Jungle Joe/Chapter 7
Eight years have now passed since that eventful day when the freighter bumped against her pier in the Harlem River, and the long voyage of the jungle folk came to an end. Many things have happened to them since then, but their lives on the whole have been pleasant, and they have received the very best of care. They all went at once into the great circus of Ringden Brothers, and followed the fortunes of that glittering show from coast to coast.
Ali, who was then a boy of eight years, is now a stalwart lad of sixteen, but rather smaller than an American hoy of that age. Yet he is well-formed and very hardy, as well he may be, living the strenuous life of the circus.
Baby Elephant, called Jungle Joe, and by his young master, Joie, has changed much more even than Ali. When he landed in New York he was thirty-nine inches high and weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds. He is now over seven feet tall and weighs between two and three tons, but he is still rated as one of the small elephants. But due to the very great patience of his young master, and his love for Joie, as well as Joie's love for him, he has developed into one of the cleverest trick elephants in the sawdust ring.
In the early days he was simply the baby elephant, remarkable for his small size, but he is now a wonder for intelligence and patience. But Ali is no more proud of him than when he was just the baby.
The boy still remembers with a glow of satisfaction how he always stood by the baby's side in the great menagerie tent answering in his broken English the many questions of the curious people, especially the queries of the children.
Perhaps some of my readers, who were of the circus age eight years ago, will remember the shy brown boy who stood by the side of the baby elephant, and gladly answered all questions concerning him.
The lad was so glad if the people appreciated his pet, although few knew that the baby elephant really belonged to the brown boy from the Malay Peninsula.
Most of the other jungle folk are still with the circus.
Some of the monkeys have died, for monkeys are not so very hardy. This is also true of the tropical birds, but such old friends as Orang-outang, the wild man, Baba-rusa, the wild boar, Man-Eater, the tiger, and the tapirs, both mother and baby, still enthrall the spectators, and fill them with wonder.
Ali draws a salary for himself, and also one for Joie, so he is well-fixed financially. This is due to the friendship of the Sahib, who is one of the big men of the circus, as well as one of its ruling spirits. Ali still remembers with a thrill the first few days with the great show. When they landed in New York the circus was showing in Madison Square Garden, and so Ali was at once flung headlong into the greatest crowd that the circus ever entertains.
Where all the seemingly endless crowds came from and where they went, he could not imagine. That is, he did not know until the Sahib had taken him all over New York and Brooklyn and shown him all the sights.
Finally the season in the Garden was finished, and the circus entrained for New England. It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience seeing the men load the animals and the belongings of the circus.
They did it with such precision that nothing was ever lost or misplaced. This notwithstanding the fact that when all was loaded, three trains of over a hundred cars had been filled and made ready for the journey.
Ali himself could have gone in the regular train that carried the circus people, and slept in a regulation berth, but he preferred to go in a box-car with Joie and his mother, and two other large elephants. He said that Joie might be lonesome. They had always stuck together so far, and they would continue to do so to the very end. So the Sahib finally consented to the arrangement.
It was a strange and novel experience for the boy, just from the Malay plains and jungles, to sleep in the great car, which thundered along the rails to a music all its own.
At first, neither Ali nor Joie could sleep, and Ali would lie awake for hours talking to his pet, or listening to the humming wheels, the clicking of the rails, and the shrieking of the locomotive whistle. But gradually both Joie and Ali grew to love the life as they did nothing else in the world.
Few people realize, when they see the performances of clever trick animals, the great amount of patience that has gone into their training. In the case of lions and tigers, it takes from four to five months simply to get the upper hand of them. Just to get them so they will not attack the trainer on the slightest provocation.
So it was with Ali and Jungle Joe, or Joie, as Ali always called his friend. Nearly all of Ali's spare time for a year went into the training of Joie, before they gave their first performance. But the training of Joie was much easier than that of the ordinary elephant, because of the great love between the pachyderm and its master. Animals are very amenable to kindness, and if you can get an animal to love you it will do almost anything for you. And Joie had loved Ali ever since he had slipped through the corral after the great elephant-drive and had found Ali's open arms waiting for him.
So Ali worked almost entirely through love. He never punished Joie, or if he did, it was a very mild punishment, such as to pull his ear slightly, or slap him on the trunk. He knew full well that Joie would do anything that he was able to understand. So if he did not perform his trick rightly it was because he did not understand what was wanted.
The elephant is one of the cleverest animals, but he has not so much reasoning power as is usually thought. His stronghold is his memory and his ability to acquire tricks from object lessons. Also his adaptability is more because of the fact that he is patient, and never forgets.
Up to the time when Ali first went into the ring with Joie as a trick animal, his duties had been merely to stay with Joie in the menagerie tent and to feed him, and also to explain to the visitors as much as he knew about the animals which had come from the Malay peninsula. But when Ali became the handler of a performing elephant he arose in the estimation of all the circus people. This was especially true of his beloved Sahib, who had stuck by him all the years.
The first act put on by Ali and Joie was very simple. The elephant was bedecked with a beautiful purple-and-gold blanket, with a gorgeous howdah upon his back, and Ali was dressed to represent a Malay prince. In fact, he was featured upon the bill-boards as Prince Ali, the son of a Malay nobleman, and a person of great distinction in his own country.
He and Joie simply came in dressed in their court dress and went slowly about the ring. Then at a word from Ali, Joie went twice about the ring at his best pace. Then he came to a sudden standstill before a great arm-chair. Here Joie sat down in the chair and proceeded to put on a pair of prodigious spectacles which made all the people laugh. He then took a bell from a table before him and rang it for school, for he was now a schoolmaster. At the sound, five trained dogs came running out and sat upon their haunches in a perfectly straight row. They were the pupils. Then Joie would squeak out a word from the book which Ali placed before him, and the different dogs would bark several times. When Joie indicated a special dog by pointing with his trunk, that one would bark.
Finally, after this tomfoolery had gone on for a spell, school was dismissed, and a teeter was placed for Joie. This was a very strong platform resting across a large log. Very carefully the elephant would walk on the plank over the middle of the log, and finally balance the platform and slowly rock it up and down, causing the crowd to applaud.
Then there was a pedestal about ten feet high, and Joie would climb carefully to the top of the pedestal, where there was a platform about three feet square, and here the large animal would stand, with just room enough to place his feet. Then Ali would climb carefully up to Joie's side, and he would take the lad in his trunk and place him upon his back, and with Ali still upon his back he would climb cautiously down the pedestal. This was a hair-raising trick which always brought generous applause.
Many other tricks, such as drop-the-handkerchief, leap-frog, and tag, Ali taught Joie, some of them almost beyond belief.
So after this first day in the ring Joie and Ali were among the great people of the circus, and consequently given their due respect.
Sahib Anderson was delighted with this first performance and hugged Ali, to the great delight of the Malay boy, and patted Joie till he squeaked his approval in elephant language.
So after this Ali and Joie knew just what they would do each day.
Promptly when the signal for the parade sounded they must be ready to take their places in the parade. Then there was the long march through the sea of staring faces to the music of half a dozen blaring circus bands, and the shrieking of the calliopes.
At about half-past two, also, at a given signal, they went into the ring under the "big top" for the first performance. This took ten or fifteen minutes.
In the evening, just after supper, they took their places in the menagerie tent, and at eight-thirty they were in the tent again for the last show of the day.
When they came out of the great top for the last time in the evening they took their way slowly towards the depot. Ali took Joie at once to their car, and made him comfortable for the night. Then he could go back and see the rest of the show, or idle about, or sleep, as suited his whim.
It was a wild, exciting life, all thrill and crowds. A life of tense nerves and tense situations, for there were a dozen mishaps that could happen at any time to make things go wrong. Then there was the fear of the great sea of faces. At first this took away Ali's appetite so that he could neither eat nor sleep, but he gradually got used to it.
Then there was the continual travel. They were always on the move. No matter how much they liked a certain city, they must always move on. They had no home but the circus cars and the great tents.
This life was full of action, yet it did not pall upon them.
There was always something new to see, or some new problem to meet.
But finally Ali and Joie got used to it. They could sleep as well amid thundering car-wheels and shrieking locomotive whistles as they could have done in their native jungle. Gradually, also, the lure of the road grew upon them, so they were sorry each autumn when the circus went into winter-quarters.
Thus it was that Joie and Ali became the habitual dwellers in the Tented Town. The Tented Town which ever appeared and disappeared. They were citizens of the world, and all the people they met were their friends.
But even then their sleep was filled with excitement, with shouts, and cries of venders, and cracking whips, and blaring bands, and roaring lions, and trumpeting elephants. Thus the night dream was like the day-dream, a great glittering pageant of change, change, change.
Nothing was still. Nothing could rest, but all must travel, travel, travel, travel, to the sound of roaring car-wheels and the music of clicking rails, for this was the life of the circus.