by Jon Scieszka
At Barnum’s request, Matthew Scott accompanied the “double Jumbo.” After each performance, the former keeper liked nothing better than to stand between the elephant’s two frames and talk with people about his pet. “He never tired of telling of the peaceful disposition [and] kindly nature of his late chum,” recalled one colleague. Many a circus goer saw tears in his eyes as he spoke.
The “double Jumbo” packed in the crowds for the next two years. “Jumbo stuffed is a greater attraction than Jumbo alive,” noted a New York Times reporter.
But the exhibit’s novelty eventually faded. Both hide and skeleton were placed in storage.
What will I do now? Matthew Scott wondered.
Barnum suggested Scott return to the London zoo. He even offered to pay for the keeper’s ship passage. But Scott could not bring himself to take care of another animal. “Jummie was all,” he said. Instead he remained in the United States. Renting a dingy room in Brooklyn, he eked out a living by peddling copies of his book, Autobiography of Matthew Scott, on the street. He drank too much and cried often. And during the cold months when the circus was at its winter quarters in Bridgeport, Connecticut, workers frequently found him skulking around the elephant house.
“Halloa, Scott,” said one surprised elephant keeper, when he discovered him prowling outside the room where the stuffed Jumbo and his skeleton were stored. “What are you doing here?”
Scott begged for a moment alone with his dead friend. “[Jumbo] still talks to me,” he claimed.
Noting Scott’s disheveled appearance, the worker took pity and unlocked the door.
Scott slipped eagerly inside. “After a lengthy, and so far as known, silent communication with his dead friend, he at last left the place for his humble lodgings,” said the worker.
But he always came back. “We see him nearly every day,” said another.
Sadly Matthew Scott soon disappeared from the pages of history. By 1891 he was no longer seen selling his books or found hanging around the circus. Where did he go? Most historians believe he died around this time, although exactly where and when remains a mystery. His unusual life, however, caused one circus worker to remark, “Animal trainers, like old maids, are curious creatures.”
In 1890 Barnum decided to retire the “double Jumbo.” He donated the skeleton to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where it is still periodically displayed. As for Jumbo’s hide, it went to the showman’s pet project, the Barnum Museum at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. He had founded the museum a few years earlier, after the Universalist Church (of which he was a member) established Tufts as its first college. Becoming one of its earliest benefactors, Barnum had given the place hundreds of specimens, artifacts, and collections. Now he added Jumbo to that list.
It wasn’t long before the stuffed elephant became the college’s mascot (even today, Tufts’ sports teams are called the Jumbos). For the next four decades, before sporting events or big exams, students made their way to Barnum Hall, where the hide stood on display. Wishing for good luck, they stuck a coin in the elephant’s trunk and tugged on his tail. So briskly did they tug that in 1942, university officials clipped off the tail to preserve it. They tucked it into a box and stowed it away in the university archives.
The tailless Jumbo continued to stand in Barnum Hall for another forty years. Then, in April 1975, fire ripped through the museum. The roof and upper floor of the building went up in flames. So did Jumbo’s hide.
Desperate to preserve something of their mascot, one of the museum’s caretakers scooped several handfuls of the hide’s ashy remains into an empty peanut butter jar. He gave the jar to the school’s athletic department. To this day sports team members rub the jar for good luck. Said one athletic director, “You gotta believe that these are Jumbo’s ashes. He’s in there someplace. I can’t tell you which molecule, but he’s in there.”
But the elephant’s most enduring legacy is his name. Within months of his arrival in the United States, the word jumbo made its way into the English language. People began using the word when they meant big—really big. And so, in a way, the huge elephant is still with us. “Jummie,” Scott once said, “will never be forgotten.”
Selected Bibliography
Ardman, Harvey A. “Phineas T. Barnum’s Charming Beast,” Natural History. LXXXII, #2, February 1973, pp. 46–50, 55–57.
Bannerman, James. “The Tragic Death of the Great Jumbo,” Macleans. November 12, 1955, pp. 28–29, 43–50, 54.
Barnum, Phineas T. Funny Stories. New York: George, Routledge and Sons, 1890.
————. Struggles and Triumphs. Buffalo, NY: The Courier Company, 1889.
Bartlett, Abraham Dee. Wild Animals in Captivity. London: Chapman and Hall, 1899.
Betts, John Richards. “P. T. Barnum and the Popularization of Natural History,” Journal of the History of Ideas. XX, #3, June–September, 1959.
Bolger, Leonard J. “Jumbo,” Natural History. XLVI #1, June 1940, p. 8.
Chambers, Paul. Jumbo. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2008.
Davis, Janet M. The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the Big Top. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Edwards, W. F. L. The Story of Jumbo. St. Thomas, Ontario: Sutherland, 1935.
Fleming, Candace. The Great and Only Barnum. New York: Random House, 2009.
Goodwin, George C. “What Ever Became of Jumbo?” Natural History LXI, no. 1, January 1952, pp. 16–21, 45–46.
Harding, Les. “The Day Jumbo Came to Town,” Atlantic Advocate, March 1984, pp. 45–46.
————. “The Day Jumbo Died,” in Ontario the Pioneer Years, ed. T. W. Paterson, Langley, British Columbia: Sunfire, 1983, pp. 26–32.
Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.
“He Saw Jumbo Killed by St. Thomas Engine,” The White Tops, November–December 1944, p. 16.
James, Theodore. “Jumbo: Peregrinations of a Ponderous Pachyderm,” Smithsonian 13, no. 2, May 1982, pp. 134–152.
Jolly, W. P. Jumbo. London: Constable, 1976.
“Jumbo-Size Bag of Bones Makes Museum Comeback,” Roanoke Times, January 23, 1993.
Matheieson, E. The True Story of Jumbo the Elephant. New York: Coward-McCann, 1964.
Route Books of P. T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth. Unpublished. Baraboo, WI: Circus World Museum, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885.
Saxon, A. H. P. T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man. New York: Columbia University, 1989.
Scott, Matthew. Autobiography of Matthew Scott. Bridgeport, CT: Trow, 1885.
Ward, Henry A. The Life and Death of Jumbo: An Illustrated History of the Greatest, Gentlest, and Most Famous and Heroic Beast That Ever Lived. Philadelphia: n.p., 1886.
UNI-VERSES
BY DOUGLAS FLORIAN
The Big Bang Theory
Some
Fourteen
Billion years
Ago, all things began,
Far as we know. The universe
Was hot and dense, and very small,
Not yet immense, but in a BANG
So BIG and GRAND all matter started
to e x p a n d and form gigantic galaxies
Of stars and planets, rocks and seas, and plants and
People, fish and frog, and me and you, and your pet dog.
The Big Bang Theory states that the entire universe was once in a very small, hot, dense state. In an explosion called the Big Bang the universe exploded and quickly expanded. After about two billion years galaxies formed, and after about seven billion years our Sun and solar system was created. The universe is still expanding and at a faster rate than before.
Physics
Physics studies
How things work,
Both quietly
Or quite berserk.
How objects move
Or groove
Or f
a
l
l.
Or when they do
Nothing at all.
Physics is the science of how things behave in the universe. It studies matter and energy and how those things interact in such things as heat, light, sound, electricity, radiation, and mechanics.
Time
I wanted to write you
A poem about time,
To say something splendid
Or even sublime.
To tell time goes quickly,
But sometimes s o s l o w.
Compare time to rivers
That constantly flow.
I wanted to write that
Time can’t be heard.
It cannot be seen,
Yet flies like a bird.
I wanted a poem with
Great rhythm and rhyme.
But just when I started—
I ran out of time.
Time is an ongoing progression of events taking place and can be arranged as going from the past through the present and into the future. It may also be measured in such units as seconds, minutes, hours, or days.
Relativity
The concept of relativity
Is rather simple, as you’ll see.
It simply means that this and that
Are relative to where you’re at.
And you and he,
And he and she,
Are relative to them and me.
And who and why,
And when and where,
Are relatively anywhere.
If you’re CONFUSED
With what I give
Then go and ask
A relative.
Relativity means that the way anything except light moves through time and space is dependent on the position and motion of the observer. Also light travels at a constant speed and is independent of the observer. These theories were first proposed by Albert Einstein and have been tested since.
Matter
Matter’s puzzling to explain,
But I will try, and rack my brain.
It is the substance of all things:
Protons, neutrons, electron rings.
It may have mass and volume too.
Get it?
No?
What’s the matter with you?
Everything in the universe is made up of matter, from a speck of dust to the largest star. Matter comes in different states: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. A solid has a definite size and shape. A liquid takes the shape of its container. A gas can expand to fill a container and can also be compressed. A plasma, like a gas, does not have a definite shape or volume, but it also has charged particles called ions. The Sun is mostly in a state of plasma.
Subatomic
I never wrote a poem that’s comic
About things that are subatomic.
As neutrons or electron rings
Really aren’t funny things.
Though there are “flavors” in a quark,
None are amusing as a stork.
For storks may make a funny sound
Or stand with one foot on the ground.
Whereas a lepton or a muon
Never tells jokes to a gluon.
(Although it’s funny that Higgs boson
Romps around without his clothes on.)
Subatomic particles are smaller than atoms. There are two types: elementary and composite. Elementary particles are not made up of other particles. These include quarks, leptons, and bosons, all of which help make up atoms. A composite particle is two or more bound elementary particles. A proton, for instance, is made up of three quarks. A Higgs boson is an elementary particle that carries force within the atom.
Gravity
The opposite of levity
Supposedly is gravity.
For levity means “lightness, mirth,”
While gravity means “down to earth.”
And if it simply
Wasn’t there,
We’d float like blimps
Up in the air.
And though it’s great,
I think, to fly,
The birds might hate
To share the sky.
And with your head
Below your feet,
It might be difficult to eat.
To see your food float out of sight
Would surely hurt your appetite.
I’ll bet your sleep
Inside a cloud
Would not be deep
When things got loud.
For thunderclaps
Would hurt your head
While you were sleeping
In your bed.
Let’s stick with gravity instead.
Gravity is the natural force of attraction between physical bodies. It is what gives an object weight, and causes it to fall to the ground or orbit another object with greater mass. The Earth revolves around the Sun and the Moon around the Earth because of gravity. Albert Einstein said that matter itself actually curves what he called spacetime, and that falling objects are moving along paths of spacetime.
Light
A definition now of light:
Something brilliant, shining, bright.
Something radiant.
Something glowing,
Helping us find where we’re going.
Light’s a particle.
Light’s a wave.
Easy to use
But hard to save.
Light may focus.
Light may scatter.
I hope I’ve shed light
On this matter.
Light is the form of energy that enables us to see things. The light that we see is called the visible spectrum. This light has wavelengths from violet to red, much like a rainbow. But some animals, such as bees or reindeer, can see ultraviolet (beyond violet) light. When heat emits light it is called incandescence. Sunlight is an example. The emission of light without heat is called luminescence. A firefly uses this type of light at night to see other fireflies.
Sound
Sound is a vibration—
Waves passing right through things.
A bell of brass
Has sound waves pass
Clear through it when it rings.
Sound can move through water.
Through walls, or floors, or doors.
And through the air
At night I hear
My mother when she snores.
Sound is created when particles of matter vibrate through a material such as air, water, or a metal. The speed of sound depends on what it’s passing through (the medium). Sound passes through liquids and solids faster than air, but not through a vacuum, as there are no particles to vibrate there.
Magnetism
What force may force things to attract?
It’s magnetism, that’s a fact.
Although two magnets may repel,
They can attract themselves as well,
Depending on the poles, of course:
There’s north and south magnetic force.
When like poles face each other, say,
They push each other far away.
But when two opposite poles face,
There is attraction taking place.
A magnet picks up iron nails,
And there’s magnetic monorails.
What magnetism lies in me?
Magnetic personality!
Magnetism is an invisible force of attraction or repulsion. A magnet has two poles, north and south. Opposite poles attract each other, but like poles repel. Because of its molten iron core, the Earth has a magnetic field, strongest at its magnetic poles.
Machines
Did you know that a machine
Is used to change a force?
Machines of steel can turn a wheel
Far better than a horse.
A gear, I hear,
Can help you steer
A bicycle or car.
And down an
Inclined plane it’s plain
An object can roll far.
In many ways,
Throughout the day,
Machines help in the home.
And I’ll come clean—
My own machine
Created this here poem.
A machine is a device or tool that changes mechanical energy into a more useful form. A machine can change the magnitude or direction of a force. Many machines have electric motors but machines can also be powered mechanically, chemically, or thermally.
Velocity
Velocity is speed, you see—
How quickly fruit falls from a tree.
How fast a train may pass ahead.
H o w s l o w l y y o u
G e t o u t o f b e d.
Velocity is the speed and direction of an object. So a car driving at 30 miles per hour in a circle has the same speed but different velocities. Acceleration is when the rate of velocity changes in regard to time.
Inertia
A body at rest will stay at rest.
A body in motion, in motion.
So you over there, get off your chair,
Or I’ll toss you into the ocean!
Isaac Newton realized that a body at rest will tend to stay at rest, and a body in motion will tend to stay in motion. Inertia is the natural tendency of objects to not change their motion. So a car that is moving will continue moving unless the friction of a brake or the road touching the tires causes it to stop. Objects with more mass have more inertia. That’s why it’s harder to get a truck rolling (or to stop) than a bicycle.