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.