Lions 'n' tigers 'n' everything

by Courtney Ryley Cooper

In fact, Old Mom, with her faith and her levelheadedness, has meant salvation in many an instance. I once saw this sensible old elephant lead her herd across the cable bridge which connects Wheeling, West Virginia, with the Ohio side, with a storm in progress, the surroundings inky black, the rain pelting, the keepers almost as terrified as the brutes, with the beams of the bridge cracking from overweight, and the structure itself swinging fully eight feet from side to side! Below was a sheer drop to the Ohio River; two elephants had become panic-stricken and had broken from the bull-man in attendance, rushing frantically forward to the protection of their leader. The rest of the herd had begun to mill, with only a thirty-foot width of bridge as their arena; bull-men were befuddled and nearly blinded by the pelting rain. Yet Old Mom held true to the commands of her trainer, and with weird trumpetings which sounded sharp above even the rush of wind and crackling of thunder, someway, somehow, reassured her herd. Then with the ever-present Frieda at her side, she began to lead the way, slow step after slow step to the opposite side.

That very slowness was the salvation of the herd; instinctively they knew that she was testing the bridge, and by some sort of animal understanding, did likewise. The rocking lessened. A half-hour later Old Mom brought her charges safe out at the other side, every elephant walking in comical, gingerly fashion for a full block after leaving the structure, for all the world like overgrown fat boys trying to negotiate an area of eggshells.

Yet even Mom has her failings, her likes and dislikes; and once, at least, her discipline has ended in tragedy. Woeful is the life of the subject elephant that defies Old Mom, ancient though she may be. Well past the hundred-year mark in age, dependable when every other bull of the picket line is frantic, there is one failing; Old Mom is a disciplinarian to the point of being a martinet. More than that, she is as foolish in her likes as a person in second childhood, and her favorite is the worst trouble-maker of the whole herd!

Long ago they named him Billy, a quarrelsome, snobby little runt of an elephant that spends half his time in winter quarters striving to slap the daylights out of the hoglike old hippopotamus that wallows in his permanent tank near the picket line, and the remainder of his existence in stealing feed from the rest of the elephants. Nor does one of that bull line dare to protest! Immediately there comes a squeal from Billy, and from farther down the line a bellow of anger from Old Mom, where, eyes glaring, trunk twisting, ears wide, she wheels forward toward her picket pin and prepares to free herself that she may punish the offender. For punishment is swift and sure to those who offend her by offending her pet. Billy, to Old Mom, is a little angel. He can do no wrong. To the rest of the herd he is an obnoxious, selfish, obtrusive little devil that can do no right. They hate him. But they submit, rather than feel the thump of Old Mom’s trunk, or the pile-driver impact of her hard skull. Winter quarters or the road, it is all the same. Old Mom has taught her little angel her secrets of escape, with the result that he wanders the elephant line at will, in spite of stakes, bonds or even keepers. Old Mom’s protection of Billy extends to humans, and the runt does as he pleases.

For eight years had this continued when the tragedy came. For eight years, Floto, the stodgiest, most amiable male member of the herd, had submitted to every indignity one elephant can heap upon another. Billy had stolen his feed. Billy had edged forward when visitors arrived with peanuts, and literally taken them out of Floto’s trunk. Floto had protested and been punished, and so Floto had endured. But during those eight years the hatred was being stored against a day of judgment. And near the end of the season, at Orange, Texas, it came.

The press services which carried the story of that day’s event announced that some one had given Floto a chew of tobacco and that he had gone mad because of it. But that was only tradition and a guess. Floto was one of the best tobacco eaters of the picket line. And Floto had something more on his mind than a bad taste. The story of his death is one of rebellion and revenge.

Old Mom was out on the lot, busily pushing the wagons into position for the loading of the night. The matinée was over. The menagerie tent was drowsing in that calm which intervenes between the afternoon show and the gleaming chandeliers of night. Floto was at his picket pin, glorying in his portion of hay. Then came Billy.

He rooted in as usual and began to gobble Floto’s feed share, even as he had done for eight years. But this time Old Mom was not there to protect him. Floto snorted and warned the runt out of his way. But the fat little Billy only grunted and reached for another trunkful. It was the final insult.

A weird trumpet blast, and the three-ton Floto rose high on his haunches. Then with a sudden thumping drop, he came to all fours again, and seizing his piggish enemy in his trunk, raised him squealing over his head, only to throw him, breathless, to the ground, and then, breaking his stay chains, to leap upon his pudgy enemy before the smaller elephant could regain his feet. A moment of mauling followed, in which thundering hoofs knocked resistance from the fallen beast, and then, using his head for a combination roller and battering ram, the angered elephant scraped the body of the beleaguered animal along the hard sandy ground until the heavy flesh was torn from the runt’s body in great patches, and the blood flowed from fully a dozen wounds.

Animal men with bull-hooks strove futilely to pull him away. He shook them off and began to pound the prostrate Billy with flail-like blows of his trunk, suddenly to halt and wheel, trembling, yet defiant. Old Mom, with Charles Churchill, her keeper, at her head, was swinging under the side wall to restore order. But the time for that was past.