by Jon Scieszka
“This sounds like hell!” my friends would tell me, when I got back to the States.
Hell, no. On the contrary, for me, it was heaven.
A JUMBO STORY
BY CANDACE FLEMING
On a warm, September night in 1885, the usually quiet town of St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, teemed with people. Folks had come from miles around—by streetcar and carriage, on horseback and on foot—to see the Barnum, Bailey, and Hutchinson Circus. For days now, every fence, tree, lamppost, and barn door had been plastered with brightly colored posters promising wondrous sights: “Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy . . . the Roman Hippodrome of Glorious Races . . . Nubian Warriors . . . the Bearded Lady . . . Clowns . . . Trapeze Artists . . . Mademoiselle Zarah the Tightrope Walker . . . Hagenbeck’s Man-Eating Cats of Africa . . . Cinderella’s Fairy Chariot . . . and more.”
Despite these marvels, top billing went to the circus’s biggest star—Jumbo. “He is the biggest elephant in or out of captivity,” blared the posters. “A Towering Monarch of His Mighty Race . . . Prodigious Mountain . . . Dazzling Jumbo!”
Those swarming to the circus that night buzzed with excitement about the elephant.
“He is all I want to see,” admitted one circus goer.
“[He] is the reason I am here,” confessed another.
“Oh,” begged a third, “let me see Jumbo!”
Just hours earlier, circus workers had erected “a great city of tents . . . 326,000 yards of canvas” on an empty lot near the edge of town. Now, as the crowds drew near, they heard the wheezing tune of a steam calliope. Lions roared. Elephants trumpeted. The smell of sawdust mingled with the scent of animal manure and roasted peanuts.
“Step up! Step up!” called the ticket seller.
And people did. Reaching into their pockets, they dug out the fifty-cent admission. Then, tickets in hand, they wandered the midway before the performance. Many headed to the menagerie tent, where the circus animals waited for their moment in the spotlight. “Big cats and bears loung[ed] in cages,” recalled one visitor, “llamas and giraffes fidget[ed] nearby.” An elephant dipped its trunk into a trough of water. Was that Jumbo?
The animal keeper laughed. “Once you’ve seen our mighty behemoth, you will never again mistake these puny elephants for him,” he said. “Jumbo is a gargantuan.”
Leaving the menagerie, some visitors browsed the souvenir booth. Here they could choose from a vast assortment of mementos: circus programs, postcards, rubber clown noses. But the most popular items were all Jumbo-shaped: mugs, thimbles, paperweights, and coin banks. “Everyone wanted a remembrance of him,” recalled the souvenir peddler.
While some shopped, others moved toward the sideshow tent. Digging another dime from their pockets, they pushed back the tent’s flap and stepped into the shadowy darkness. Here, on the wooden stage, performed some of Barnum, Bailey, and Hutchinson’s most famous sideshow acts: Captain George Costentenus, who was covered head to toe with tattoos—388 designs in all; Lucia Zarate, “the tiny woman,” standing just twenty inches tall and weighing a mere five pounds; and English Jack, who made onlookers gasp and gag by gulping down a wiggling meal of live frogs. (Once backstage, he regurgitated the frogs that were, according to all accounts, stunned but unhurt.) It was fine entertainment. “But when shall we see Jumbo?” begged a little girl.
At last the lively strains of a brass band were heard coming from the main tent. This was the signal that the show was about to start. Following the crush, visitors found their seats beneath the big top. They leaned forward expectantly.
At exactly eight o’clock, the time when all evening performances began, there came another blast from the band.
The tent lights snapped off.
A spotlight snapped on.
The ringmaster stepped into the center ring. “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, meet the most remarkable performers in the universe!”
Then . . .
“Prancing horses, tumbling clowns, bejeweled camels, elephants swaying to and fro, men and women in tights and spangles and breastplates of shining gold and steel paraded around and around in a heart-pounding display of pageantry,” recalled one circus goer. “The magical beauty of it all brought tears to my eyes.”
But the audience still had not seen the circus’s biggest star.
Where was Jumbo?
The elephant that would become a star was born somewhere in the remote foothills of the Sudan. Snatched from his mother in 1861 by a tribe of hunters, the baby elephant was sold to a so-called “animal collector,” who in turn sold him to a zoo in Paris, France. Keepers there dreamed of building an exhibit around an African elephant. While many zoos included Asian elephants as part of their exhibits, African elephants were a rarity—only two existed on the entire European continent, and none could be found in the United States. Such an unusual creature, Paris zookeepers believed, would draw huge crowds to their park.
But the baby elephant was a disappointment. Small for his age and sickly, he spent most of his time cowering in the stables. “The elephant is nothing but a malnourished runt,” declared the superintendent. Frustrated, the zoo’s officials gave up on their dream. In June 1865 they approached the Royal Zoological Gardens in London. Would they like to own a young, African elephant?
London officials leaped at the chance. They quickly agreed to trade one rhinoceros, two dingoes, a black-backed jackal, a pair of wedge-tailed eagles, a possum, and a kangaroo in exchange for the four-year-old elephant. They made this deal without seeing the animal first.
Just two weeks later, on a cloudy morning in late June, a short, muscular man sporting a bushy mustache and a tight-fitting bowler hat stepped off the train at a French railroad station.
A representative from the Paris zoo asked if he was Monsieur Scott.
The man in the bowler hat said yes, then added, “I have come for the elephant.”
An assistant keeper at the London zoo, Matthew Scott had been given the job of accompanying the elephant to his new home. Chosen because of his gentleness and empathy, Scott was obsessively devoted to the animals in his care. He spent long hours, day and night, petting and talking to them. Because his animals came first, Scott had no family and few friends. “If I had not sacrificed a little comfort,” he once explained, “and taken the trouble to care for them to my best and constant ability, they would not have had confidence in me. Nor would I have learned their ways. It is a fact that you cannot love, or have the affection of any . . . animal without attending diligently to its wants.” This close, constant contact with the animals gave Scott an insight into their behavior that other keepers lacked. “He claimed he could talk to the animals,” remarked one zoo official. “Ridiculous, of course, although he did have an uncanny ability to figure out what ailed a creature.”
It didn’t take much to see what ailed the little bull elephant the Paris representative now handed over. Bone thin and filthy, the animal limped painfully because his toenails had been allowed to grow too long. Sores covered his skin, and yellow pus oozed from the corners of his infected eyes. “I never saw a creature so woebegone,” said Scott. A wave of pity swept over the keeper. Right then and there, he vowed to make things right for the elephant. “I undertook to be his doctor, his nurse, and his general servant.”
Keeper and elephant took a train to the French coast, a boat across the English Channel, and another train to Waterloo station. Then together they walked through the streets of London to the zoo, the little elephant hobbling along on his sore feet. History does not record what citizens thought of the animal. But at just five feet tall and four hundred pounds, the skinny, miserable creature was hardly a majestic sight.
Scott, however, already doted on his charge. After arriving at the zoo, he tucked the animal into a “comfortable, clean bed” in the newly built “elephant stable.” The scared little animal did not sleep alone. Bedded down nearby was his keeper and new best friend, Matthew Scott. “His trunk groped for my hand,” recalled Scott. “U
nder a spell of warmth and companionship, we slept.”
While the two settled in, zoo officials pondered what to name their new elephant. They eventually decided on Jumbo, although no one knows why. Jumbo was not a word in the English language at that time. Most historians think it came from mumbo jumbo, a West African term that had been adopted by the English meaning “superstitious nonsense.”
For the next several months Scott nursed Jumbo back to health, refusing to leave his side for more than a few minutes. “I watched him night and day,” said Scott, “with all the care and affection of a mother . . . I took all the [infection] from his almost blinded eyes. I [healed] his scabs as cleanly as a man takes off an overcoat; and his skin was as fine as that of a horse just from the clipper’s, after the hair had been cut off.” He “scraped and rasped” Jumbo’s rotten feet to return them to their normal shape, coddled him, and scratched behind his ears. And he led him down to the nearby River Thames to play. Sucking up the water into his trunk, the elephant would playfully shoot it at his keeper. “I got all the shower,” recalled Scott, “without the ability to return the kindness. I couldn’t do more than splash a bit, or throw a few buckets of water on [his] back.”
As Jumbo’s health returned, so did his appetite. Soon Scott was feeding him two hundred pounds of hay, three quarts of onions, two quarts of biscuits, fifteen loaves of bread, two barrels of oats, one barrel of potatoes, and dozens of apples, oranges, figs, nut cakes, and buns every day. He topped off this feast with five buckets of water and a bottle of fine Irish whiskey that Jumbo guzzled down in a single gulp. “Say what you will,” remarked one zoo employee, “the elephant [has] fine taste in liquor.”
Under Scott’s loving care, the once puny elephant grew . . . and grew . . . and grew. By 1881 he weighed seven tons and stood twelve feet tall. And he was utterly devoted to his keeper. Following him around like a puppy, Jumbo would grow irritable and restless if he lost sight of Scott for more than a few minutes. “Jummie is a big baby,” his keeper once admitted. “If I am [late] he cries and whines and becomes very naughty, just the same as a child crying after its mother.” The elephant refused to obey anyone else. “Jumbo will do everything I ask him,” explained Scott. “We’re one—and woe to anybody who tries to come between us!”
Jumbo soon became the most popular attraction at the zoo. A gentle animal, he happily swung his trunk as he sauntered through the shaded garden or playfully squirted water at the crowds who gathered at his specially built pool to watch him drink. They tossed him his favorite treats—buns and oranges—and marveled at his size.
One person who was especially impressed was Phineas Taylor Barnum, the flamboyant American showman. For decades Barnum had been entertaining the public with his skeleton collections and wax museums; his midgets, sword swallowers, and fake mermaids. The showman visited Jumbo whenever business took him to London. “I often looked wistfully on [him], but with no hope of ever getting possession of him . . . I did not suppose he would ever be sold.”
In 1881 Barnum merged his show with those of his two competitors, James Bailey and James L. Hutchinson. Together the men created “The Greatest Show on Earth,” a huge, traveling circus larger than any that had come before. Problem was, they felt they needed a fresh, astonishing exhibit to attract customers. So they sent their agents scurrying across Europe and America in search of the next great act. Months later one of those agents—Joseph Warner—returned to the circus’s New York headquarters.
“Find anything over there?” James Bailey asked him.
“No,” replied Warner.
Bailey persisted. “What’s the biggest thing you saw over there?”
“Biggest thing I saw was an elephant in the London zoo,” replied Warner.
Barnum looked up. “Jumbo?”
Warner nodded.
“How big?” asked Bailey.
Using his umbrella, Warner stretched to touch a spot high up on the office wall. “About so high.”
“Are you sure?” exclaimed Bailey. He hollered to the office boy, “Eddie, get a stepladder and measure that!”
Eddie did.
The measurements stunned Bailey. “That’d make [Jumbo] the biggest elephant in the world!” he declared. “Can he be bought?”
“I’m willing to pay a fortune for Jumbo, if you could get him,” added Barnum, although he doubted the zoo would sell. “That elephant is as popular as the Queen.”
“Let’s try to get him anyway,” said Bailey. That same afternoon they telegraphed zoo officials with an offer of ten thousand dollars.
Incredibly zoo officials agreed. Despite Jumbo’s generally docile behavior, men in charge worried about his temperament. African elephants had been known to become aggressive. What if Jumbo suddenly went wild? An elephant his size could cause catastrophic destruction. Better safe than sorry. “Let America have him,” decided the superintendent.
In February agents from the Barnum, Bailey, and Hutchinson Circus arrived to escort the elephant to America. Their plan was to coax Jumbo into a huge packing crate. Mounted on wheels and fortified with massive iron bands, the crate had sections that were left open so Jumbo could look out as well as swing his trunk. Once the elephant was secured inside, a team of strong horses would pull the crate to the docks, where a ship waited to sail to America.
On Saturday morning, February 18, long before visitors began arriving at the zoo, Scott led Jumbo out of his stable. The two headed toward the ramp leading up into the crate. But as they grew close, Jumbo dug his back feet into the ground and refused to move.
“Do something!” hollered one of the circus agents. He knew time was of the essence. The elephant’s ship was scheduled to set sail the next afternoon. Jumbo had to be aboard.
Scott tried to coax his charge forward.
In response Jumbo trumpeted his unhappiness. No amount of pulling, pushing, or cajoling could budge him.
What could Scott do? “It is quite . . . impossible to move seven tons of stubborn elephant,” he later said.
The frustrated circus agents sent the elephant back to his stable.
At 5:00 a.m. the next morning they tried again. Figuring there would be few people out at that early hour, they decided to march Jumbo through the city streets to the docks.
It was still dark when Scott led Jumbo from the elephant house. Around the side of the building they trotted, the elephant good-naturedly flapping his ears. As the two came to a side gate leading to the public road, Jumbo playfully knocked off Scott’s bowler hat with his trunk. The agents’ hopes soared. The creature looked cooperative.
The gate creaked open, and Scott and Jumbo moved onto the road. Then Jumbo stopped. He began moaning pitifully. Speaking to the elephant in soothing tones, Scott urged him on. But Jumbo just dropped to his huge knees. He let out a cry so mournful and loud, it was heard on the other side of the zoo. Then he rolled over. Lying in the middle of the road, he grunted unhappily.
Hours passed, and a crowd gathered. “Shame!” people shouted. “Let the elephant stay.”
By late afternoon circus agents gave up. All prospects of getting Jumbo to the ship on time were gone. It would be two more weeks until another sailed for America. Jumbo might as well be returned to his stable. But could Scott get the stubborn elephant to stand?
The keeper gave a sharp whistle. To the agents’ surprise, Jumbo immediately clambered to his feet. Ears flapping, he made his way through the now cheering crowd back to the elephant house.
As for the agents, they felt “utterly humiliated,” recalled one.
Up until this point, zoo officials had kept the sale quiet. Had Jumbo obediently stepped into the crate, he would have been on his way to America before the public realized he was gone. But now the truth was out. And British citizens saw the elephant’s refusal to leave “jolly old England” for the “uncouth wilds of Yankee America” as a patriotic act. “He is our national treasure,” declared the London Times. “He must remain here.” Seemingly overnight, citizens for
med a movement to save Jumbo. Thousands of schoolchildren wrote to Barnum begging him not to take their elephant. “I do not think the children of America can be so cruel as to wish to have [Jumbo] when it makes him so unhappy to leave England,” wrote one eight-year-old. Even Queen Victoria penned a letter, asking the showman to reconsider. But Barnum refused. Mourned one London newspaper, “No more quiet garden strolls . . . Our amiable [Jumbo] must dwell in a tent, take part in the routine of a circus, and instead of his by-gone friendly trots with British girls and boys . . . must amuse a Yankee mob and put up with peanuts and waffles.”
Crowds descended on the zoo to say their good-byes. Many brought gifts—cakes, jams, bouquets of flowers, cookies. One elderly lady arrived with six pounds of grapes, four pounds of raisins, and a fruitcake all prettily wrapped in a ribbon-tied wicker basket. Minutes later she went away in a huff after Jumbo ignored the treats and ate the basket instead. And a nurse, knowing Jumbo faced a long ocean voyage, brought the elephant a box of seasickness pills.
Meanwhile, in the United States, excitement over the elephant grew as newspapers reported daily on all the drama surrounding him. Overnight “Jumbomania” struck. Shop windows suddenly filled with souvenirs—Jumbo hats; Jumbo earrings; Jumbo scarves, neckties, cigars, and fans. On the streets people could be heard humming the new hit tune, “The Jumbo Polka.” And in restaurants diners could order Jumbo stews, soups, pies, and ice cream. “America welcomes Jumbo with open arms!” declared the New York Times.
If only the elephant would cooperate.
Zoo officials blamed Matthew Scott. They suspected him of controlling Jumbo with secret hand signals. “I believe his efforts to box the elephant [are] a sham,” declared the superintendent. But why would Scott keep the elephant from entering the crate, or command him to lie down in the street? The reason was obvious. Scott had not been hired as Jumbo’s keeper in America.