Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1919 — HE WENT TOO FAR [ARTICLE]

HE WENT TOO FAR

7 Baby Elephant Suffered for His Mischievous Prank. Trlok Yhat Wat Too Much for Mother's Patience to Endure Rewarded by the Equivalent to a Sound Spanking.

In a recent exchange It it stated that elephants are amazingly like human beings in the way they discipline their young. In proof, it tells an amusing incident seen by a French traveler in an extensive lumber yard in Burma. While the adult elephants were faithfully at work the youngsters played about the yard. The elephant that attracted the traveler’s particular attention was hauling, in her chain harness, huge tree trunks from the bank of the river. She had a heavy load, a fact that her offspring did not realize. Bent on playing a prank, he wound, his little trunk around one of the chain traces and pulled back with all his strength. Conscious of the,suddenly increased weight, the mother’stopped and looked around. She saw the youngster and shook her head solemnly, but, paying no further heed to his teasing, bent again to her work. Meanwhile the little rascal with his mischievous trunk had loosened the ring that fastened the traces to the load. While the mother was straining to set her burden in motion again, her rascally son pulled with all his might against her, and pulled so sturdily that she was quite unaware that she had been disconnected from her load. Then, suddenly, the youngster let go. Naturally enough, the mother was thrown to her knees and her driver hurled in a wide circle from her back.

The culprit sought a huge wood-pile that seamed to offer him at least a temporary protection. His mother, with her iron harness clanging noisily behind her, kept close at his heels. Although the little one’s greater agility gained some space for him at the corners, his mother eventually overtook him. The first blow of hea. trunk drew from him a bawl of pain. At the second he sank, quite humbled, to his knees; and then he endured without a murmur, although with many tears, a sound thrashing. Finally the mother let him up. With tears still streaming and with drooping trunk he took his disconsolate way out. of the yard. The little fellow had won the complete sympathy of the, observer. Consequently he was overjoyed to witness during the noon hour a touching reconciliation. The mother did all she could to comfort the penitent little sinner; she caressed him with her trunk, cuddled him up against her, and looked at him as if to say “You still have a mother who loves you.’’ —Our •Dumb Animals.