Sandra Peterson, age 11, of Boise, Ida., for her question:
Is it true that an elephant never forgets?
An elephant could collect a trunkful of unlikely stories about himself, but he could not remember A single one of them. He responds to a human friend with lifelong devotion, and certain evidence suggests that he carries a grudge for years against a human enemy.
Some of the true facts about Big Jumbo are more wondrous than our funny elephant jokes. He cannot climb a tree, but he can and often does use his brow to shove one over. He cannot skip a puddle, but he can swim for six hours in a lake or river. He is no ballet dancer, but he needs no tennis shoes to walk through the jungle as quietly as a mouse and twice as fast as you walk downtown.
His noisy tummy rumbles can be heard from a quarter of a mile away, but he can quiet them if he wants to listen to something more interesting. A wild male elephant adores a t8me female. But he detests and fights a tame male. Reliable reports claim that youngsters often stuff the bells around their necks with clay and tiptoe off to snitch plantation bananas. A tame adult may enjoy the company of a pet cat, and he often plays a funny prank on his keeper.
Jumbo is a sensitive fellow and smarter than dogs or horses. The tame Asian elephant shares his life with the mahout, who is his friend and master. He learns human ways and seems to show human qualities. He has had 10 years of schooling in obedience and courtesy, and usually the mahout can depend upon this built in training. But sometimes his native intelligence and sensitivity override the lessons he learned in school.
He balks when hurried, and in the morning his mahout must wake him up gradually or he will be irritable all day. Nervous peop1e upset him. A jittery person would upset him today and 10 years from today not because he remembered, but because all such peop1e bother him. The voice and scent of a cruel trainer are learned together with pain and anger. Years later the same voice may trigger off the same old feelings: Jumbo may react again in fear and rage as though he remembered his tormentor and as if he, like some humans, could carry a long, mean grudge.
Such tales are far outnumbered by the elephant's friendly response to kindly and intelligent treatment. One of his common courtesies is to brush aside high branches that might scratch his rider. A certain elephant is reported to have refused an order when it might have injured his mahout. He balked at moving a log as directed, then promptly did the job in a very complicated, though perfectly safe way of his own.