| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Tamba, the Tame Tiger - His Many Adventures
Author: Barnum, Richard
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Tamba, the Tame Tiger - His Many Adventures" ***
[Illustration: Tamba ran for what he thought was the doorway of a
cave.]
_Kneetime Animal Stories_
TAMBA
THE TAME TIGER
HIS MANY ADVENTURES
BY
RICHARD BARNUM
Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Tum Tum,
the Jolly Elephant,” “Chunky, the Happy Hippo,”
“Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox,” “Nero, the
Circus Lion,” etc.
_ILLUSTRATED BY
WALTER S. ROGERS_
NEW YORK
BARSE & HOPKINS
PUBLISHERS
KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES
By Richard Barnum
_Large 12mo. Illustrated._
SQUINTY, THE COMICAL PIG.
SLICKO, THE JUMPING SQUIRREL.
MAPPO, THE MERRY MONKEY.
TUM TUM, THE JOLLY ELEPHANT.
DON, A RUNAWAY DOG.
DIDO, THE DANCING BEAR.
BLACKIE, A LOST CAT.
FLOP EAR, THE FUNNY RABBIT.
TINKLE, THE TRICK PONY.
LIGHTFOOT, THE LEAPING GOAT.
CHUNKY, THE HAPPY HIPPO.
SHARP EYES, THE SILVER FOX.
NERO, THE CIRCUS LION.
TAMBA, THE TAME TIGER.
BARSE & HOPKINS
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1919,
by
Barse & Hopkins
_Tamba, the Tame Tiger_
VAIL·BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I TAMBA IS CROSS 7
II TAMBA’S FUNNY TRICK 17
III TAMBA PLAYS A JOKE 26
IV TAMBA IN A WRECK 34
V TAMBA IN A BARN 45
VI TAMBA MEETS TINKLE 53
VII TAMBA AND SQUINTY 65
VIII TAMBA IN THE CITY 74
IX TAMBA IN THE SUBWAY 84
X TAMBA AT THE DOCK 95
XI TAMBA ON THE SHIP 106
XII TAMBA IN THE JUNGLE 113
ILLUSTRATIONS
Tamba ran for what he thought was the doorway of
a cave _Frontispiece_
PAGE
And into his mouth it would go 22
Off slid the tiger cage 42
He dropped his basket 56
The whitewash splashed out and splattered on the
tame tiger 76
But the man was asleep and did not see the tiger 98
Tamba ran and soon he was on the Indian wharf 118
TAMBA, THE TAME TIGER
CHAPTER I
TAMBA IS CROSS
“Here! Don’t you do that again, or I’ll scratch you!”
“I didn’t do anything, Tamba.”
“Yes, you did! You stuck your tail into my cage, and if you do it again
I’ll step on it! Burr-r-r-r!”
Tamba, the tame tiger, looked out between the iron bars of the big
circus-wagon cage where he lived and glared at Nero, the lion who was
next door to him. Their cages were close together in the circus tent,
and Nero, pacing up and down in his, had, accidentally, let his long,
tufted tail slip between the bars of the cage where Tamba was.
“Take your tail out of my cage!” growled Tamba.
“Oh, certainly! Of course I will!” said Nero, and though he could roar
very loudly at times, he now spoke in a very gentle voice indeed; that
is, for a lion. Of course both Tamba and Nero were talking in animal
language, just as your dog and cat talk to one another, by mewing and
barking.
“My goodness!” rumbled Tum Tum, the jolly elephant of the circus, as he
turned to speak to Chunky, the happy hippo, who was taking a bath in
his tank of water near the camels. “My goodness! Tamba is very cross
to-day. I wonder what the matter is with our tame tiger.”
“He isn’t very tame just now,” said Dido, the dancing bear, who did
funny tricks on top of a wooden platform strapped to Tum Tum’s back. “I
call him rather wild!”
“So he is; but don’t let him hear you say it,” whispered Tum Tum
through his trunk. “It might make him all the crosser.”
“Here! What’s that you’re saying about me?” suddenly asked Tamba. He
came over to the side of his cage nearest Tum Tum. “I heard you talking
about me,” went on the tame tiger, who was beautifully striped with
yellow and black. “I heard you, and I don’t like it!”
“Well, then you shouldn’t be so cross,” said Tum Tum. He was not at all
afraid of Tamba, as some of the smaller circus animals――such as the
monkeys and little Shetland ponies――were. “You spoke very unkindly to
Nero just now,” went on Tum Tum. “And, really, if his tail did slip in
between the bars of your cage, that didn’t hurt anything, did it?”
Tamba, the tame tiger, sort of hung his head. He was a bit ashamed of
himself, as he had good reason to be.
“We ought to be kind to one another――we circus animals,” went on Tum
Tum. “Here we are, a good way from our jungle homes, most of us. And
though we like it here in the circus, still we can’t help but think,
sometimes, of how we used to run about as we pleased in the woods and
the fields. So we ought to be nice to each other here.”
“Yes, that’s right,” agreed Tamba. “I’m sorry I was cross to you, Nero.
You can put your tail in my cage as much as you want.”
“I don’t want to!” growled the big lion. “My own cage is plenty good
enough for me, thank you. I can switch my tail around in my own cage as
much as I please.”
“Oh, don’t talk that way,” said Tum Tum. “Now that Tamba has said he is
sorry, Nero, you ought to be nice, too.”
“Yes,” went on Tamba. “Come on, Nero. Put your tail in my cage. I won’t
scratch it or step on it. I’m sorry I was cross. But really I am so
homesick for my jungle, and my foot hurts me so, that I don’t know what
I’m saying.”
“Your foot hurts you!” exclaimed the big lion in surprise. “Why, I
didn’t know that. I’m sorry! Did some one shoot you in your paw as I
was once shot in the jungle? I didn’t hear any gun go off, except the
make-believe ones the funny clown shoots.”
“No, I am not shot in my foot,” answered Tamba. “But I ran a big sliver
from the bottom of my cage in it, and it hurts like anything! I can
hardly step on it.”
“Poor Tamba! No wonder you’re cross!” said the lion, in a purring sort
of voice, for lions and tigers can purr just as your cat can, only much
more loudly, of course. “How did you get the sliver in your paw?” Nero
went on.
“Oh, I was jumping about in my cage, doing some of the new tricks my
trainer is teaching me, and I jumped on the sharp piece of wood. I
didn’t see the splinter sticking up, and now my paw is very sore,”
replied Tamba.
“Well, lick it well with your red tongue,” advised Nero. “That’s what
I did when the hunter man in my jungle shot the bullet into my paw.
Perhaps your foot will get better soon.”
“Yes, I suppose it will,” admitted Tamba. “But then I want to go back
to the jungle to live, and I can’t. I don’t like it in the circus any
more. I want to go to the jungle.”
“Well, I don’t believe you’ll ever get there,” said Nero. “Here you
are in the circus, and here you must stay.”
It was just after the afternoon performance in the circus tent, and the
animals were resting or eating until it should be time for the evening
entertainment. It was while they were waiting that Nero’s tail had
slipped into Tamba’s cage and Tamba had become cross.
But now the striped tiger was sorry he had acted so. He curled up
in the corner of his cage and began to lick his sore paw, as Nero
had told him to do. That is the only way animals have of doctoring
themselves――that and letting water run on the sore place. And there was
no running water in Tamba’s cage just then.
“So our tame tiger wants to go back to his jungle, does he?” asked Tum
Tum of Nero, when they saw that the striped animal had quieted down.
“Yes, I guess he is getting homesick,” said Nero in a low voice, so
Tamba would not hear him. “But his jungle is far, far away.”
“Did Tamba live in the same jungle with you, Nero?” asked one of the
monkeys who were jumping about in their cage.
“Oh, no,” answered the big lion. “I came from Africa, and there are no
tigers there. Tamba came from India. I’ve never been there, but I think
the Indian jungle is almost as far away as mine is in Africa. Tamba
will never get there. He had much better stay in the circus and be as
happy as he can.”
But Tamba did not think so, and, as he curled up in his cage, he looked
at the iron bars and wondered if they would ever break so he could get
out and run away.
“For that’s what I’m going to do if ever I get the chance!” thought
Tamba. “I’m going to run back to my jungle!”
As he licked his sore paw, Tamba thought of his happy home in the
Indian jungle. He had lived in a big stone cave, well hidden by trees,
bushes and tangled vines. In the same cave were his father and mother
and his brother and sister tigers. Tamba had been caught in a trap when
a small tiger, and brought away from India in a ship. Then he had been
put in a circus, where he had lived ever since.
Just before the time for the evening show some of the animal men, or
trainers, came into the tent where the cages of Tamba, Nero and the
other jungle beasts were standing.
“Something is the matter with Tamba,” said one of the keepers.
“What do you mean?” asked the man who took care of Nero. “Did Tamba try
to bite you or scratch you?”
“No; but he isn’t acting right. He doesn’t do his tricks as well as
he used to. I think something is the matter with one of his paws. I’m
going to have a look to-morrow.”
Of course Tamba did not understand what the circus men were saying. He
knew a little man-talk, such as: “Get up on your stool!” “Stand on your
hind legs!” “Jump through the hoop!”
These were the things Tamba’s trainer said to him when he wanted the
tame tiger to do his tricks. But, though Tamba did not know what the
men were saying, he guessed that they were talking about him, for they
stood in front of his cage and looked at him. One of the men――the one
who put Tamba through his circus tricks――put out his hand and touched,
gently enough, the sore paw of Tamba. The tiger sprang up and growled
fiercely, though he did not try to claw his kind trainer.
“There! See what I told you!” said the man. “That paw is sore, and
that’s what makes Tamba so cross. I’ll have to get the doctor to look
at him.”
Tamba did not do his tricks at all well that evening in the circus
tent, and no wonder. Every time he jumped on his sore paw, the one with
the splinter in it, he felt a great pain. And when the time came for
him to leap through a paper hoop, as some of the clowns leap when they
are riding around the circus rings on the backs of horses, why, Tamba
just wouldn’t do it! He turned away and curled up in the corner of his
cage.
“Oh, how I wish I were back in my Indian jungle!” thought poor, sick,
lonesome Tamba.
“Well, there’s no use trying to make that tiger do tricks to-night,”
said the man who went in the cage with Tamba. “Something is wrong. I
will look at his foot.”
And that night, after the show was over, the animal doctor came to the
tiger’s cage. They tied Tamba with ropes, so he could not scratch or
bite, and they pulled his paw――the sore one――outside the bars.
And then Tamba had an unhappy time. For suddenly he felt a very sharp
pain in his paw. That was when the doctor cut out the splinter with a
knife. Tamba howled and growled and whined. The pain was very bad, but
pretty soon the men, who were as kind to him as they could be, put some
salve on the sore place, took off the ropes and let Tamba curl up in
the corner of his cage again.
“Oh, how my foot hurts!” thought Tamba. “It is worse than before! I
don’t like this circus at all! I’m going to break out and run away the
first chance I get! I’m going back to my jungle!”
Tamba did not know that now his paw would get well, since the splinter
had been taken out.
Night came. The circus began to move on toward the next town, and Tamba
was tossed about in his cage. He could not sleep very much. But in a
few days his paw was much better. During the time he was recovering he
did not have to do any tricks. All he had to do was to stay in his cage
and eat and sleep and let the boys and girls, and the grown folk, too,
look at him when they came to the circus.
But, all the while, Tamba was trying to think of a way to get loose
and run back to his Indian jungle. And one night he thought he had his
chance.
The circus was going along a country road, from one town to another,
and, as it was hot, the wooden sides of the animal cages had been left
up, so Tamba, Nero and the other jungle beasts could look out at the
stars. They were the same stars, some of them, that shone over the
jungle.
Suddenly there was a bright flash of light and a loud noise.
“We are going to have a thunder storm,” said Nero, as he paced up and
down in his moving cage.
“It will be cooler after it, anyhow,” said Dido, the dancing bear. “It
is very hot, now.”
The lightning grew brighter and the thunder louder as the circus went
up and down hill to the next town. Then, suddenly, it began to rain
very hard. The roads became muddy and slippery, and the horses, pulling
the heavy circus wagons, had all they could do not to let them slip.
Suddenly there was a loud crash of thunder, right in the midst of the
circus it seemed. The lions and the tigers roared and growled, and the
elephants trumpeted, while men shouted and yelled. There was great
excitement. What had happened was that a big tree, at the side of the
road, had been struck by lightning. Some of the circus horses were so
frightened that they started to run away, pulling the wild animal cages
after them.
Tamba felt his cage rushing along very fast. His horses, too, were
running away. Then, all at once, there was a great crash, and Tamba
felt his cage turning over. Next it was upside down. The tiger was
thrown on his back.
“Ha! Now is my chance to get away!” Tamba thought. “My cage will break
open and I can get out! Now I can go back to my jungle!”
CHAPTER II
TAMBA’S FUNNY TRICK
Bang! Crack! Crash! went the thunder, and the cage of Tamba, the tame
tiger, as it slid along the slippery, muddy road, and struck a tree,
made much the same noise, only not so loud.
Tamba himself, inside the iron-barred cage, was feeling much better
than when he had had the sliver in his paw. His foot was almost well
now, and he could step on it, though he limped a little.
“When my cage goes to smash I’ll slip out and run away,” thought Tamba.
“I’m going to have lots of fun when I get back to my jungle.”
Over and over rolled the cage, for the horses had broken loose from it
and were running away. Many other of the circus animal cages were being
broken in the storm.
Tamba’s cage struck one tree, bounced away from that and hit another.
Then it came to a stop, and Tamba, who had been rolling about inside,
being sometimes on his head and sometimes on his feet, and again
turning somersaults――Tamba, at last, found himself quiet.
“Now is my chance to get away!” thought the tame tiger, who wanted to
be wild again and live in a jungle. “Now I’ll get out of my cage!”
He surely thought the big wagon with the iron bars on two sides――the
cage in which he traveled――had been broken so he could get out. But
when he tried, he found that this was not so. The tiger’s cage was
broken a bit, here and there, but it was so strong that it had held
together, and when Tamba tried to force his way out he could not. He
was still a circus tiger, much as he wanted to go to the jungle.
“Oh, this is too bad!” growled Tamba to himself, as he tried to break
out, first through one side of the cage and then the other. “This is
too bad! I thought, when the storm wrecked the circus, that I could get
loose. Now I’ll have to wait for another time.”
But if Tamba had not got out of his cage when the great storm came,
some of the circus animals had. Nero, the circus lion, got loose, and
he had many adventures before he was caught again, as I have told you
in the book before this one. But Tamba had to stay in his cage.
After a while, when the worst of the storm had passed, the circus men
began going about, getting back on the road some of the cages, like
that of Tamba, that had rolled downhill.
“Tamba’s all right,” said a trainer, as he saw the tame tiger. “He
didn’t get loose, I’m glad to say. I want to teach him some new, funny
tricks, now that his paw is well again.”
“No, Tamba didn’t get away,” remarked another man; “but Nero, the big
lion, did. We’ll have to go out to hunt him.”
When morning came, and the circus was once more in order――except for
the broken cages and the animals that had gotten away――Tamba felt, more
than ever, that he would like to be back in his jungle.
“So Nero got away, did he?” thought the tame tiger, as he saw the
lion’s broken cage, and noticed that Nero was no longer in it. “Well, I
wish I were with him. Now he can go back to his jungle.”
But Nero did not do that, as those of you know who have read the book
about him. I’ll just say, right here, that Nero had many adventures,
but, as this book is about Tamba, I must tell about him, and the
adventures the tame tiger had.
A few days after this, when the circus was traveling on again, though
without Nero, who had not been caught, it came to a large city, where
it was to stay nearly a week to give shows.
“And now will be a good chance for me to teach Tamba some new and funny
tricks,” said the animal man who had charge of the tiger. “I want him
to make the people laugh when they come to the circus. The boys and
girls will like to see Tamba do some funny tricks.”
And the next day, his paw being again well, Tamba began to learn
something new. When his trainer entered the cage, Tamba, much as he
wanted to run away to the jungle, was glad to see the man. For the man
was kind to the tiger, and patted him on the head, and gave him nice
bits of meat to eat.
“Now, Tamba,” said the trainer, speaking in a kind voice, “you are
going to learn something new. Sit up!” he cried, and he held a little
stick in front of Tamba.
The tiger knew what this meant, as he had learned the trick some time
before. When the trainer spoke that way he meant that Tamba was to sit
up, just as your dog may do when you tell him to “beg.”
“That’s very good,” said the man, when Tamba had done as he was told.
“Now that is the first part of a new trick. Next I am going to put a
little cracker on your nose. It isn’t really a cracker, it is a dog
biscuit, and it has some meat in it. As you like meat I think you’ll
like the dog biscuit.”
As the man spoke he took from his pocket one of the square cakes called
dog biscuit. I dare say you have often given them to your dog. The
animal trainer broke off a bit of this biscuit and put it on Tamba’s
nose. Tamba could smell that it was good to eat, and he quickly shook
his head a little, jiggled the piece of biscuit to the floor of his
cage, and the next minute the piece of biscuit was gone. Tamba had
eaten it.
“Well, that’s what I want you to do,” said the man with a laugh, “but
not just that way. This is to be one of your new, funny tricks, but you
didn’t do it just right. I want you to hold the piece of biscuit on
your nose until I call ‘Toss!’ Then I want you to flip it into the air
and catch the piece of biscuit in your mouth. Now we’ll try it again.”
Tamba did the same thing he had done the first time, but the man was
kind and patient, and, after many trials, Tamba at last understood what
was wanted of him. He must hold the bit of dog biscuit on his nose
until the man said he could eat it.
Then the tiger was to give his head a little jerk. This would snap the
bit of biscuit into the air, and, if Tamba opened his mouth at the
right time, the biscuit would fall into it. That would be the funny
trick.
And, as I say, Tamba learned, after a while, how to do it just right.
But it took nearly a week. At the end of that time his trainer could
put a bit of dog biscuit on the tiger’s black nose. Then Tamba would
sit up on his hind legs, very still and straight, looking at his master.
“Now!” the man would suddenly call, and Tamba would jerk his head, up
the piece of biscuit would fly, and into his mouth it would go.
“That’s fine!” cried the man, after the second week, during which time
Tamba had practiced very hard. “Now we are ready to do the new trick in
the tent for the boys and girls.”
And when the trick was done the boys and girls laughed very much and
clapped their hands. They liked to see Tamba do his tricks. Nor was
this the only new one he learned. His master taught him several others.
Tamba would lie down and roll over when he was told; he would walk
around on his hind legs, wearing a funny pointed cap; and he would turn
a somersault, just as he had done the night his cage rolled downhill
in the storm. All these tricks were much enjoyed by the boys and girls
and by the men and women who came to the circus. Tamba was a very smart
tiger. But, for all that, he never gave up the idea of running away
when he got the chance, and going back to his jungle.
All this while Nero, the circus lion, had not returned. He had been
away since the night of the storm, and Tum Tum, and his other friends,
missed Nero.
[Illustration: And into his mouth it would go.]
“But he is having a much better time than we are, just the same,” said
Tamba, as he paced back and forth in his cage. “He is on the way back
to the jungle!”
If he could have seen Nero just then he never would have said that.
For the circus lion was in the kitchen of a country farmhouse watching
a tramp eat ham, and――but there! This book is about Tamba, not about
Nero, though I have to mention the lion once in a while.
About a week after Tamba had learned to do several new and funny
tricks, there was a sudden noise at the entrance of the circus animal
tent. It was after the afternoon show had ended, and not yet time for
the evening performance.
“What’s the matter, Tum Tum?” asked Tamba, who could not see very well
from his cage. “What has happened? Have some more of our animals gotten
away?”
“I think not,” answered the big elephant, who could see the tent
entrance. “I think they are bringing in a new lion. Maybe he is to take
the place of Nero. We’ll soon know. Here they come with him.”
CHAPTER III
TAMBA PLAYS A JOKE
Just as Tum Tum had said, a lion’s cage was being wheeled into the
circus animal tent, and in the cage was a big, tawny, yellow animal,
which Tamba knew, at once, was a lion.
But, to the surprise of the tame tiger and his friends, it was not a
new lion at all, but Nero himself. There he was, looking almost the
same as when he had disappeared the night of the big storm, the night
when Tamba thought he could get away.
“Why, Nero!” exclaimed the tiger, as his friend’s new cage was wheeled
in, “where in the world have you been?”
“Oh, almost everywhere, I guess,” answered Nero. “I’ve had a lot of
adventures!”
“Ha! Then you’ll be put in a book,” said Tum Tum quickly. And, as those
of you who have read the volume which comes just before this one know,
Nero was put in a book.
“Yes, I had adventures enough for a book,” went on the big lion, who
had been caught by some circus men in a farmer’s woodshed and brought
back to the show. “I had a pretty good time, too, while I was away,
though I didn’t get as much to eat as we do here in the circus. I guess
I’m glad to be back, my friends!” and he curled up in his cage and got
ready to go to sleep.
“Ho! Glad to get back, are you?” asked Tamba. “Well, I won’t say that
if I get a chance to run away! I’ll stay, when I go!”
“That’s what you think now,” said Nero. “But really it isn’t as much
fun as you’d think――running away isn’t.”
“Couldn’t you find your jungle?” asked Tamba.
“No,” answered Nero, “I couldn’t.”
“Well, I’ll find mine,” declared Tamba. “That’s why I want to run
away――so I can get back to my jungle. And I’m going to do it, too!”
Of course all this talk went on in animal language, and none of the
circus helpers or the trainers could understand it. If they could, they
might have guarded Tamba more closely.
“Well, please don’t bother me now,” said Nero, as he curled his paws
under his chin, just as your cat sometimes does when she goes to sleep.
“I am going to have a nap after all my adventures and travels.”
“All right, go to sleep,” said Tum Tum. “We won’t bother you, Nero.
Only, some day, I hope you’ll tell us more of your adventures.”
“I will,” promised Nero.
Tamba, the tame tiger, paced up and down in his cage after Nero had
gone to sleep.
“I wish I had had his chances!” thought Tamba, as he looked over toward
the sleeping Nero. “I wouldn’t have let them catch me! I’d have run on
and on until I found my jungle, no matter how far away it was.”
And then Tamba began to think of the life in India and of the days when
he, a little tiger cub, was hiding in the deep, dark, green jungle. He
thought of how he had tumbled about in the leaves, playing with his
brother and sister, and of his mother sitting in the mouth, or front
door, of the cave and watching her striped babies.
They had learned how to walk, and how to jump and stick out their claws
whenever they wanted to catch anything. Their father and mother had
taught the little tiger cubs how to hunt in the jungle for the meat
they had to eat. They could not go to the store and buy something when
they were hungry. Tigers, and other wild animals, must hunt for what
they eat.
Of course, after he had been caught and sent to the circus, Tamba no
longer had to hunt for his food. It was brought to him by the circus
men, and thrust into his cage. Nor did he have to hunt for water, the
way the jungle animals have to go sniffing and snuffing about in the
forest to find a pool or a spring. Tamba’s water was brought to his
cage in a tin pail, and very glad he was to get it.
“But, for all that,” thought the tame tiger, as he paced up and down,
“for all that I’d rather be loose and on my way back to the jungle
instead of being cooped up here. Much as I like the things they give
me to eat, I want to go home. And I’m going to get loose, too, and run
away as Nero did. Only I won’t come back!”
The more Tamba thought of the green jungle, so far away in India, the
more sad, unhappy and discontented the tame tiger became. He did not do
his tricks as well as he used to do, and he was often cross in speaking
to the other circus animals. Sometimes he wouldn’t speak at all, but
only growl, or maybe grumble deep down in his throat, and that isn’t
talking at all.
“I declare! I don’t know what’s the matter with Tamba,” said Tum Tum
one day. “He doesn’t seem at all happy any more. Dido, do some of your
funny dances and see if you can’t cheer up Tamba!”
So the dancing bear did some of his tricks, capering about in his cage,
but Tamba would hardly look at him. Some boys, though, who had come
to the circus, gathered in front of the bear’s cage and laughed and
laughed at his funny antics. They liked Dido. The boys liked to look at
Tamba, also, but they were a little afraid of the big, striped tiger.
One day, when the afternoon performance was over, and Tamba, Nero
and the other animals who had done their tricks in the big tent were
brought back to the smaller one, where they were kept between the times
of the shows, Nero said:
“Now I am going to lie down and sleep, and please don’t any one wake me
up. I’m tired, for I did a new trick to-day, and it was very hard, and
I want to rest so I can do better in the show to-night. So everybody
let me alone.”
“We will,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant.
Now the lion is called the “King of Beasts,” and in the jungle he comes
pretty near to being that, for all the other animals, except perhaps
the elephant, are afraid of him.
So when a lion says he wants a thing done, it generally is done. Of
course Nero could not have got out of his circus cage to make the other
animals do what he wanted them to do, but most of them made up their
minds that they wouldn’t bother him, even though they knew he couldn’t
hurt them. Nero was still “King” in a way.
But that day Tamba was cross. Or perhaps I might say he felt as though
he wanted to “cut up.” He wanted to play some tricks, make some
excitement. He wanted to do something!
I dare say you have seen your dog or cat act the same way. For days at
a time they may be very quiet, eating and sleeping and doing only the
things they do every day. And then, all at once, they will begin to
race about and “cut up.” Your dog may run away with your cap, and, no
matter how many times you call him, he’ll just caper about and bark, or
perhaps pretend to come near you and then run off again. And your cat
may dig her claws into the carpet, jump up on the window sill and knock
down a plant or a flower vase, and do all sorts of things like that.
Well, this is just the way Tamba felt that day. He wanted to do
something, and when he saw Nero sleeping so quietly in his cage the
tame tiger made up his mind to play a trick on the lion.
“It isn’t fair that he should sleep so nicely when I have to stay
awake!” grumbled Tamba. “He can dream of the good times he had when he
ran away and had adventures, and all I can think of is how much I want
to go back to my jungle! It isn’t fair! I’m going to make Nero wake up!
I’ll play a trick on him!”
Of course this wasn’t right for Tamba to do, but circus tigers don’t
always do right any more than boys, girls, or other animals.
Tamba’s cage was next to that of Nero, and close beside it, instead of
being at one end. The cages were left that way when they were brought
in from the larger performing tent, after the animals had done their
tricks. So it happened that Tamba could look out through the bars of
his cage in between the bars where Nero was kept. And Tamba could stick
his paws out through the bars, but he could not quite reach over to the
sleeping lion.
“If I could reach him,” said Tamba to himself, “I’d tickle him and wake
him up. I wouldn’t let him sleep!”
But Tamba’s paws were not quite long enough to reach through the bars
of the two cages. Again and again the tiger tried it, but he could not
manage.
Then Tamba sat down on his haunches and looked at the sleeping Nero. At
last a tricky idea came to Tamba.
“Ha!” exclaimed the tiger. “If I can’t reach him with my paws I can
reach him with my tail! That’s what I’ll do! I’ll reach in between the
bars with my long, slender tail, and I’ll tickle Nero on the nose!”
Tamba sort of laughed to himself as he thought of this trick. And he
had no sooner thought of it than he began to try it. He turned about,
so his back was toward Nero. Standing thus, Tamba’s long, slender tail
easily reached into Nero’s cage. Nearer and nearer the tip of Tamba’s
tail came to the big black nose of the sleeping lion.
Tamba looked sideways over his back to see where to put his tail. At
last the fuzzy tip-end of it touched Nero’s nose and tickled it. The
big lion twitched in his sleep, just as your cat does, if you lightly
touch one of her ears.
“Ha! I’ve found a good way to play a trick on Nero!” laughed Tamba.
“I’ll keep on tickling him!”
He waved his tail to and fro, Tamba did, and once again he let the tip
of it touch Nero’s nose. The sleeping lion raised his paw, and brushed
it over his face. He must have thought some bug was crawling on his
nose.
“Oh, this is lots of fun!” thought Tamba. So it was, for him. But was
it fun for Nero?
“Now for a good tickle!” thought Tamba, as, once again, he put his tail
over toward the sleeping lion’s nose. And this time something was going
to happen.
CHAPTER IV
TAMBA IN A WRECK
Down on the black nose of the sleeping lion went the soft, fuzzy tip of
Tamba’s tail. And Tamba tickled Nero so hard that the lion gave a big
sneeze and awakened with a jump.
Then Nero threw himself against the bars of his cage until they shook
where they were fastened into the wood, and the lion roared in his
loudest voice:
“Where’s that fly? Where’s the tickling fly that wouldn’t let me sleep?
If I catch that fly I’ll tickle him!” and Nero roared so loudly that
the ground seemed to tremble, as it always does near a lion when he
roars. I have often felt it in the zoölogical park where I sometimes go
to look at the lions and the tigers.
“Where’s that fly? Where’s that fly?” roared Nero. For you see he
thought the tickling tip of Tamba’s tail was a fly on his nose.
“What’s the matter here? What’s the trouble?” cried one of the circus
men, as he ran into the animal tent, having heard Nero roar.
“Are some of the lions or tigers trying to get loose?” asked another
man.
“No, it seems to be Nero,” replied the first. “What’s the matter, old
boy?” he asked, as he saw how angry Nero was. For the lion was lashing
his tail from side to side and roaring:
“Where’s that fly? Where’s that fly?”
Of course the circus men didn’t know exactly what Nero was saying,
but they could tell he was angry, and they were afraid, if he bounded
against the bars of his cage much more, he might break some.
“I don’t see what makes Nero act that way,” said the man who had charge
of the lion, and who had taught him to do tricks. “Once before he acted
like this, but it was when a bee stung him on the nose.”
“Maybe that is what happened this time,” said the second man.
“I don’t see any bees flying around,” went on the lion’s keeper. Just
then Tamba, seeing that he had awakened Nero, and had played all the
tricks he wanted to, pulled his tail out from between the bars of the
lion’s cage. And, just as he did so, the keeper saw him.
“Oh, ho! I know what the matter was,” the man said. “The tiger tickled
the lion. Tamba tickled Nero with his tail through the bars of the
cage. That’s what made Nero angry. Tamba, you’re a bad, mischievous
tiger!” and he shook his finger at the striped animal. Tamba walked
over to the corner of his cage and curled up.
“Well, I had some fun, anyhow!” he thought. “I waked Nero up all right!”
And so he had. And now Nero knew what had happened, for Tum Tum, the
jolly elephant, had seen it all, and Tum Tum said:
“It wasn’t a fly on the end of your nose, Nero; it was the fuzzy tip of
Tamba’s tail. I saw him tickle you!”
“Oh, you did, did you?” cried Nero, and this time he did not roar. “Why
did you tickle me, Tamba?”
“Oh, I didn’t like to see you sleeping so nicely when I couldn’t sleep,
because I’m thinking so much of the jungle,” answered the tiger.
“Besides, it was only a joke. I wanted to see if I could make you think
my tail was a fly on your nose. I did.”
“Yes, you surely did,” admitted Nero. “I felt the tickle, even in my
sleep. But if it was only a joke, Tamba, I won’t be angry. I like a
joke as well as any one,” and Nero laughed in his lionish way. “But,
after this, I’m going to sleep in the far corner of my cage, where your
tail won’t reach me. A joke is all right, but sleep is better. Now it
will be my turn to play a joke on you, Tamba.”
“Yes,” said Dido, the dancing bear, “you want to look out for yourself,
Tamba. A joke is a joke on both sides.”
“Oh, well, I don’t care,” said Tamba, but he was not as jolly about it
as he might have been.
The circus men saw that something was wrong between Tamba and Nero, so
they moved the cages farther apart, and then Nero and Tamba could not
have reached each other if their tails had been twice as long. And then
Nero went to sleep, and so did Tamba, waiting for the evening show to
start. And as Tamba slept he dreamed of the Indian jungle, and wished
he could go back there.
And soon something wonderful was going to happen to him.
That night in the big tent, which was bright with electric lights,
Tamba did his tricks――catching a piece of dog biscuit off his nose,
leaping through a paper hoop, and walking around on his hind legs. Nero
also did his tricks, one of which was sitting up like a begging dog on
a sort of stool like an overturned wash tub.
And Dido, the dancing bear, did his funny tricks on the wooden
platform, which was strapped on the back of Tum Tum, the jolly
elephant. So the boys and the girls, and the big folks, too, who went
to the circus had lots of fun watching the animals.
But, all the while, Nero was watching for a chance to play a trick on
Tamba. And at last he found a way. It was three or four days after
Tamba had tickled Nero with the tail tip, and the circus had traveled
on a railroad to a far-distant town.
In the animal tent the lions, tigers, elephants, monkeys and ponies had
been given their dinners and were being watered. Tamba was taking a
long drink from his tin of water, and wishing it could be turned into a
jungle spring, when, all of a sudden:
Splash!
A lot of water spurted up into his face, and some, getting into his
nose, made him sneeze. Then he looked and saw that a bone, off which
all the meat had been gnawed, had come in through the bars of his cage
and had fallen into his water-pan. It was the falling of the dry bone
into the water that had made it splash up.
“Who did that? Who threw that bone at me?” growled Tamba. “Who made it
splash water all over me?”
“Oh, I guess I did that,” said Nero with a loud, rumbling lionish
laugh. “I wanted to see if I could toss it from my cage into yours,
Tamba, and I did. So the water splashed on you, did it?”
“Yes, it did! You know it did!” growled Tamba. “It made me sneeze, too!”
“Oh, did it?” asked Nero. “Well, that was just a little joke of mine,
my tiger friend. I wanted to see if I could tickle your nose the way
you tickled mine with your tail. It was only a joke, splashing water on
your nose. Only a joke! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“Yes, it was only a joke!” said Tum Tum and all the other animals.
“Only a joke, Tamba! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Of course the striped tiger had to laugh, too, for really he had not
been hurt, and he must expect to have a joke played on him after he had
played one on Nero.
“Well, I’ll gnaw this bone after I take a drink,” said Tamba, as he
dried his nose on his paw. “Much obliged to you for tossing it into my
cage, Nero.”
“Oh, you’re very welcome, I’m sure!” laughed the lion. “Oh, you did
jump and sneeze in such a funny way, Tamba, when the water went up your
nose!” and Nero laughed again, as he thought of it.
And “Ha! Ha! Ha!” echoed Tum Tum.
And so life went on for the circus animals, something a little
different happening every day. Now and then Tamba played other tricks,
and so did Nero, and the first crossness of Tamba seemed to wear off.
He was still as anxious as ever to go to the jungle, but he did not
see how he could get out of his cage. He watched carefully, every day,
hoping that some time the man who came in to make him do his tricks
would forget to fasten the door when he went out.
“If he only left it open once,” thought Tamba, “I could slip out and
run away. Then I’d go back to the jungle.”
But the trainer never left the door open. Besides, it closed with a
spring as soon as the man slipped out, and, quick as he was, Tamba
could not have slipped out. However, he kept on the watch, always
hoping that some day his chance would come.
And it did. I’ll tell you all about it pretty soon.
Sometimes, as I have told you, the circus went from town to town by the
way of country roads, the horses pulling the big wagons with the tents
on them and also the wagons in which the wild beasts were kept. It took
eight or ten horses to pull some of the heavy wagons uphill.
At other times the wagons would all be put on big railroad cars, and an
engine would haul them over the shiny rails. This was when it was too
far, from one town to the next, for the horses to pull the wagons, or
for the elephants and camels to walk. For when the circus traveled by
country road these big animals――the camels and elephants――always walked.
And one night after a stormy day the circus wagons were loaded on the
railroad cars for a long journey to the next city in which the show was
to be given.
“Well, you haven’t gone to your jungle yet, I see, Tamba,” said Tum
Tum to the tiger. The big elephant was moving about, pushing the heavy
wagons to and fro.
“No, I haven’t gone yet,” sadly said the beautifully striped beast.
“And, oh, how I wish I could get loose!”
On through the night rumbled the long train of circus cars. There was
no moon, and the stars did not shine. The night was very dark after the
storm.
Suddenly there were some loud whistles from the train engine.
Toot! Toot! Toot! it went, and that meant there was danger. The
engineer had seen danger ahead, but not in time to stop his train. One
of the circus trains had run off the track and could not go on. It had
come to a halt, and another train that was running not far behind the
first one crashed into it.
There was a terrible noise, a clanging of iron and a breaking of wood.
The cars were smashed, and so were some of the animal cages.
“What is it? What’s the matter? roared Nero.
“We’re in a wreck!” trumpeted Tum Tum, the elephant, who was not quite
so jolly, now. “The circus train is wrecked! I was in a wreck once
before. It’s very bad! I hope none of our animal friends are hurt!”
But some were, I am sorry to say, and so were some of the circus men.
Tamba, the tame tiger, felt his cage slide off the flat car on which it
had been fastened. The car was smashed and tossed to one side. Off slid
the tiger’s cage, and then it fell down the railroad bank and into a
ditch. Tamba’s cage broke open, and the tiger was cut and bruised, but
he knew that he was free. He was no longer in the cage.
“At last I am out!” he cried. “Now I can run away to my jungle! Now I
am free!”
[Illustration: Off slid the tiger cage.]
CHAPTER V
TAMBA IN A BARN
With the smashed circus cars, the broken animal cages, with some of
the jungle beasts, including the elephants, cut and bruised, with
shoutings, growlings, roarings and tootings going on, the scene at the
circus train wreck was a terrible one. It was no wonder that Tamba, the
tame tiger, wanted to run away from it all and get to a quiet place.
And this he did.
He crawled out of his cage, that had been broken when it slipped off
the smashed car, and gave one last look at it in the darkness.
“Good-by, old cage!” said Tamba, softly, as he turned to run away.
“I’ve been in you for the last time. I’m never coming back to the
circus!”
Leaving the noise and confusion of the circus wreck behind him, Tamba
slunk off into the tall grass that grew in the fields beside the
railroad track. The accident had happened at a lonely place, and there
were no houses near at hand.
“Ha! This is a little like the jungle where I used to live!” thought
Tamba, as he slunk through the tall grass. “I can hide here until I see
which way to go to get back home.”
And Tamba was right. The grass grew long, as it did in the jungle, but
there were not so many trees and tangled vines as in India. Only at
night it seemed a very quiet, restful place to the tiger who had been
so shaken up in the wreck.
Tamba walked on and on through the darkness, not really knowing, and
not much caring, which way he went. All he wanted to do was to get away
and hide, and the tall grass was just the place for this.
In a little while Tamba came to a place where there was a small pool
of water. It had leaked from a pipe that filled the tank where the
railroad engines took their water. Tamba drank some, and then, finding
a place where the grass was taller and thicker than any he had yet
seen, he made himself a sort of nest and curled up in it.
“I can sleep here, and Nero, that big lion, can’t splash any water into
my nose and make me sneeze,” thought Tamba, as he snuggled up.
At first he could not get to sleep. He had been too much frightened by
the train wreck, though he was so far away now that he could not hear
the din, which still kept up. But at last Tamba closed his eyes, and
soon he was slumbering as peacefully as your cat sleeps before the
fire.
It was daylight when Tamba awakened, and, for a moment, he did not
remember where he was. He stretched out first one big paw after another
and then he called:
“Well, Tum Tum, what sort of day is it going to be?”
Tamba used to do this in the circus tent, for the jolly elephant was
so big that he could look over the tops of the cages and tell whether
or not the sun was going to shine. Most animals awaken before the sun
comes up――just as it begins to get daylight, in fact.
But Tum Tum did not answer Tamba this time. The jolly elephant was
badly hurt in the railroad accident, but of course the tiger did not
know this just yet. Tamba did know, however, that he had made a mistake.
“Oh, I forgot!” he said to himself. “Tum Tum isn’t here! I’m not in the
circus any more. I’m free, and I can go to my jungle. I must start at
once!”
Then Tamba arose, and stretched himself some more. He liked to feel the
damp earth under his paws, and he liked the feeling of the dry grasses
as they rubbed against his sides.
“Why, I feel hungry!” suddenly said the tiger. “I wonder where I can
get anything to eat in this, the beginning of the jungle.” You see,
Tamba still thought the jungle was close at hand, but, to tell you the
truth, it was far away, over the sea, and Tamba could not get to it
except in a ship.
The more Tamba thought about it the hungrier he became. He knew no men
would come to him now with chunks of meat, as they had used to come in
the circus.
“I must hunt meat for myself, the same as I did when I lived in the
jungle with my father and mother,” thought the tiger. “Well, I did it
once, and I can do it again. I wonder what kind of meat I can find?”
Tamba did not have to wonder very long, for he soon saw some big
muskrats, and he made a meal off them.
Then Tamba looked about him, and began to think of what he would do to
get to the deeper part of the jungle――the part where the trees grew. He
wanted to be in the thick, dark woods. All wild animals love the quiet
darkness when they are not after something to eat.
But it was now broad daylight, and Tamba knew he must be careful how
he went about. Men could easily see him during the day. He remembered
he had been told this in the jungle, years before, by his father. But
in the jungle Tamba was not so easy to see as he was on this railroad
meadow. The yellow and black stripes of a tiger’s skin are so like the
patches of light and shadow that fall through the tangle of vines in
a jungle, that often the hunters may be very close to one of the wild
beasts and yet not see it. The tiger looks very much like the leaves
and sunshine, mingled.
“But I guess if I slink along and keep well down in the tall grass no
one will see me,” thought Tamba. “That’s what I’ll do! I’ll keep hiding
as long as I can until I get to my jungle. Then I’ll be all right.
I’ll be very glad to see my father and mother again, and my sister and
brother. The circus animals were all very nice, but still I like my own
folks best.”
So Tamba slunk along, going very softly through the tall grass. If you
had been near the place you would probably have thought that it was
only the wind blowing the reeds, so little noise did Tamba make. Tigers
and such cat-like animals know how to go very softly.
All at once, as Tamba was slinking along, he heard the sound of men’s
voices talking. He knew them at once, though of course he could not
tell what they were saying. Besides the voices of the men, he heard
queer clinking-clanking sounds and the rattle of chains. Tamba knew
what the rattle of chains meant――it meant that elephants were near at
hand, for the circus elephants wear clanking chains on their legs,
being made fast by them to stakes driven into the ground.
“Ha! I had better look out,” thought Tamba. “Maybe those are the circus
men after me.”
The tame tiger was partly right and partly wrong. The voices he heard
were those of the circus men, and the chains clanking were those on the
legs of elephants. The men were trying to clear away what was left of
the circus wreck. Tamba had taken the wrong path, and had walked right
back to where he had started from.
“This won’t do!” he said to himself. “I must get farther away and hide!”
He peered between the tall grasses and dimly saw where the circus
men were working along the railroad tracks, lifting up some of the
overturned cars and cages. The elephants were helping, for they were
very strong.
“I’ll notice which way the sun is shining, and then I’ll know which way
to go to keep away from the circus men,” thought Tamba. Then he turned
straight about and ran off the other way.
On and on, over the big stretch of meadows and lonely land near the
railroad went the tiger until he had placed many miles between himself
and the scene of the wreck. In all this time Tamba did not see any men,
or any living creatures except some muskrats, many of which lived in
the swamp along the railroad. The muskrats were not glad to see Tamba,
for the tiger caught a number of them for food, but it could not be
helped.
No one saw Tamba sneaking along through the grass. If any one had seen
him they would have hurried to tell the circus men, for a general alarm
had been sent out, telling that some of the wild animals, including a
big, striped tiger, had got loose after the wreck.
But no one saw Tamba, and he saw no one, at least for a while. On and
on he went until night came again. Then he found another snug place in
among the dried grass where he curled up to sleep.
“My jungle is farther away than I thought it was,” said Tamba to
himself, as he awoke on the second morning of his freedom. “I must run
along faster to get there more quickly.”
After he had eaten and taken some water, he started off once again, and
then began a series of very strange adventures for the tame tiger.
Toward the close of the afternoon of the second day of his freedom
Tamba stepped out of a little patch of woods, into which he had gone
from the meadow, and there, in the light of the setting sun, the tiger
saw a red, wooden building which he seemed to know.
“Why, there’s a barn!” said Tamba to himself. “There’s a barn. I’ll
go in there and stay for the night. I wonder if there are any other
animals in it.”
The reason Tamba knew this was a barn was because, when he had first
joined the circus, he had been taken to a barn, and there was taught
some tricks. The circus folk and the animals lived in a big barn
instead of tents during the winter. So when Tamba saw this building he
knew, at once, that it was a barn.
Now it happened that this was a barn belonging to a farmer, who also
owned a house near by, but which Tamba could not see on account of the
trees. So, making sure that no one was about, Tamba walked toward the
barn, and, one of the doors being open, in walked the tiger.
He looked all around, as best he could, for it was not very light, and
he sniffed and smelled the smell of animals.
“Maybe some of my friends are here,” thought Tamba. “I’ll slink around
and see.”
So he walked softly and slinkingly to the middle of the barn floor, and
peered about, and, right after that, a very strange thing happened.
CHAPTER VI
TAMBA MEETS TINKLE
At first when he went into the barn through the door which was open,
Tamba, the tame tiger, could not see very much. It was the same as when
you go into a dark moving-picture theater from the bright sunshine
outside.
But, in a little while, Tamba’s eyes could see better, and he noticed
some piles of hay and straw in the barn. That made him feel more at
home.
“This is just like the circus barn where I used to be before we started
out with the tents,” thought Tamba to himself. “That is hay, which Tum
Tum and the other elephants used to eat. I don’t like it myself. I like
meat and milk. But I don’t see any elephants here.”
And for a very good reason, as you know. Farmers don’t keep elephants
and other circus animals in their barns.
So Tamba looked about in the barn, and he sniffed and smelled with his
black nose, hoping to smell something good to eat. But though there was
an animal smell about the place (because there were cows and horses in
the lower part of the barn) still Tamba did not want to eat any of
them.
If he had been in the jungle he might have felt like eating a cow, or,
what is very much the same thing, a water buffalo. But since he had
been in the circus he had been used to eating the same kind of meat
that you see in butcher shops. So, though the tiger was quite hungry,
and though there were cows and hay in the farmer’s barn, Tamba did not
see much chance of getting a meal.
“I’ll starve before I’ll eat hay,” he said. “It’s all right for
elephants and horses and ponies, like the Shetland ponies we had in the
circus, but hay is not good for tigers.”
So Tamba walked farther into the barn, looking about and sniffing
about, and then, all at once, he heard some one whistle. Tamba knew
what a whistle was, for often his own trainer or the trainer of Nero
would go about the circus tent whistling. So, when Tamba, in the barn,
heard some one coming along whistling a merry tune he at once thought
to himself:
“Oh, perhaps that is one of the circus men coming to take me back to
my cage in the tent! Well, I’m not going! I’m going to go back to my
jungle, and not to the circus! I’ll just hide where they can’t find me!”
Now the big pile of hay in the barn seemed the best place in the
world for Tamba to hide in, and, as the whistling sounds came nearer
and nearer, the tiger crept softly across the barn floor, and soon was
snuggling down in the hay.
“I remember once, when I lived in the jungle, I hid in a pile of dry
grass just like this hay,” thought Tamba. “It was when I wanted to play
a trick on my brother Bitie. I jumped out at him and scared him so he
ran off with his tail between his legs. Maybe I can jump out and scare
this circus man so he won’t want to take me back.”
You see Tamba thought surely it was a circus man coming into the barn
whistling. But it wasn’t at all. It was the boy who worked on the
farm. His father had sent him to the barn to gather the eggs which the
chickens had laid, and this boy, whose name was Tom, nearly always went
about his chores whistling.
“I hope I get a lot of eggs to-day,” said Tom, speaking aloud to
himself, as he stopped whistling. “Maybe I can get a whole basket full.
I’ll look in the hay for them. Hens like to lay their eggs in the hay.
It’s a good place for them to hide.”
Now, if that farmer boy had only known it, there was something else
hidden in the hay besides hens’ eggs. There was Tamba, the tame tiger.
Tamba had worked himself down into a regular nest in the dried grass,
and only his eyes peered out. They were very bright and shining eyes,
and they watched every move of the farmer boy.
Tamba saw the basket which the boy carried in his hand so he might put
the eggs in it, and, seeing this basket, the tame tiger thought to
himself:
“Well, if he expects to take me back to the circus in that little
basket he’s very much mistaken. Why, it wouldn’t hold two of my paws!”
And then Tamba took a second look, and he saw that the boy was not one
of the circus keepers, as the tiger had at first supposed.
“But he whistles just like one,” thought Tamba. “I wonder what he
wants.”
So the boy, not knowing anything about the tiger in the hay, walked
right toward Tamba, hoping to gather eggs.
In another moment, just as the boy began poking his hand down in the
loose hay, hoping to find a hen’s nest full of eggs there, Tamba made
up his mind it was time for him to do something.
“I’ll give this fellow, whoever he is, a good scare!” said Tamba to
himself. “I’ll teach him to come looking for me with a basket! Look out
now, you whistling chap!” said Tamba to himself.
[Illustration: He dropped his basket.]
Then he gave a loud growl――one of his very loudest――and he raised
himself from his nest in the hay, and stuck his head out.
Now if you had gone hunting hens’ eggs in your father’s barn, and had,
all of a sudden, seen a great, big, striped tiger jump out at you from
the hay, giving a loud growl, I believe you would have done just what
this boy did. And what he did was this.
He dropped his basket, gave one look at Tamba in the hay, and then
uttered such a yell that his father and mother in the farmhouse, quite
a distance off, heard him. And then that boy ran out of the barn as
fast as he could run. That’s what this boy did, and I think you would
have done the same.
“Well, I guess he won’t come back right away,” thought Tamba. “But
there may be others like him. If I stay here I may have to scare a
whole lot of them. I guess I’ll find a new hiding place.”
So Tamba came out from his nest in the hay and began moving about in
the barn, looking for a new place in which to snuggle, and perhaps find
something to eat. And the first thing he knew he stepped right into a
hen’s nest of eggs. Right down among the eggs Tamba put his paw.
Of course he broke some of the eggs, but he took up his paw so quickly
again that not many of the shells were cracked. And, as his paw was
covered with the sticky whites and yellows of the eggs, Tamba began
licking it with his tongue to make it clean.
“Hum! These eggs taste as good as the ones I used to get in the
jungle,” said the tiger to himself. “Guess I’ll eat them. I’m hungry,
and they’ll be almost as good as meat.”
So Tamba carefully cracked the egg shells and sucked out the whites and
yellows. He ate a whole dozen of eggs before he finished, and then he
felt better.
“Now I’ll go and find a new place to hide,” he said to himself.
He found a stairway leading from the upper part of the barn, where the
hay was stored, to the lower part, where were the stables of the cows
and horses. Down the stairs softly went Tamba, and no sooner was he
down there than he felt right at home. For it smelled just like that
part of the circus where the horses were kept. And, as a matter of
fact, there were a number of horses in the barn, and quite a few cows.
At first the horses were afraid of the tiger, and pulled at the straps
which held them fast in their stalls. But Tamba, speaking in animal
talk, said:
“I am a tame tiger. I won’t hurt any of you. I only want to hide here
so the circus men won’t find me. I am on my way back to the jungle. I
have run away from the circus.”
When Tamba spoke thus kindly the horses were no longer afraid. One of
them said Tamba might hide in a pile of straw near his stall, and this
the tiger was glad to do. He stretched out, and got ready to go to
sleep.
Now I must tell you a little about the farmer boy. When he saw the
tiger rear up at him out of the hay, and ran away, screaming with fear,
he did not know what to do. All he could yell was:
“The tiger! The tiger! A big striped tiger is in our barn!”
The boy’s father and mother heard him shouting and yelling, and they
ran out of the house to see what the matter was. They saw that Tom was
very much frightened indeed.
“What is it?” they asked.
“Oh,” Tom answered, “I went to get some eggs out of the hay, and I
found a tiger there! He had great big eyes, big teeth and a big mouth!”
“Oh, Tom! Really?” asked his mother.
“Really and truly!” he answered. “You can go and look for yourself!”
“No, I don’t believe I want to,” said Tom’s mother. “But do you really
think he did see a tiger?” she asked her husband.
“Well, I don’t know,” he slowly answered. “I read in the paper
something about a circus train having been wrecked, and maybe a tiger
or an elephant got loose and is roaming about.”
“It’s a tiger――not an elephant――and he’s in our barn,” said Tom. “Come
and see, Dad! But you’d better bring your gun!”
“Yes,” agreed the farmer, “I think I had. And I’ll call some of the men
to help hunt the tiger, too!”
But, as it happened, by the time the farmer had called some neighbors
in to help him and they had gotten their guns, Tamba had left the upper
part of the barn, where the hay was, and had gone downstairs among the
horses and cows. And as the farmer and his friends did not know this,
and as none of the horses or cows called out to tell the men, they
didn’t know where Tamba was.
They looked in the hay, where the boy had seen him, but Tamba was gone.
The men even found the place where Tamba had eaten the eggs, but the
jungle circus beast was not in sight. He was well hidden downstairs in
the straw near the stall of the kind horse.
So the men hunted in vain, and some of them thought the tiger had gone
back to the circus, while others thought he had run off to the woods,
perhaps. At any rate, they did not find him in the barn, though he was
there all the while they were searching. A wild animal sometimes knows
better how to hide than you boys and girls do when you are playing
games.
And now I must tell you something that happened to Tamba, as he still
hid in the lower part of the barn. He was snugly curled up in the straw
when suddenly there was a patter of little hoofs on the floor, and a
small pony trotted into his small stall, which was near that of the big
horse, next to which Tamba was hiding.
“Well, friends, here I am back!” cried the little pony. “I have been
giving the boys and girls a ride, and now I’ve come back to have
something to eat. Has anything happened while I was out, hitched to the
basket cart, giving rides to the boys and girls? Has anything happened?”
“Yes,” answered the old horse, near whose stall Tamba was hiding in the
straw, “something strange has happened. A big striped animal, who calls
himself a tiger, came into our barn.”
“A tiger!” cried the little pony. “Why, I’d like to see him. I know
something about tigers.”
“Oh, do you?” asked Tamba himself, sticking his head out of the
straw, as he had stuck it out of the hay at Tom. But the pony was not
frightened. “So you know something about tigers, do you?” went on
Tamba. “Well, what is your name, if I may ask? Mine is Tamba.”
“Oh, ho! I know that very well!” neighed the pony. “You don’t know me,
Tamba, but I have often seen you in the circus. I am Tinkle, the trick
pony. I was in the circus a short time myself, but there were so many
of us little Shetland ponies that I don’t suppose you remember me. But
there were only a few tigers in the show, and I remember you very well.
Didn’t you used to jump through a paper hoop as one of your tricks?”
“Yes,” answered Tamba, “I did. And, now that you speak of it, I believe
I remember you. You used to pull, around the ring, a little cart with a
funny clown in it, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Tinkle, “I did. Well, Tamba, I’m glad to see you again. But
what brings you so far from the circus, and why are you hiding here?”
“That,” said Tamba, “is a long story. I’ll tell it to you!”
But, all of a sudden, one of the cows at the far end of the stable
mooed out:
“Quick, Tamba! Here comes the man to milk us! Hide in the straw so he
won’t see you!”
CHAPTER VII
TAMBA AND SQUINTY
Tamba did not need to be told twice what to do. As soon as he heard the
kind words of the cow the tame tiger ran softly on his padded feet and
snuggled down again in the straw. And the man came in, milked the cows,
and went out with the foaming pails without knowing anything about the
circus tiger hiding in the lower part of the barn. He thought the tiger
had gone away.
“Now it’s all right――he’s gone and you may come out,” said the cow to
Tamba, and the tiger, shaking the straw from his striped black and
yellow fur, walked out to talk some more to Tinkle, the trick pony.
“You were going to tell us how it was you left the circus, Tamba,” said
Tinkle. “Make a good, long story of it. I like stories.”
“I haven’t time to make it too long,” said Tamba, “for I must be on
my way. I want to get back to my jungle. At first I thought the long
grass near the railroad was the place I wanted. But I see it is not the
jungle where I used to live. So I must travel on a long way, and the
sooner I start the quicker I’ll be there. But I’ll tell you how I got
loose from the circus.”
So Tamba told Tinkle the story I have told you――how the circus was
wrecked in the railroad accident, and how the cage burst open, letting
the tame tiger loose.
“And now I’m here,” finished Tamba. “But tell me, Tinkle, how did you
come to leave the circus?”
“Well, I had many adventures,” said the trick pony. “I used to live on
a stockfarm, something like this, only there were more horses on it. I
was taken away to live with a nice boy, who taught me many tricks, and
then a bad man, with a big moving wagon, came along one day and stole
me away. He sold me to the circus, and it was there I saw you, Tamba. I
know Tum Tum, too, and Dido, the dancing bear!”
“Yes, they are all friends of mine,” said Tamba. “At least they were
before I left. Now, I suppose, I’ll never see them again, for I am
going to the jungle. But you haven’t yet told me, Tinkle, how you came
to leave the circus.”
“Oh, it’s all written down in a book,” answered the trick pony.
“Oh, a book!” exclaimed Tamba. “I’ve heard Tum Tum and Dido speak of
being in books, but I didn’t know what they meant. And I haven’t time
to learn now, so suppose you tell me.”
“Well, there’s a book all about me and my adventures,” said Tinkle,
the trick pony. “But, as long as you can’t read it, I’ll just tell you
that, one day, when I was in the circus doing my tricks, George, the
boy who used to own me before I was stolen away, came to the show.
There he and his sister saw me and they knew me again, and I was taken
out of the circus and given back to my little master. I’ve lived with
him ever since. We often come to this farm in the summer, and I have
just been giving him and his sister and some of the other children a
ride in the pony cart. George is very nice to me, and gives me lumps of
sugar.”
“I hope he isn’t the boy whom I scared in the hay,” said Tamba. “I
would not want to scare any friend of yours, Tinkle.”
“Oh, well, if you only scared him, and didn’t scratch him, I guess it
will be all right,” said the trick pony. “But I don’t believe it was
George you frightened, as he was out driving me. It must have been Tom,
or one of the other boys.” And so it was, as Tinkle learned later.
“And so you are going to the jungle, are you?” asked Tinkle of Tamba,
when they had talked a while longer.
“Yes, I want to get back to my old home,” answered the tiger. “I don’t
like it in the circus. But, still, there was one thing I liked in it,
and that was the good meals I had. I’m very hungry right now.”
“Oh, excuse me!” exclaimed Tinkle. “I should have thought of that
before. I’m so sorry! Won’t you have some of my hay or oats?”
“Yes, and give him some of our bran,” added the cow who had told about
the man coming in to milk.
“Oh, thank you, very much, Tinkle. And you too, my cow friend,” replied
the tiger gratefully. “But I can’t eat hay, bran, or oats. We tigers
must have meat. I don’t suppose you eat any of that?”
“No,” said Tinkle, “we don’t. It’s too bad! I don’t know how we can
give you anything to eat. It’s no fun to be hungry, either.”
“I know how we can feed your tiger friend,” said one of the big farm
horses.
“How?” eagerly asked Tinkle. He felt just as you would feel if some
friend came to visit you and you couldn’t give him anything to eat.
“How can I feed Tamba on the meat that he likes?” asked Tinkle.
“I’ll tell you,” went on the horse. “You know the big dog who drives
the sheep to and from the meadow?”
“Oh, yes, I know our sheep-dog very well,” said Tinkle. “He is a friend
of mine.”
“Well, he has company,” went on the horse. “A dog named Don has come
to see him and spend the day. I came in just now from plowing one of
the fields, and I saw the farmer’s wife put a big plate of meat and
bones out near the dog kennel. She said it would do for our dog and his
friend, Don.”
“Yes, but if the meat is for the dogs they’ll eat it all up, and there
won’t be any for Tamba,” said Tinkle.
“Oh, but wait a minute!” neighed the horse. “I didn’t finish. Don and
our dog went off to the woods. I heard them say they would be gone for
a long time, and maybe they would find something to eat there. So if
they don’t come back to eat the bones and meat Tamba can have it.”
“Yes,” said Tinkle, “I suppose he can. I hope Don doesn’t come back.”
“I hope so, too,” said Tamba. “I’m getting hungrier every minute.”
“I’ll go out and look,” said Tinkle. “It will soon be dark, and if the
plate of meat is still by the dog kennel, you can sneak out and get
it, Tamba, and no one will see you. I’ll go and look.”
Tinkle, the trick pony, was not kept tied in a stall as were the other
horses. He could roam about as he liked, and so he trotted out of the
barn to where the farm dog had his house, or kennel. There, surely
enough, was a big plate of meat and some large bones, large enough,
even, for a lion or a tiger.
“It’s all right,” said Tinkle, when he came trotting back. “The meat
is there, Tamba, and I didn’t see anything of Carlo, our dog, nor his
friend, Don. Now if they don’t come back until dark, why, you can go
out and have a good meal.”
“I will, thank you,” returned Tamba, and he wished, with all his heart,
that Don and the other dog would not come back.
“Of course I don’t want to see them hungry,” thought Tamba, “but they
may get something to eat in the woods, and perhaps I couldn’t do that.
There may be no muskrats there.”
Everything came out all right. The twilight faded, and it became dark.
Then Tamba, who remained hidden in the stable, crept softly out to the
plate of meat and bones that had been left for the dogs. He ate up
everything and gnawed the bones, and then he got a drink of water from
the horse trough and felt much better.
“And now, Tinkle, I will bid you and your kind friends good-by and be
on my way to get back to the jungle,” said Tamba, after he had eaten.
“Oh, are you going to run away?” asked the trick pony. “You’ll be just
like Don, the dog, then. He ran away, too.”
“But he ran back again, as I have heard my friend, Nero, the circus
lion, say,” replied Tamba. “I am not exactly running away from you. I
ran away from the circus, but I am only leaving you after paying you a
visit. And I liked my visit very much. That meat, too, was very good.
Thank you, Tinkle.”
“I only wish there had been more of it,” said the trick pony. “But, if
you have to go, I suppose you must leave. I hope you’ll get safely to
your jungle.”
But Tamba had many adventures ahead of him before that time. He said
good-by to Tinkle and the farm animals, and then, looking out of the
barn and peering through the darkness, to see that none of the farmer’s
men were on the watch with their guns, Tamba slunk out into the night.
Once more he was on his way, traveling to find his jungle. On through
the dark woods and over the fields went Tamba, taking care to keep away
from houses where people might live who would see him and tell the
circus men to come and get him. Tamba did not want to be caught.
So, for several days, Tamba traveled on. Often he was hungry and
thirsty, but he managed to find things to eat once in a while, and now
and again he came to springs of water or streams where he drank. So,
though he did not have a very good time, he managed to live.
One evening, just as it was getting dark, Tamba sniffed the air and
smelled a smell which told him he was near another stable and barn. It
was not the one where Tinkle lived, though.
“I wonder if I can get anything to eat here,” thought Tamba.
Carefully and softly the tame tiger crept around the corner of the
carriage house. Near by he saw what seemed to be a low building without
any roof a little way ahead of him, and from this place came gruntings
and squealings.
“Get over on your own side of the trough! You’re eating all my sour
milk!” said one squealy voice.
“I am not, either, Squinty!” came the answer. “I want something to eat
just as much as you do!”
“Ha! Something to eat!” thought Tamba who heard and understood this
animal talk. “I wonder who those chaps are, and who Squinty is. And I
wonder if they have enough for me to eat. I’m going to see!”
Up to the pen, which had no roof, went Tamba, and, rising on his two
hind legs, he looked over the side and down in. There he saw a number
of pigs who were drinking sour milk and bran from a trough.
One of the pigs, with a queer droop to one eye, looked up and saw Tamba
peering in.
“Hello!” grunted this pig. “Who are you, and what’s the matter?”
“I’m Tamba, a tame tiger,” was the answer, “and the matter is that I’m
hungry. Who are you?”
“Squinty, the comical pig!” was the grunting reply. “And you had better
travel on! We have nothing here for tigers to eat!”
CHAPTER VIII
TAMBA IN THE CITY
Tamba, the tame tiger, rearing up on his hind legs to look down into
the pig pen, saw the funny look on the face of the animal who had
spoken to him.
“What’s that you say?” asked Tamba in a growling voice.
“I said we didn’t have anything to give tigers,” went on the comical
pig, and really he was comical, for his one eye had such a funny look
as it drooped toward one ear. It seemed to be looking in two ways at
once, and that is something you don’t often see in a pig.
“Well, it seems to me I smell something very good,” went on Tamba. “It
smells like milk to me.” When he was a little tiger Tamba had liked
milk very much, and now, even though he was older, he knew it would be
good when he was hungry.
“Yes, you do smell milk,” went on Squinty. “But it is sour.”
“Sour or sweet, it makes no difference to me,” replied Tamba. “I am
hungry enough to eat anything.”
“Well, I don’t want to be cross or impolite,” said Squinty, “but there
is only enough sour milk for us pigs. We can’t give you any.”
“Ha! Well, I simply must have something to eat!” returned Tamba, and
his voice was more growly now. “If I can’t get milk I must have meat. I
remember once, in the jungle, eating a little pig who looked something
like you. What’s to stop me taking a few bites off you, if you won’t
give me any of your milk?”
“Oh, ho! So you think you can bite me, do you?” squealed Squinty.
“Well, we’ll see about that!”
Now Squinty was a brave little animal, and he had seen more of the
world than some of the other small pigs in the pen. In fact, Squinty
had had a number of adventures, and those of you who have read my first
book entitled, “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” know that Squinty was not
much afraid of anything.
So no sooner did he hear Tamba talk that way, about taking bites, and
so on, than Squinty ran to where there was a loose board in the pen,
and out he popped.
“Ho! So you think because you’re a big, circus tiger that you can scare
me, do you?” squealed Squinty. “Well, I’ll show you that I’m not a bit
afraid!”
Now, as it happened, near the pen, where the farmer intended to use
it the next day, was a pail of whitewash. It was like thick, white
water, and the pail was full of it. Squinty gave one look at the pail
of whitewash, and a glance at Tamba, who had taken his forepaws down
off the edge of the pen, and was standing on all four feet looking at
Squinty.
“There! Take that and see how you like it!” squealed Squinty, and with
his strong nose, made for digging down under the ground after roots and
things, Squinty upset the pail of whitewash and gave it a push toward
Tamba.
The whitewash splashed out, and lots of it splattered on the tame
tiger, so that he was splashed and speckled with spots of white as well
as being marked with black and yellow stripes.
“Now how do you like yourself?” asked Squinty of Tamba, as he looked at
the tame tiger in the moonlight, for the moon was just coming up. “If
you try to bite me or any of my friends I’ll splash some more whitewash
on you!”
“You can’t,” said Tamba. “There isn’t any more left in the pail. It’s
empty; I can see for myself. I guess I got most of it on me.”
[Illustration: The whitewash splashed out and splattered on the tame
tiger]
“Well, if I can’t throw whitewash on you I’ll throw something else!”
threatened Squinty. “You’ve got to leave us pigs alone!”
“Yes,” said Tamba, “I can see that I’d better. I didn’t know you were
such a fierce chap, Squinty.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to be cross,” said the pig. “But when you talked
of biting me, why, I just couldn’t help it. I’m sorry I spotted you
with white like that.”
“It’s all my fault,” returned Tamba. “I shouldn’t have said anything
about biting you. Being splashed with whitewash serves me right. But I
am very hungry, and your sour milk smelled very good!”
“I’m afraid there isn’t much left now,” said Squinty. “The pigs were
very hungry to-night. But if you’ll come over to the side of the pen,
where I broke out to rush at you, I’ll see if there is anything else.
Sometimes they throw kitchen table scraps into our trough, and there
are bits of meat which we small pigs don’t eat. You may have that, if
there is any. Tigers like meat, I’ve heard.”
“Yes,” said Tamba, “I like meat very much. It is about all I can eat,
though I could manage to drink some milk――sour or sweet.”
“Come, we’ll go see what there is,” went on Squinty. “When I said we
had nothing for tigers I didn’t think about the meat scraps.”
So Squinty led Tamba back to the side of the pen whence the little pig
had pushed his way out. Then Squinty explained to the other pigs what
had happened.
“Yes, here are some meat scraps,” said one of the pigs, when Squinty
had told how hungry Tamba was. “It isn’t very much, though.”
“Even a little will keep me from starving,” said Tamba. “When I get to
my jungle I’ll have all I want to eat, but just now it is pretty hard
to find enough. In the circus I had plenty.”
“Oh, so you’re from the circus, are you?” asked Squinty. “I used to
know some animals in a circus. There was Mappo, the merry monkey.”
“Yes, I have heard of him, too,” said Tamba. “But he isn’t with the
show now. Ah, but this meat tastes good!”
The tame tiger was now chewing the scraps the pigs had brushed aside as
they did not want them. Tamba did not feel so hungry now, but he did
feel queer where the whitewash had splashed on him.
“I’m sorry about that,” said Squinty. “If you go down to the end of the
meadow there is a pond, and you can wash off the white splashes. It’s
warm enough to take a bath.”
“I’m not very fond of water,” said Tamba, “though I do take a bath now
and then. I guess I can wash off the white stuff by dipping my paws in
the water and rubbing them over my striped coat. I’ll do it.”
And that is what Tamba did after he had eaten up all the meat scraps
there were in the pigs’ pen. Then he said good-by to Squinty and the
others and started off again.
“I must get to my jungle,” said the tiger. “I have been away from the
circus quite a while now, and, as yet, I have not come to the jungle.”
“But you have had lots of adventures,” said Squinty, the comical pig,
for Tamba had told of some of the things that had happened to him. “You
have had almost as many adventures as I, Tamba. I suppose you can call
that an adventure, when I splashed the whitewash on you.”
“Yes,” agreed Tamba, “I think that, most certainly, was an adventure. I
don’t want another like it, though.”
So Tamba traveled on again. He thought, if he went far enough, he must,
some day or other, come to the jungle where he used to live. But he did
not know which way to go, and, often as not, he went wrong. However, as
Squinty said, the tame tiger was having many adventures.
He had a queer one the second night after he had met Squinty, and this
is the way it happened. Tamba had been roaming along in the night,
after having caught something to eat in the woods, and at last he came
out on a road which stretched far and away in the moonlight.
“That is a long road to travel,” thought Tamba. “I think I will take
a rest before I go down it any farther. I’ll hide somewhere and wait
until morning.”
Tamba looked around for a place to hide, and saw a big pile of hay. He
knew it was hay, since he had often seen it in the circus tent, and he
remembered having hidden in the hay in the barn.
“But this hay isn’t in a barn,” said Tamba, as he looked at the pile.
“It seems to be on a wagon, as my cage used to be.”
And that is just what it was. Tamba had come to a farm, and a little
way down the road from the farmhouse was a wagon loaded with a great
pile of hay. The farmer had loaded the hay on the wagon the evening
before, so as to have it all ready to hitch his horses to and pull it
into the city early in the morning. The farmer was going to sell the
hay in the big city.
“Well, that hay will make a nice place for me to sleep,” thought Tamba.
He gave a big jump, and landed on top of the load of hay. There were,
as yet, no horses hitched to the wagon. That would be done in the
morning.
Tamba pawed out a nice, cozy bed for himself on top of the load of hay,
burrowed away down in, pulled some hay over him as a covering, and
went to sleep.
How long he slept the tame tiger did not know. But when he suddenly
awoke, he saw the sun shining, and he heard a rumble and roar all about
him.
“What’s this? Where am I? What has happened?” thought Tamba.
He saw the hay all about him. He felt the jolting and sway of the
wagon. The roaring sound became louder. Tamba looked out between the
wisps of hay. He saw a strange sight.
“Why, I’m in a big city!” thought the tiger. “The load of hay has come
to the city, and I came with it! Oh, dear, I am farther than ever from
my jungle! What shall I do?”
CHAPTER IX
TAMBA IN THE SUBWAY
Tamba, the tame tiger, had really come to the city on a load of hay. I
know it sounds very strange to say that, but it really happened. I have
often seen dogs riding along on a load of hay that had started to ride
in the country, at the farmhouse where they lived, and had come all the
way to the city. So if a dog can ride on a load of hay I don’t see why
a tiger can’t, especially when he is a tame tiger.
Anyhow, that’s what Tamba did. He rode along on the load of hay until
it reached the big, noisy city. But the funny part of it was that the
man who drove the load of hay didn’t know he was giving a ride to a
tiger. If he had known that I don’t believe he would have guided his
horses along so easily, nor do I believe the horses themselves would
have gone so quietly.
But there Tamba was, snugly curled up in a little nest on top of the
load of hay, where no one could see him. He could look out and down at
the city streets through which he was passing, and he saw many strange
sights. But he was used to them, and he was not afraid of being in the
city. For he remembered having seen a city like this many times before
when he was in his cage and the circus parade had gone up and down the
streets to show the animals, so that boys and girls would be all the
more anxious to come to the performance.
“Well, I wonder what will happen to me now,” thought Tamba, as the hay
wagon rumbled along the city streets. “I can’t stay here much longer.
Some one will be sure to see me, and perhaps the man who owns this hay
is taking it to the very circus where I used to live. If that happens
they’ll get me back in a cage again, and I don’t want that to happen. I
must be very careful!”
On and on went the load of hay, with Tamba hiding at the top, and,
pretty soon, the man drove into a sort of big yard. There were trees,
and grass, and some buildings. But what made Tamba sit up and sniff
eagerly was the smell of wild animals. I dare say you have often
noticed it yourself when you have gone to the circus. Even with your
eyes shut you can tell as soon as you enter the wild animal tent.
“Dear me, this is very strange!” thought the tame tiger. “Can the man,
with his load of hay, have brought me back to the very circus from
which I ran away? It smells so, but I don’t see any of the big tents,
nor yet the barn where I used to live in winter. Besides, this is
summer, not winter. I wonder what it all means!”
The more Tamba thought about it and the stronger the wild animal smell
came to him, the more the tame tiger was puzzled. The load of hay, in
which he was hidden, rumbled along, down a little hill, and then Tamba
heard the man call:
“Whoa!”
That meant for the horses to stop. Tamba had often heard the circus men
call that to their horses when they wanted them to stop pulling the big
cage wagons, and so the tiger understood.
“Now I wonder what will happen to me,” thought Tamba. He raised his
head up from his snug nest in the hay and saw what he knew to be a
barn, though it was not like the one near which he had met Squinty, the
comical pig, nor like the one where he had frightened the boy Tom.
“But it’s a barn all right,” thought Tamba. “And there must be some of
my tiger, elephant and lion friends near it, else there wouldn’t be
that wild animal smell. I wonder if Tum Tum, Nero and Dido are here.
Maybe they brought them here after the train wreck.”
Tamba did not know what to think, but what he wanted to do was to keep
out of sight of any men who might be around, until he could think of
what to do.
“For I’m not in my jungle, that’s sure,” said Tamba to himself. “And
how to get there I don’t know. But I’m not going back to the circus if
I can help it.”
Tamba now felt some one pulling at the load of hay, as if about to
unload it from the wagon. Then the tame tiger, giving a look over the
side and seeing no one, slipped and slid down, and, noticing an open
door in the barn, through it he ran and hid in a dark corner.
“There! Now maybe they can’t find me!” thought the tiger. “I’ll stay
here until it’s dark, and then run out. But where am I?”
Tamba asked himself this question over and over again. Outside the barn
he heard men talking and horses moving about, and with the wild animal
smell came the sweet smell of new hay――the hay on which he had ridden
to the city.
“The man must be taking the hay off the wagon,” thought Tamba. “I can’t
ride on it again. Well, perhaps I shall not need to. But I should like
to know where I am, and what all this means.”
For some time Tamba remained hidden in a dark corner of the barn, and
then, suddenly, an animal came running in and Tamba knew at once what
kind it was. For it was striped almost the same as was the tiger
himself――with yellow and black――and it was a zebra.
“Oh, hello, my friend!” called Tamba, in animal talk, from the place
where he was hidden. “Are you running away from the circus, too, Mr.
Zebra?”
“Circus? Why, no. I never was in a circus, though I’ve heard about such
things,” the zebra answered. “But how did you get out of your cage? I
didn’t know any of the tigers were loose.”
“Oh, I got out some time ago, in a train wreck,” answered Tamba. “But
what is the circus doing here, and have they had the parade yet?”
“Look here!” exclaimed the zebra, as he chewed some wisps of hay he
picked up from the barn floor. “I guess we don’t either of us know what
the other is talking about. This isn’t a circus. This is a zoölogical
park, in a big city, and I am one of the animals. Only, as I am very
tame, they let me run about the yard where the barn is. We have some
lions and tigers here, but they are kept in cages. Are you one of the
zoo tigers?”
“No,” answered Tamba. “I was a circus tiger. But I ran away, and I am
going back to my jungle. So this is the zoo. Now I understand.”
What had happened was this. The farmer, on whose load of hay Tamba had
hidden, gone to sleep, and been given a ride to the city, had brought
the hay to the zoölogical park, to sell, as he often did. He had driven
it right up to the barn to unload, and then it was that Tamba slipped
off and hid before any one saw him. And the wild animal smell that
Tamba noticed was the smell of the animals in the park. I suppose you
have been to the zoölogical park near your own city, perhaps, and have
noticed that smell. It is almost like a circus, so it is no wonder
Tamba was puzzled.
“So this is the zoo, is it?” he asked the zebra. “Well, I don’t want to
stay here, any more than I want to stay in a circus. But how can I get
away?”
“Well, if you really belonged here, of course it wouldn’t be right for
me to tell you how to get away,” said the zebra. “But as you are not
one of the zoo animals, it will be all right for you to run off. You
had better wait until it is dark, though, and then you can crawl out
through the fence near the back of this barn. But you will be in the
middle of a big city, and not in your jungle.”
“I know,” said Tamba, sadly. “But I’m used to cities. I have been in
parades in them often enough. I’ll find my way out somehow, and then
I’ll go to my jungle. But I wish I had something to eat. You haven’t a
bone or a piece of meat, have you?”
“I am sorry to say I have not,” replied the zebra. “All I eat is hay
and grains. But I can show you where to get a drink of water.”
“I shall like that,” said the tame tiger, “as I am very thirsty.”
So the zebra showed the tiger where, in the barn, was a tub of water
out of which the horses who worked in the zoölogical park got their
drinks. There Tamba quenched his thirst and felt better. Then he
crawled back into the dark corner to hide. The zebra had to go away,
but he promised to come back and let Tamba know when it was dark enough
for the tiger to run out and start afresh on his journey to the jungle.
All that day Tamba remained hidden in the barn. He saw none of the
other wild animals, and the zebra did not come back. Tamba was getting
hungrier and hungrier, but he knew he dared not go out to look for
anything to eat. If he had the park men would have seen him and chased
after him, either catching him to put in one of their cages, or else
sending him back to the circus. And Tamba did not want that.
After a while it became darker. Tamba sneaked out and got another
drink, and then in a little while he heard the patter of the feet of
his zebra friend on the floor of the barn.
“Are you there, Tamba?” asked the zebra, in animal talk.
“Yes,” answered the tiger.
“Well, it’s dark enough now for you to set out,” went on the zebra.
“Cut across the park over the big field you’ll see as soon as you leave
this barn. That way will take you to a street where there are not so
many cars and wagons as on the street nearest this side. It is quieter.”
“That’s what I want――to be quiet,” said Tamba. “That’s why I want to go
back to my jungle.”
Tamba took another drink of water, for he did not know when he would
get any more, and then, having said good-by to his friend, the striped
zebra, the tame tiger went softly out of the barn into the night. He
saw the big field and, on the other side, a row of lights. At first
they looked like the lights around the circus tents when a night-show
is being given, but when Tamba looked a second time he knew they were
street lights. He was still in the big city.
“Good-by!” called the zebra after him. “I hope you soon come to your
jungle.”
“Thank you! I hope so myself,” said Tamba.
He ran across the big park field in the darkness. No one saw him, for
few persons are in the park at night. Tamba sniffed the air, and he
smelled water. There was such a strong smell of water that Tamba knew
it must come from a big river or a lake.
“And it smells like salt water, too,” thought the tame tiger. “I
remember that smell of salt water. I smelled it when they put me on a
ship and brought me away from my jungle. Perhaps my jungle home is just
across that salt water. I am going to see.”
What Tamba smelled was the salt water of a big river that flowed
through the city down to the ocean. And beyond the ocean lay the
jungle. This much Tamba had guessed.
“I am going toward that salt water,” said the tiger to himself. “This
is the first time I have smelled it since I was on the ship. I believe,
after all, I shall at last get to my jungle.”
But there were quite a few adventures for Tamba to have before he
reached his old home.
On across the big field in the zoölogical park ran Tamba. He was coming
nearer and nearer to the row of lights, nearer and nearer to the smell
of salt water, and, also, nearer and nearer to a city street. It was
this street that Tamba feared most. Once he was across that, he thought
everything would be all right.
He came to a low, stone wall around the park. He looked and listened as
well as he could. He did not see any one who he thought would try to
catch him.
With a leap and a bound Tamba cleared the low, stone wall and found
himself on the sidewalk of a street. Just at this place, and at
this time, there did not happen to be any wagons, street cars or
automobiles. Tamba was beginning to think everything was coming along
finely, and that he would easily get to the salt water when, all of a
sudden, he heard a woman scream. Then a man, who was with her, cried:
“What’s the matter? What is it?”
“A tiger! A tiger! Look, there’s a tiger loose in the street!”
“Why――why――so it is!” exclaimed the man, who, with the woman, had come
walking along soon after Tamba leaped over the wall. “It’s a real, live
tiger! It must have escaped from the zoo. I’ll drive it back!”
“Oh, don’t! He might bite or claw you!” cried the woman. “Get a
policeman!”
“I will,” answered the man, and he began to call loudly.
“This is no place for me!” quickly thought Tamba. “I must run and hide
again.”
Of course he did not know what the man and woman were saying, but he
knew that they would want to catch him, or call some one to do it, and
so Tamba knew he must hide.
He looked about for a good place to go. He did not want to jump back
into the park. Up the street, a little way, he saw what he thought was
the opening to a big cave. True, it was lighter than the entrance to
the jungle cave where Tamba used to live, but perhaps it might do for a
hiding place.
“I’ll go in there!” decided Tamba.
The tiger turned away from the man, who was still shouting for the
police, and from the woman, who had covered her eyes with her hands,
and then Tamba ran for what he thought was the doorway of a cave. At
the entrance he could see that it stretched away out in a sort of dark
tunnel.
“This is the place for me!” said Tamba to himself, and the next moment
he was running down some stone steps. As he went down he heard a loud
rumbling and roaring.
“Ha! There is going to be a thunder storm,” thought Tamba. “I came to
this cave just in time!”
And, back in the street, where they had first seen the jungle beast,
the man and woman cried:
“Oh, the tiger ran down into the subway! The tiger is in the subway!”
CHAPTER X
TAMBA AT THE DOCK
Queer as it may seem, Tamba had done that very thing. He had run
from the street into the opening of a subway station in a big city,
thinking it was a cave. And if you have ever been in a city where the
street cars run underground instead of on the surface, as wagons and
automobiles do, or instead of up in the air, as the elevated trains
run, then you will understand how it was that Tamba made his mistake.
For it was a mistake to go down into the subway, thinking it was a cave.
The rumbling and roaring sound Tamba heard was a train coming along the
subway, and, being underground, it made much more noise and racket than
it would have done up on the surface. So it is no wonder the tame tiger
thought it was a thunder storm.
Down the subway steps he ran. He saw a dark tunnel stretching out both
ways from the station. It was light on the station platforms where the
subway trains stopped, but beyond this place, at each side, the dark
tunnel of the subway stretched out.
Tamba saw crowds of persons getting on and off the train, and as quick
as a flash he hid behind a candy counter and newspaper stand, where it
was partly dark. Tamba did not want any men to see him now, for since
he had smelled the salt water he wished, more than ever, to get across
it and back to his jungle.
“Well,” thought the tame tiger as he crouched in the darkness behind
the candy stand, where the boy tending it, busy selling evening papers,
did not notice him, “well, I don’t know what this all is, nor what it’s
about, but I guess this isn’t the kind of cave I’m looking for. It
isn’t a jungle cave at all. It’s much too light and too noisy. It’s as
bad as the circus. I must get out of here if I can.”
But Tamba knew better than to rush out when so many people were coming
and going. He wanted to wait until they had gone. But there were so
many of them it seemed that they would never go. And pretty soon a
policeman, and several excited men who did not wear blue suits with
brass buttons ran down the subway steps.
“He came right down here!” said one excited man. “My wife and I were
walking along the stone wall by the park when the tiger jumped over
right in front of us. Then he ran down these subway steps.”
“Then he must be here yet,” said the policeman. “And if he is, we’ll
catch him and send him back to the zoo. If he came out of one of the
cages there he must be pretty tame, and he won’t hurt any one. Come on,
now, everybody! We’ll have a tiger hunt in the subway!”
Of course Tamba did not know what all this talk meant, but he knew
enough to guess that the policeman and the other men were trying to
capture him. So Tamba wanted to get to a better place to hide than just
behind a newspaper stand. And he was lucky enough to find it.
The lower part of the stand was hollow, like a big box. In it the
newspaper boy kept his old papers, empty candy boxes and the like, and
there was plenty of room for a tiger in there. There was a door to this
underneath place, and the door happened to be open.
Tamba saw it, saw, too, that it was dark and quiet underneath the
stand, and so he crawled in under there. A better place for a runaway
tiger could not have been found. Tamba curled softly up among some
bundles of old papers, and there he stayed while the hunt was going on.
Up and down the subway station platforms the policeman and the others
looked for the tame tiger. But they never thought of looking beneath
the hollow newspaper and candy stand, and there Tamba stayed as snugly
as you please.
“Well,” said the policeman at last to the man whose wife had screamed
so at the first sight of Tamba, “I guess you made a mistake, my friend.
You didn’t see any tiger at all. You dreamed it.”
“I’m sure I didn’t dream,” said the man. “I wasn’t asleep. I saw that
tiger come into this subway as plain as anything.”
“Well, then he must have run up the steps on the other side,” said the
policeman. “He could have done that before we got here. At any rate the
tiger is gone, and we may as well go out and look for him somewhere
else. He isn’t here!”
The excitement soon quieted down, the searchers went upstairs, and
Tamba was left to himself in his hiding place beneath the newspaper and
candy stand.
He could hear people walking up and down on the stone platform, and he
could hear them talking. They were talking about him, as it happened,
for the news of a tiger being loose somewhere in that part of the city
had spread. But Tamba, of course, did not know what the men and women
subway passengers were saying. He could hear the rumble and roar of the
subway trains, and they sounded something like the trains on which the
circus traveled from town to town. But Tamba did not come out of his
hiding place to look at them. He stayed quietly in the cubby-hole under
the stand.
[Illustration: But the man was asleep and did not see the tiger.]
After a while, as the hours passed, it became quieter in the subway.
There were fewer trains, and hardly any persons were traveling now. At
last, along about three o’clock in the morning, no trains ran at all.
The agent at the station went to sleep in his little booth, and the
newspaper boy had gone home long ago. Tamba thrust his head out of his
hiding place. He heard nothing and saw no one.
“Now is the time for me to run out and go to the salt water,” said the
tiger to himself. “This time I shall surely get back to my jungle, I
hope.”
Carefully and softly, Tamba crept along the subway platform. He passed
out of the ticket gate, right in front of the man in the little booth,
but the man was asleep and did not see the tiger.
Up the same steps down which he had run some hours before, Tamba now
crept. He reached the open air and could see the stars glittering
overhead. The night was clear and warm. Tamba liked it very much.
Eagerly he sniffed the air and he smelled salt water. He turned his
face toward the river and began to stalk slowly along. He wanted to
cross the salt water and get home to his jungle.
And as Tamba slunk along he began to remember how hungry he was. Since
leaving the circus he had not eaten very much.
“Oh, if I could have a nice, juicy piece of meat now, how good it would
taste!” thought Tamba. But of course no meat stores were open at that
hour, and, if there had been, Tamba could not have gotten any meat from
them. If the tiger had strolled, no matter how quietly and politely,
into a meat shop, men would have driven him away, or have caught him
and shut him up in a cage.
“But I do want something to eat!” sadly thought the tiger.
Just then a smell came to his nose that made him lick his lips with his
red tongue and made him sniff very hard with his black nose.
“I smell milk!” thought Tamba. “And it isn’t sour milk, either, like
that which Squinty, the comical pig, was drinking. I smell fresh milk,
and I wish I had some!”
When Tamba smelled anything good he knew how to find it, even if he
could not see it. He just had to “follow his nose” until he came to it.
All jungle animals, and even your dogs and cats, do that. So when Tamba
smelled the milk he turned his nose toward it and walked along until he
came to it. And where do you suppose it was?
Why, an early-morning milkman had left a big can of milk in front of a
grocery store, and it was this milk――some of which had slopped out from
the can――that Tamba had smelled.
“Well, here’s milk all right, that’s sure,” said Tamba to himself, as
he sniffed around the can in the doorway of the store. “But how can I
get it out? I can’t scratch or bite through this tin can. And, oh, how
hungry I am! A good, big drink of milk would make me feel much better!”
Tamba walked up and down in front of the can. It stood in the dark
corner of a sheltered doorway of a store on a main street, but at that
hour of the morning, after the milkman had passed, hardly any one was
ever out.
“I must have some of that milk!” thought the hungry Tamba. He pawed and
clawed at the can, hoping he could find some way of getting it open,
when, all of a sudden, he knocked the can right over. It fell to the
sidewalk with a clatter and a bang, and the cover came off.
Out gushed the white milk, and some of it spilled right into the big,
deep cover of the can itself. That was enough for Tamba. Here he had
the milk, in a dish all ready for him to lap it up with his red tongue,
and that is just what he did!
“My, but that’s good!” thought the tiger, as he drank all the milk out
of the can cover. “I am having better luck than at first. There is even
enough milk for that pig Squinty, if he should happen to come along.”
But of course Squinty was far away. Tamba lapped up all the milk from
the can cover, and then he saw where a little puddle had formed in
a hole in the sidewalk. Tamba took that milk, too, and then he felt
better.
“Now to go down to the salt water and find my jungle,” he said to
himself, as he licked up the last drops of milk.
So Tamba started off down the city streets once more, and because every
one was in bed and asleep no one saw him.
But there was a very much surprised store-keeper who, the next morning,
went to take in the big can of milk. It was upset and spilled.
“Ha! Some bad boys must have done this!” thought the store-keeper. “I
must tell the police!”
But wouldn’t he have opened wide his eyes in surprise if he had known a
tiger had drunk the milk, and if he had seen Tamba doing it? Perhaps it
is just as well he did not.
But Tamba never knew what a sad trick he had played on the store-keeper.
The tame tiger slunk along, coming nearer and nearer to the smell of the
salt water, and at last he came to the river itself. It really was a
river of salt water, and ran down to the big ocean. But the river was
not like those in the jungle. It had no banks of green vines, mud, and
trees. Instead, all along the river were big houses built on piers with
the water in between, and it was to one of these docks that Tamba slunk
down in the darkness.
Tied at the docks were big ships which would soon steam down the river
and cross the ocean. Tamba knew what ships were. He had come across the
ocean in one when he was brought away from the jungle.
“I think I have found the place I want at last,” said Tamba to himself,
as he walked slowly along a pier. “It is the place of the salt water
where I landed when I first came to this country. Now I have only to go
back the other way and I’ll be at my jungle. And how glad I shall be!
Now I will find a good place to hide until morning, and then I’ll see
what is best to do. I am tired now, but I had a good drink of milk and
I can sleep.”
So Tamba found a quiet hiding place on the ship dock and went to sleep.
CHAPTER XI
TAMBA ON THE SHIP
The sun was brightly shining when Tamba, the tame tiger, awakened in
his bed at the dock. I call it a “bed” for he had snuggled down on a
pile of bags between some boxes and bales, and this is as good a bed as
ever a tiger asks for. Often they are glad enough to sleep on the bare
boards of the circus cages, and even in their jungle caves they never
have more than a pile of dried leaves or grass.
Tamba could look out through the cracks between the boxes and bales and
see the yellow sunshine on the dock. The sunshine made yellow stripes,
almost the color of Tamba’s tawny coat. He could feel the soft, warm
wind blowing in on him, and he could also smell the salt water.
“I am in the right place at last,” thought Tamba. “But I must be
careful. I do not want to be caught when I am so near my jungle.”
You see Tamba did not know just how far it was down the big salt river
and across the big, salt ocean to his jungle home. All he knew was
that the salt water here smelled just as the salt water had smelled
when he was put on the ship, to be brought away from his home in India.
And there were ships at the dock. Tamba could see them, but he knew
better than to run out now and get on board one. For, now that it was
daylight, there were many men on the dock. They were driving their
wagons and drays about, laden as they were with things to go on board
the ships, and Tamba knew that if he ran out, in plain sight of these
men, some of them would chase him, and, perhaps, catch him.
“So I’ll just stay hidden here until it gets dark again,” thought Tamba
to himself. “Then I’ll go on one of those big floating houses, which
Tum Tum says are called ships, and I’ll get back to my jungle. If I
wait until night no one will see me, and then they can’t catch me to
send me back to the circus.”
So Tamba curled up in his snug little nest among the boxes and barrels
on the pier, and remained hidden. Of course if men had come to take
away those particular boxes they would have found Tamba, but, as it
happened, they did not, and so he was safe.
After a while, though, Tamba began to feel hungry. Milk for a tiger,
even though it happened to be the full top of a can, is not enough. He
must have meat, and meat was what Tamba wanted just then. He sniffed
and smelled around among the boxes and bales which formed his nest, but
no meat smell came to his nose. If one of the boxes had happened to
have meat in it, perhaps Tamba might have clawed it open and gotten a
meal. But, as it was, there was nothing for him to eat.
“Never mind,” he thought to himself; “perhaps to-night, when I get on
the ship, I can find something good to eat.”
But Tamba was to have something before then. About noon the dock on the
edge of the salty river, where many ships were tied, became a very busy
place. Though Tamba did not know it, the ships were being loaded with
things to be taken across the sea and sold.
The dock was crowded with wagons, horses, automobiles and men, all
being driven or hurrying to and fro, to get the big ships ready to
sail. For there were two ships in this dock, one on either side of the
pier, and Tamba was in a place called a warehouse, in between the two
vessels.
So, as I say, the dock and warehouse was a very busy place at noon. And
as men must eat, as well as tigers, when the twelve o’clock whistles
blew some of the drivers tied their horses wherever they happened to
be, put nose-bags of oats on the horses’ necks, and then the men went
to get their own dinners.
Now, as it happened, a wagon, with a load of meat on it, was stopped by
its driver near Tamba’s place. The end of the wagon, which was filled
with big pieces of beef, pork, and mutton, was near the hole among the
boxes where the tiger was hiding. And of course Tamba could easily
smell this meat. In fact, the smell of it awakened him from a little
sleep into which he had fallen.
“Ha! What’s that?” asked the tiger of himself, as he opened his eyes.
He sniffed harder. The meat smell became plainer. Then he looked up.
Right over his head was the end of a big wagon, where the man driving
it had backed it to get it out of the way while he fed his horses and
went to get his own dinner. And on the end of the wagon was some nice,
juicy meat, just the kind Tamba had been fed in the circus. Only there
was more meat than Tamba had ever seen at one time before.
The meat, as I suppose you have guessed, was to be put on board one of
the ships to feed the passengers and crew on its journey over the salty
sea. Of course Tamba did not know that. All he knew was that he felt
very hungry, and that here was meat.
“Well, it was very kind of some one to bring me so much meat,” thought
the tiger to himself. “I’m sure I’m much obliged to them. And they
left me to myself to eat it, too. They didn’t stay to stare and watch
me, as the folks do in the circus. This is very nice.”
So Tamba rose up on his hind legs, and, hidden as he was in his snug
nest, where no one saw him, and with the end of the meat wagon so
easily within reach, the tame tiger made a good meal. Of course he
chewed the ends off several nice pieces of meat that were meant to go
on board the ship, but it did not completely spoil them, and, after
all, the tame tiger was very hungry.
“My, but this tastes good!” thought the tiger, as he took bite after
bite of juicy beef. “This is even better than the circus. I can have as
much as I want, and there are no bones to hurt my teeth. Of course I
like to gnaw a bone now and then, but when I am as hungry as I am now I
want just plain chunks of meat.”
And Tamba had all he wanted. He just stood there and ate and ate from
the back of the wagon, and then, licking his jaws to make them clean,
he curled up in his nest again, and went to sleep once more.
And when the man came back, after having had his lunch, to take the
oat-bags from the heads of his horses, he was in such a hurry to get
his wagon unloaded, was this man, that he never noticed where Tamba had
chewed the meat.
And it was not until some days later, when the butcher on the ship was
cutting up the meat, that it was noticed that some of the pieces were
chewed as if by some animal.
“I guess the dock rats did it,” said the ship butcher. And he never
knew it was Tamba, any more than the grocer knew it was a tiger that
had tipped over his can of milk.
After his good meal Tamba had a fine sleep, and it was quite dark when
he awoke again. He peered out from between the boxes, barrels and
bales, and he saw that there were no men, horses or drays at the dock.
It was deserted and quiet. But, over at one side, Tamba could still see
the ships, or “floating houses,” as he called them.
“Now if I can get on one of those ships I’ll soon be back at my
jungle,” thought Tamba to himself. “But I wonder which one to go on?”
Carefully and quietly he slunk out of his hiding place. He walked along
until he came to where a sort of bridge, which is called a gangplank,
led up to the deck of the ship. Here Tamba smelled a smell that he very
well knew. It was a tiger smell――the smell of a wild beast.
“Ha! If there have been wild jungle animals here, this is the very ship
I want to go on,” thought Tamba. “This must have come from jungle-land.
At no other place can I smell the wild animal smell. This is the ship
for me! I’ll get on, hide away, and have a nice ride back to my
jungle.”
So, seeing no one about, Tamba walked softly up the plank, and stepped
softly to the deck of the big ship. And he managed to crawl down into a
hole without any one seeing him. Down in a hole, among some boxes and
barrels, just like those on the dock, Tamba hid himself.
“Now for my jungle!” he said to himself as he curled up.
CHAPTER XII
TAMBA IN THE JUNGLE
Tamba, the tame tiger, had hidden himself away in the dark part of the
ship called the “hold.” It was there that the cargo was stored――the
place where boxes, barrels, and big wooden cases of things sent across
the ocean were kept from the time the ship left one dock, until it came
to another to unload.
So Tamba had gone softly up the gangplank in the soft darkness of the
night from the pier, he had dropped to the deck of the ship, and had
crawled down what is called a “hatchway” into a hold. And there he hid.
And I must tell you how it happened that Tamba smelled the wild animal
odor on one ship, and not on another.
It was because this ship had, a week or so before, brought from India
and Africa a cargo of wild animals for a circus. There had been lions
and tigers and elephants and snakes on the ship, and even though they
had been taken off when the ship reached New York, some of the smell
remained. And it was this which Tamba smelled, and which made him feel
sure that this was a jungle-ship, or one that would take him back to
his Indian home.
All through the night Tamba slept in the hold of the ship, among the
boxes and the barrels, as he had slept on the dock. When he awoke he
could see a little sunshine streaming through a crack, and he knew
another day had come.
Just then he felt a queer motion. It was as if the whole ship, and
he himself in it, had been moved along. And that is just what was
happening. The ship was moving away from the dock, getting ready for
the voyage across the ocean. Tamba knew what the motion meant. He had
felt it before on his first sea voyage, when he had been brought away
from the jungle.
“Well, at last I’m on my way back to the jungle,” thought Tamba. “It’s
lucky I found this ship.”
And, indeed, Tamba was lucky in more ways than one.
But, with all that, Tamba did not have a very good time on board the
ship. In the first place he knew he had to stay in hiding, if he did
not want to be seen, and, perhaps, shut up in a cage again, or, for all
he knew, be sent back to the circus. The tame tiger could not go out
on deck, as the passengers did, and breathe the fresh air and see the
sunshine. Poor Tamba had to stay down in the dark hold, hiding among
the boxes and barrels.
And another thing was that he was hungry. After the first day when the
ship was at sea, the tiger began to want more meat. Even though he had
taken a good meal from the pile of beef on the wagon, that could not
last very long.
So, after the second night Tamba began to prowl about in the hold of
the ship, looking for something to eat. He caught some big rats and ate
them, and if the men who owned the ship had known that they would have
been glad. For rats on ships do much damage, and eat some of the cargo.
So Tamba ate the rats, but they were hardly enough. He wanted more.
Then, one day he got a meal very unexpectedly. One of the sailors, who,
perhaps, was as hungry as Tamba, took a big piece of meat from the
“galley,” as the kitchen on a ship is called. And the sailor, who had
no right to take this meat, stole away to eat it all by himself, so the
cook wouldn’t see him and scold him.
And, as it happened, the sailor picked out the same hold in which Tamba
was hiding to come to eat his bit of meat which had been taken from the
galley.
Now Tamba was very hungry just about that time, and when the sailor
happened to sit down on a barrel, behind which Tamba was hiding, and
began to eat the meat, the tame tiger smelled it. The tiger very much
wanted some for himself.
Tamba peered out and saw the sailor sitting with the big chunk of
cooked meat on the barrel beside him.
“That’s more than he needs,” thought Tamba, after the sailor had eaten
a bit. “I’ll take the rest. I don’t believe he’ll mind.”
So Tamba reached up his paw, hooked his sharp claws into the meat, and
pulled it down toward his hungry mouth. The sailor turned just in time
to see his meat sliding off the barrel.
“Here! Come back with that!” he yelled. “Sure, the rats are getting
very bold when they reach up and take your meat that way! Come back
with it!”
The sailor leaned over the edge of the barrel, really thinking some
bold rat had taken his meat, and then the sailor saw Tiger Tamba, with
his glittering, green eyes, hiding down in the snug nest, chewing the
meat.
“Oh, my! Oh, what do I see!” cried the frightened sailor. “Oh, ’tis a
live tiger! Well, it serves me right for taking meat I’d no business to
take! Oh, the tiger! The tiger!” and, shouting and yelling in fright,
the sailor ran up on deck and never went down there again.
He did not dare tell the other sailors what he had seen, for then he
would have had to tell about taking the meat, and he did not want to do
this.
As no one but the frightened sailor knew that Tamba was on the ship,
and this sailor was not quite sure himself, Tamba was not found out.
The chunk of meat he took away from the sailor was rather large, and it
saved Tamba from actually starving, though he was pretty hungry before
the ship got across the ocean. But he managed to catch some big rats
every day, and this helped out.
Aside from this, and the trick he played on the sailor, Tamba did not
have many adventures on the ship. He had to keep pretty closely to the
dark hold, not daring to come out.
Then one day the pitching and tossing came to an end. The ship reached
the end of her voyage and was tied up at a dock, this time in far-off
India. Tamba was very lucky that he had gotten on a vessel that took
him right back to his own jungle-land, though he was still many miles
from the place of the trees and tangled vines.
The night after the ship was tied up at the dock in India, Tamba
watched his chance, and, when it was dark and quiet, he slipped up
on deck from the dark hold, and looked about. He could see trees and
houses, but there were not so many houses as in New York, and there
were more trees. The air, too, had a different smell. It had more the
smell of the jungle, and as Tamba sniffed it he said:
“My home can not be so very far away now. I will run down off this ship
and find my jungle, and also my father and mother and my sister and
brother. Then I shall be happy. No more circus for me!”
So down the same gangplank up which he had walked from the dock in New
York, Tamba ran, and soon he was on the Indian wharf. There were boxes
and barrels there, too, but Tamba did not stop to find a hiding place.
He wanted to run off to the jungle as soon as he could.
The tiger was hungry, so he sniffed about until he found a place where
the ship’s cook had thrown overboard, on the dock, some scraps of meat
to some hungry dogs. The dogs had not eaten it all, and there was a
little left for Tamba. Then, when he had found a drink of water at a
fountain in a street near the dock, Tamba was ready to set off on his
journey to find his former jungle home.
It was a warm, Indian night. There was no moon, and as there were not
many lights near the dock, Tamba was not seen as he slunk off the ship
and began to travel. He sniffed the warm, moist air, and it reminded
him of his jungle home. He remembered it from the time when he had been
a little, baby tiger.
[Illustration: Tamba ran and soon he was on the Indian wharf.]
“Ah, that is good!” thought Tamba. “It was nice in the circus, and I
had many good friends――Tum Tum, Dido, Chunky, the happy hippo, and
Nero. And I met many good friends after I ran away――even Squinty was
kind after he found I did not hurt him. But still I will like best to
get back to my jungle.”
So Tamba traveled on through the dark night, getting farther and
farther away from the city where the ship had docked. Strange as it may
seem, Tamba had made the trip all the way across the ocean himself. It
was a great thing for a tiger to do, I think.
Now he was in India, and that country has not so many large cities, nor
were they as close together as in the United States, where Tamba had
been in the circus. So, soon after leaving the dock, the tame tiger
found himself out in the wild country. And it was not so far away to
the jungle, though the jungle, where Tamba had formerly lived, was
still many miles off.
“But at last I am free, I am not in the circus, and I am out in the hot
country that I love,” thought Tamba, as he slunk along under the trees
and bushes. “Now all that I have to do is to find the right jungle. I
can eat and drink now when I please. I shall not have to take chunks
of meat away from sailors, nor catch rats.”
In this Tamba was right. All about him, in the woods, were plenty of
small animals on which he could feed. And there were pools of water
here and there where he could drink. It was not like being cooped up in
the hold of a ship, nor even like being in a circus cage. Tamba liked
very much to be free so he could wander where he wished.
He traveled on and on for many nights, hiding in the day-time when he
came to a city or village, but slinking along through the tall grass,
or among the trees, when he came to the open country. He grew sleek and
fat, for he had plenty to eat. Then, too, he met other tigers and some
lions as well as a few elephants.
All these animals he asked where his former jungle cave was, but none
of them could tell him. They did not know Tamba’s father or mother, nor
had they ever seen his sister or brother.
For many miles Tamba roamed over India, looking for his old home. He
began to think he would never find it, and he was getting lonesome and
homesick when, one evening, he came to the edge of a deep wood. He
crossed a field of tall dried grass to reach the trees. He was on the
edge of a deep, dense jungle, and, somehow, as he sniffed the air, to
make sure there were no hunters about, and no wild beasts that might do
him harm――somehow, Tamba felt that he had been near this same jungle
forest once before.
“But it was many years ago,” he thought. “I wonder if there is any one
here who would know where my father and mother are.”
Slowly he crossed through the dried grass and reached the woods. In
front of him he saw a cave, and, at the sight of it, Tamba’s heart
began to beat faster. He had a strange feeling.
Out in front of the cave walked a big tiger――a man tiger. He paced
slowly up and down, and, after a while, a tigress came out to keep him
company. Tamba looked past the cave and saw, tumbling about in the
dried leaves of the jungle, a boy and a girl tiger. Then he heard the
tigress say:
“Well, our children are growing up. Soon they will go away from our
jungle cave.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said the larger man tiger, and Tamba thought the
old tiger’s voice was sad.
“Yes, they will go away,” went on the tigress. “They will leave us as
Tamba did!”
“Tamba!” thought the surprised circus tiger to himself. “She knows my
name!”
“Oh, but Tamba did not go away,” said the old man tiger. “He was
caught in a trap. Well do I remember that night! We have never seen him
since.”
“No; and I don’t suppose we ever shall,” said the tigress, and she,
too, spoke sadly. “I would give a great deal if I could only see my
little Tamba again.”
At that Tamba could wait no longer. Trembling with eagerness he leaped
through the grass, and landed in front of the cave, right between the
other tigers.
“Ha! What is this? Who is this strange tiger?” asked the old one.
“Yes, who are you, and what do you want?” asked the tigress. “If you
came to play with our boy and girl, there they are rolling in the
grass. But you should not pounce in like that. It isn’t very nice and――”
“Mother! Don’t you know me?” cried Tamba, in tiger talk, of course.
“Why, I’m your own little boy tiger who was trapped and taken away long
ago! I have been in a circus ever since, until I ran away, got on a
ship, and came back to my jungle. Here I am! Don’t you know me, Father?”
The old tiger opened wide his eyes and peered at the younger one.
“Why――why――it is Tamba!” he growled. “Look, Mother, our tiger cub has
come back to us, almost full grown! Oh, what a fine tiger he is!
Here!” he called to Tamba’s brother and sister. “Here is Tamba come
back! Oh, how glad I am!”
“And so am I!” cried Tamba’s mother, as she purred and rubbed him with
her paw. “Oh, to think of having you back again after all these years!
I am so glad!”
“And I am glad to get back!” said Tamba. “I had a lot of adventures
before I got here, though.”
“Oh, do tell us about them!” purred Tamba’s sister. “I love to hear
adventure stories.”
“So do I,” said Tamba’s brother. “Tell us about the circus.”
“First, let him have something to eat,” suggested Tamba’s mother. “You
are hungry, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Indeed I am,” said Tamba.
Then they brought him a big chunk of meat from the cave, and when he
had eaten that and had taken a drink from the pool Tamba sat down and
began his story.
“I have been in many places,” he said, “but, most of all, I like to be
back in the jungle. I am never going away again!”
“And to think you found us again, after all these years!” said his
mother.
“I think it is wonderful!” added his sister.
“Very clever, I call it,” said his father, sort of laughing.
“Oh, let Tamba tell his adventures,” begged his brother.
So Tamba told them, just as I have written them here in this book. He
told about the circus, about how Squinty splashed whitewash on him, and
everything; and, my! the other jungle tigers laughed at the funny pig’s
trick.
It was late that night when Tamba had finished the story of his
adventures, and then, having eaten some more, he was given a bed on the
dried leaves in the cave, where he curled up with his father and mother
and sister and brother.
“Tamba,” asked his sister softly, as she reached over in the darkness
and touched him with her paw, “do you think I would like it in a
circus?”
“No!” said Tamba. “You had better stay at home in the jungle. There is
no place like it. I am glad to get back!”
And then he went to sleep.
THE END
STORIES FOR CHILDREN
(From four to nine years old)
THE KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES
BY RICHARD BARNUM
[Illustration]
In all nursery literature animals have played a conspicuous part; and
the reason is obvious for nothing entertains a child more than the
antics of an animal. These stories abound in amusing incidents such as
children adore and the characters are so full of life, so appealing to
a child’s imagination, that none will be satisfied until they have met
all of their favorites――Squinty, Slicko, Mappo, Tum Tum, etc.
1 SQUINTY, THE COMICAL PIG.
2 SLICKO, THE JUMPING SQUIRREL.
3 MAPPO, THE MERRY MONKEY.
4 TUM TUM, THE JOLLY ELEPHANT.
5 DON, A RUNAWAY DOG.
6 DIDO, THE DANCING BEAR.
7 BLACKIE, A LOST CAT.
8 FLOP EAR, THE FUNNY RABBIT.
9 TINKLE, THE TRICK PONY.
10 LIGHTFOOT, THE LEAPING GOAT.
11 CHUNKY, THE HAPPY HIPPO.
12 SHARP EYES, THE SILVER FOX.
13 NERO, THE CIRCUS LION.
14 TAMBA, THE TAME TIGER.
_Cloth, Large 12mo, Illustrated, Per vol. 60 cents_
For sale at all bookstores or sent (postage paid) on receipt of price
by the publishers.
BARSE & HOPKINS
Publishers 28 West 23rd Street New York
Transcriber’s Notes:
――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Tamba, the Tame Tiger - His Many Adventures" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.