CHAPTER XII

CHUNKY AND THE LITTLE GIRL

Chunky liked it very much in the park menagerie. He could do almost as he pleased. There was water always ready for him to swim in, and on cold days in winter it was made warm for him.

Chunky had all he wanted to eat, and, though it was not quite the same as he had had in the jungle, it was very nice and good for him. He could not go down to the bottom of his tank and dig up grass or lily roots, but one can’t have everything.

Though it had been quite jolly in the circus, Chunky liked it rather better in the park menagerie. For he did not have to be carted from city to city each night. The park stayed in one place, and the circus moved about nearly every day.

Nor was Chunky lonesome in the park, though there were not so many animals near him as there had been in the circus. But across from him were the elephants, in great big cages with iron bars in front, and next to him was a rhinoceros, almost like the one in the circus.

Chunky made friends with these animals, and often, even when crowds came in to see them, he and his friends could talk together in their own way.

Don, the runaway dog, about whom a book has been written, often came to the park, and he never failed to pay a visit to Chunky, slipping in between the bars of the hippo’s cage, and lying down on a pile of hay to talk.

“Did you ever live in the jungle?” asked Chunky of Don one day.

“Not that I remember,” Don answered. “I have lived in different places though, and once I caught Squinty, the comical pig, when he got out of his pen. Did you ever meet Squinty?”

“I don’t believe I did,” said Chunky. “He didn’t live in the jungle, did he?”

“No. In a pen. But he got out, and I had to lead him back by the ear. And did you ever meet my friend Blackie, the lost cat, or Flop Ear, the funny rabbit?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I did,” answered Chunky.

“Or did you ever know Lightfoot, the leaping goat, or Tinkle, the trick pony?” asked Don.

“Never,” answered Chunky.

“Well, you may. They’ve had lots of adventures, and books have been written about them,” went on Don. “If I meet Blackie or Tinkle on my way home, I’ll tell them to stop in to see you.”

“Do, please,” begged Chunky. “But where do you live, if you don’t come from the jungle?”

“Oh, I live in a house in this big city, not far from this park,” said Don. “I belong to a little girl who pats me and is very kind to me. She gives me nice things to eat.”

“I’d like to see her,” remarked Chunky. “I love children. Does she ever come to the park?”

“Oh, yes, when her mother or father brings her. She is too little to come alone. Some day when she comes I’ll walk along with her, and then I can tell you who she is. I’ll come into your cage and tell you.”

“All right,” said Chunky. “I’d like to see the little girl.” And he was going to, soon, in a queer way.

For some time Chunky lived in his cage in the park. Sometimes he thought of the jungle he had been taken away from, and he wondered what his brother and sister were doing――whether they were playing water-tag in the muddy river or sleeping in the soft grass.

Back in the African forest Mr. and Mrs. Hippo had given up thinking about Chunky. If they ever remembered him at all, it was only for a moment, to wonder what had happened to him that he did not come home the last time he went away. But they thought he had been killed by some other animal, or perhaps by the black or white hunters, and they knew it was of no use to try to find the happy hippo.

One day, just after Chunky had finished doing his trick of catching some loaves of bread tossed into his mouth by his keeper, the hippo heard a voice saying in animal talk:

“Well, Chunky, to-morrow I will bring my little girl mistress to see you,” and in ran Don, the dog.

“Will you, really? That will be fine!” said Chunky. “I’ll be glad to see any friend of yours.”

Then he opened his mouth wide, as the keeper told him to, and all the people laughed.

The next afternoon, as Chunky was about to go into his tank to have a cool swim, for the day was hot, he saw Don run in between the bars of the cage. The dog said:

“Here comes my little girl. I’ll bark three times when she gets right in front of you, so you’ll know which one is she. And do some of your tricks for her, please.”

“I’ll do them all except stand on three legs,” promised Chunky. “I’m too fat for that.”

“Thank you; that will be all right,” said Don.

Pretty soon a little girl, wearing a blue dress, and holding her father’s hand, came and stood in front of the hippo cage where Don was. The dog had run on ahead to tell Chunky who was coming. Don barked three times, as he had said he would, then he said:

“Do some nice tricks for my little girl!”

“I will,” said Chunky.

Then the hippo caught loaves of bread in his mouth, and opened his jaws as wide as he could. He even rolled over on the floor of his cage, but it was hard work, as he was very fat.

“Oh, Daddy! look at the funny hippo!” cried the little girl. “Isn’t he happy looking?”

“Well, yes, I guess you could call him happy when he smiles in such a broad grin,” answered her father. “He looks very jolly.”

Chunky liked so much the nice way the little girl laughed that he tried to do for her the trick of standing on three legs and lifting the other up in the air. But he could not, as he was too fat and heavy.

“I like that hippo,” said the little girl.

Of course Chunky could not understand just what she said, but he could tell, by the way she talked, that the little girl liked his tricks.

“I’ll do another one for her,” said the happy hippo to Don. “I’ll go in the water and roll over and over like a tub. Maybe she’ll like that.”

“I’m sure she will,” said Don.

So, down into the tank of water walked Chunky. The little girl had never seen anything like this before, and, very much excited, she let go of her father’s hand and cried:

“Oh, Daddy, he’ll be drowned!”

“No; hippos can stay under water a long time,” said her father, for by this time Chunky was out of sight. The waters had closed over his broad, flat back.

“Oh, he’s gone! My nice, happy hippo is gone!” cried the little girl, and before her father, or anyone else, could stop her, she ran right in between the bars of the cage toward the tank.

“Come back, Alice!” cried her father.

“Bow-wow!” barked Don, and that was his way of saying the same thing.

But the little girl did not come back. On she ran, right into Chunky’s cage, and her father was too big to squeeze in between the bars after her. Don ran in, though.

All at once the little girl stumbled and fell, right over the edge of the tank, into the water.

“Oh! Oh, my!” cried all the people.

Don the dog saw what had happened, and, while Alice’s father was trying to get the keeper to open the door of Chunky’s cage, so they could go in and get the little girl, Don was barking:

“Don’t hurt my little girl, Chunky! Don’t hurt her!”

This kind of talk――being animal language――Chunky could understand. Down under the water he had heard the splash as Alice fell in, and then he saw the little girl sinking down near him.

“This is no place for her!” quickly thought Chunky. “She is not a fish to live in the water. I must help her out.”

Then the hippo sank away down in the water and got under the little girl, so that she floated right on his broad back. And when Alice was there, gasping and choking and grabbing Chunky by the ears, up rose the hippo, and there was Alice safe and sound, but very wet, of course, on Chunky’s broad back, under water no longer.

“Oh, look!” cried all the people.

“Your little girl is safe,” said the keeper, who opened the door of the cage. “The hippo has her on his back.”

Then, with Alice on his back, Chunky swam to the side of the pool, and there her father and the keeper lifted her off, Don taking hold of her dress as if he were helping also. And how Don did bark! But he was happy.

“I knew you wouldn’t let my little girl get hurt,” he said.

“Of course not!” grunted Chunky. “I came to the top as soon as I got her on my back, for I knew she couldn’t stay as long under water without breathing as I can.”

Alice was very much frightened, and she cried. She was wet, too, but not hurt a bit, and her father called an automobile and took her home with Don.

“I’ll come and see you to-morrow and let you know how she is,” the dog promised the happy hippo.

“I wish you would,” said Chunky.

And Don did. Alice was all right as soon as she got on dry clothes, the dog said, and she promised never again to run up to a tank of water to see what was happening to a hippo.

What Chunky did――saving Alice from drowning in the pool――became known to many people who went to the park, and there was even something in the papers about it. It made quite a hero of Chunky, though of course he did not know that. All he knew was that crowds of people came to see him, and his keepers were good and kind to him.

So Chunky lived in the park menagerie for many years. He did his tricks and was glad to have the boys and girls come to look at him.

“It is much better, after all, than the jungle,” he said to one of the elephants.

“Yes, we like it better than the jungle,” said the biggest elephant. “I was in a circus once.”

“So was I,” said Chunky. “I liked it, but it’s nicer not to have to travel at night. I can sleep better here.”

Then, having had a good meal of carrots, he lay down in the hay and went to sleep.

Chunky had many more adventures, but this book is full enough of them, I think. And I want to write another for you. It will be about a fox, and the name of it will be “Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox. His Many Adventures.”

Chunky grunted in his sleep, and talked something in animal language.

“What did I say?” he asked the elephant who told him about it afterward.

“You said: ‘Now you stop pushing, Bumpy.’”

“I guess I was dreaming about my brother in the jungle,” said Chunky.

And so we will let him dream on, and say good-bye to him.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes:

――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

――Printer’s, punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

End of Project Gutenberg's Chunky, the Happy Hippo, by Richard Barnum