“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.