But her trunk isn’t Mom’s only weapon. There are nineteen bulls in her herd now, and some of them are bigger than she. A battle of trunks might result in a disheveled queen. So Mom has other and more judicious methods. One of these is to seize the ear of an offender with a quick thrust of her trunk, cramp it hard, then twist. It never has failed yet to produce a bellowing, howling subject, suddenly brought to his knees and begging for mercy. Another gentle trick is to whirl suddenly, lower her head and with all her strength, butt a criminal in the midriff.
Three years ago, a full-grown male elephant was purchased from another show where the rules of the herd leader evidently had been a trifle lax. For four or five days the new member gave evidences of resenting the stern rule of Old Mom. Then suddenly everything changed. He was the meekest member of the whole herd. All his bluster and rebellion had vanished. Also three inches of his tail. Old Mom had made one swirling dive, caught his caudal appendage between her teeth and clamped hard, while fourteen thousand pounds of elephant flesh trumpeted and bellowed and squealed, and while the whole menagerie force struggled to break the hold. When it all was over, an operation was necessary to remove the crushed cartilage and bone. One of Old Mom’s very best boys now is a bob-tailed elephant!
As for punishment for herself, she recognizes but one superior, the superintendent of the herd. To him and him alone she acknowledges the right of punishment; even makes ready for it. In 1914, one of the stars of the shows was William Frederick Cody (Buffalo Bill), and in his employ was a former officer of the Russian Army who, through the nonchalance of the circus, had become simply Rattlesnake Bill.
Rattlesnake Bill teased Old Mom, and the elephant hated him so much that it became almost an obsession with her to “get” him. This she attempted at every opportunity, chasing him when she saw the chance, striving to sneak up on him—she could release any chain tie ever made by human hands—and once almost catching him, and, failing, taking out her vengeance on Colonel Cody’s spider trap which Rattlesnake Bill drove, wrecking it. Then suddenly she halted at the sight of the superintendent.
A bull-hook lay on the ground. She reached for it, raised it and extended it to her keeper, offering it to him that he might punish her. But before he could raise his arm, she had begun to “talk,” chirruping in his ear, curling her trunk around his neck, cooing at him with that peculiar blandishing tone which, in its very softness, seems impossible for an elephant; then finally, whimpering, she went to her knees. If ever an elephant talked herself out of a well-deserved whack across the trunk, it was Old Mom, with the result that she returned to her place at the stake line victorious, while an order went forth that Rattlesnake Bill, in the future, must leave the elephants alone!
In fact, it is such evidences of reasoning power and of quick thinking that make the elephant such a beloved thing to the circus man.
“Want to see the slickest thing in the world?” a bull-tender asked me last spring, as I wandered into the menagerie tent of a big circus. “Lookit here!”
He moved proudly to the stake line and opened the lips of a female elephant. There, crammed tightly against a ragged, broken tusk, was a close-packed piece of rag, so held that it prevented the jagged ivory from cutting the tender membrane of the mouth.
“Thought that up herself!” the bull-tender went on. “You know, Lady—that’s her name—she’s got bum tushes. They keep bustin’ off, and I ain’t found any way to harden ’em. Sawed ’em off an’ everything, but they just keep bustin’ and gettin’ ragged. They cut her cheek. Couple of months ago, I see her pick up a rag and jam it in her mouth, and then she sticks her trunk in her ear and squeals like she was Columbus discoverin’ America. Ever since then, I’ve had to have a rag for her. She does the packin’ herself!”
Nor did the elephant man tell the whole story! When feeding time came, and there was danger of swallowing the rag, the elephant carefully extracted it, laid it aside, proceeded with her meal and, that finished, reached again for her dental packing and placed it in its position of protection!