her out.”

Then the hippo sank away down in the water and got under the little girl, so that she floated right on his broad back. And when Alice was there, gasping and choking and grabbing Chunky by the ears, up rose the hippo, and there was Alice safe and sound, but very wet, of course, on Chunky’s broad back, under water no longer.

“Oh, look!” cried all the people.

“Your little girl is safe,” said the keeper, who opened the door of the cage. “The hippo has her on his back.”

Then, with Alice on his back, Chunky swam to the side of the pool, and there her father and the keeper lifted her off, Don taking hold of her dress as if he were helping also. And how Don did bark! But he was happy.

“I knew you wouldn’t let my little girl get hurt,” he said.

“Of course not!” grunted Chunky. “I came to the top as soon as I got her on my back, for I knew she couldn’t stay as long under water without breathing as I can.”

Alice was very much frightened, and she cried. She was wet, too, but not hurt a bit, and her father called an automobile and took her home with Don.

“I’ll come and see you to-morrow and let you know how she is,” the dog promised the happy hippo.

“I wish you would,” said Chunky.

And Don did. Alice was all right as soon as she got on dry clothes, the dog said, and she promised never again to run up to a tank of water to see what was happening to a hippo.

What Chunky did—saving Alice from drowning in the pool—became known to many people who went to the park, and there was even something in the papers about it. It made quite a hero of Chunky, though of course he did not know that. All he knew was that crowds of people came to see him, and his keepers were good and kind to him.

So Chunky lived in the park menagerie for many years. He did his tricks and was glad to have the boys and girls come to look at him.

“It is much better, after all, than the jungle,” he said to one of the elephants.

“Yes, we like it better than the jungle,” said the biggest elephant. “I was in a circus once.”

“So was I,” said Chunky. “I liked it, but it’s nicer not to have to travel at night. I can sleep better here.”

Then, having had a good meal of carrots, he lay down in the hay and went to sleep.

Chunky had many more adventures, but this book is full enough of them, I think. And I want to write another for you. It will be about a fox, and the name of it will be “Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox. His Many Adventures.”

Chunky grunted in his sleep, and talked something in animal language.

“What did I say?” he asked the elephant who told him about it afterward.

“You said: ‘Now you stop pushing, Bumpy.’”

“I guess I was dreaming about my brother in the jungle,” said Chunky.

And so we will let him dream on, and say good-bye to him.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes:

Printer’s, punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

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Table of Contents

- CHUNKY THE HAPPY HIPPO
- CONTENTS
- ILLUSTRATIONS
- CHAPTER I CHUNKY HAS A LAUGH
- CHAPTER II CHUNKY IS SURPRISED
- CHAPTER III CHUNKY IS BITTEN
- CHAPTER IV CHUNKY IN THE MUD
- CHAPTER V CHUNKY IS CAUGHT
- CHAPTER VI CHUNKY TAKES A TRIP
- CHAPTER VII CHUNKY’S NEW FRIENDS
- CHAPTER VIII CHUNKY ON A SHIP
- CHAPTER IX CHUNKY FALLS OVERBOARD
- CHAPTER X CHUNKY IN THE CIRCUS
- CHAPTER XI CHUNKY’S NEW TRICK
- CHAPTER XII CHUNKY AND THE LITTLE GIRL
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE