And Umboo found that this was so. In the ten days that followed he was taught many more tricks. Some of them he did not learn so easily as he had the one of standing on his hind legs, and the ropes had to be used many times. But the other trick elephants, of whom there was more than one, showed the untrained ones what to do, and, in time, Umboo and his friends could go through many "stunts," as the circus men called them.
Umboo learned to lie down and "play dead," he learned to stand on a little stool, like an over-turned washtub, he learned to kneel down over a man stretched on the ground, and not crush him with the great body, weighing more than two tons of coal.
Other tricks, which Umboo learned, were to take pennies in his trunk, lift up a lid of a "bank," which was a big box, drop the pennies in and ring a bell, as if he had put money in a cash drawer. He also learned to turn the handle of a hand organ with his trunk, to ring a dinner bell, and do many other tricks, such as you have seen elephants do in a circus.
Then, one day, the man from India came where Umboo was, and giving him some peanuts, which our friend had learned to like very much, said:
"Well, now it is time you joined the circus. You know enough tricks to make a start, and your circus-trainer will teach you more. So off to the circus you go, Umboo! Off to the circus!"
And the next day Umboo went.
CHAPTER XV
UMBOO REMEMBERS
Brightly in the sun gleamed the white tents. In the wind the gay flags fluttered. Here and there were men selling pink lemonade and peanuts. Around the green grass were the big wagons—wagons that needed eight or ten horses to pull, wagons shining with gold and silver mirrors—heavy, rumbling wagons, which Umboo and the other elephants had to push out of the mud when the horses could not pull them.
"And so this is the circus, is it?" asked Umboo, as his friend, Wang, and he were led up to the tents.