Vickie Rozell

Director/Dramaturg, Author, Editor

The telephone rang during dinner. This wasn’t unusual, since we did have one of the few telephones in town in this year of 1935.

Dad was a gregarious man who ran the local water company. Since he essentially worked out of our home, a business phone was maintained by the company for his use. Dad described himself as a “Missouri Mule Trader,” while Mother described him as a good provider who, during this Depression, could always find a way to make a dollar or two as he went about the business of the water company.

Dad went to his desk and answered the phone, “Oh, hi Swartzie.”

Mother, my three sisters, and I all knew at once that it was Mr. Marvin Swartz who ran the Los Angeles City Dog Pound in Harbor City. Dad listened for a couple of minutes and then said, “Okay Swartzie, I’ll come down there after dinner.”

Returning to the dinner table, Dad said, sort of thinking out loud, “I wonder what Swartzie has up his sleeve? He normally pays me a dollar a day to care and feed animals that the dog pound takes in that are too big for his cages. You know, like cows, horses, goats, sheep, and such. He says he has a surprise for me. It must be something unusual since he’s willing to pay me two dollars and fifty cents a day to care for an animal he has impounded. I wonder what he’s got that’s that big? Maybe Tommy Jimenez’ big Holstein bull has gotten out again. Anyway, I agreed to go down there and talk to him after dinner.”

“Maybe he has a dragon!” I said with all of my eight-year-old enthusiasm.

“Ought, I have a bad feeling about this. Do you suppose he has some sort of a wild animal? I don’t want dangerous wild animals on this place,” Mother said, effectively ending all the conversation about what Swartzie had down at the dog pound.

After dinner Dad said, “Son, let’s go down and see Swartzie!” I was excited, but I could see that my three older sisters were disappointed. There were things that they did with Mother because they were “girl things,” and there were things that I did with Dad because they were “boy things.” At eight years of age I never questioned such social concepts.

The dog pound was a long, low, single-story building that had been built in front of a California-style stucco house, where Mr. Swartz lived with his family. When we arrived, Mr. Swartz was waiting for us. He was a big man, very overweight, with a ruddy complexion and almost sparkling white hair. He always had a big smile on his face.

“Ought, you’re going to love this job, whether you can help me or not!” Mr. Swartz said as he led us past the wire pens, some filled with forlorn-looking dogs. We went out into the yard between the dog pound and the Swartz house, and there to our amazement, chained to a telephone pole, stood a small elephant, about five or six feet tall, and a small young man not much more than five feet tall and very skinny. He was barefoot, dressed in old, dirty, unkempt khakis, and looked like he might never have had a bath. I guessed, to myself, that he might be from India. It was readily apparent that he was the one who controlled the little elephant.

“Ought, I picked these two up at the carnival, you know, down on the highway. Someone slapped a lien on the carnival for unpaid bills and I was told to go and ‘rescue’ this animal. Sabu here, I call him Sabu after the character in The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling [see note below] since I can’t pronounce his name, he insists on staying with ‘his little elephant.’ I thought you could chain the elephant to one of those big eucalyptus trees in your side yard and maybe you could find a place for Sabu to sleep until the owners of the carnival pay the liens,” Mr. Swartz explained.

“Who feeds Sabu?” Dad asked.

“I run the dog pound. I can cover the cost of feeding and caring of animals, but I can’t cover the cost of feeding Sabu. I did get two and a half dollars a day from my bosses to care for the elephant. That might be enough for you to feed Sabu as well as his buddy here.”

Dad agreed to take the elephant home, even though it meant also taking Sabu. I edged up close to the little elephant to pet him. “Would the young master like to pet Wilson?” Sabu startled me. He hadn’t spoken a word while Dad and Swartzie were talking about him, but now he spoke in very proper King’s English.

“Oh yes, yes. Can I pet Wilson?” I asked Dad.

“Is Wilson tame?” he asked Sabu.

“Oh yes. Even though he is young, he is well trained. Here young master, come and pet his trunk. He likes attention.”

I slowly went up to Wilson’s side with Sabu. I petted his trunk. It felt like old rough leather. He seemed to enjoy the attention.

Swartzie unchained Wilson and Sabu climbed onto his shoulders, directing him with a pointed stick as they followed Dad’s company car the half mile to our haunted house on the hill.

There were two huge eucalyptus trees just north of the center of our big side yard. Dad asked Sabu, “Is Wilson used to being out in the open, like between those two trees or would he be more comfortable in the buggy barn over there, which, while open on the east end, will shelter him from the elements?”

“He would much prefer the sheltered area. If you can spread some of that baled straw around the front corner of your buggy barn we can chain him to the telephone pole. He can then lie down either within your shelter or on the outside,” Sabu responded.

Mother and my sisters came from the house and marveled that we had our very own elephant. This being Saturday evening, my alcoholic Uncle Joe was in San Pedro drinking beer with his buddies, and so he missed the arrival of Wilson and Sabu.

“Boy, I would give almost anything to see the look on Uncle Joe’s face when he comes wobbling in late Sunday night,” I thought.

With Sabu’s help, Dad and I spread straw for Wilson to lie on. Then we brought the old lion footed bathtub out of the buggy barn, so Wilson could have fresh water.

“What do you feed Wilson?" Dad asked.

“He likes alfalfa hay and carrots and apples. He loves carrots,” Sabu answered. Dad and I hauled a bale of alfalfa hay out of the hay barn, and broke it apart to make it easier for Wilson to eat. Then, much to Mother’s disgust, we pretty well stripped all of the carrots from the kitchen garden for Wilson.

Mother asked Sabu, “Have you eaten this evening?”

Sabu answered somewhat hesitantly, “No, I haven’t eaten at all this day.”

Mother always fed men who were “down on their luck” (we kids were not allowed to call such men bums, tramps, or hobos) who sometimes came to the back door of the house asking for food. But there was always a price to be paid by such men. We had a shower on our back porch and a closet next to it filled with clean repaired clothes. Mother told such men that if they could find clothes in the closet that they would rather have than the ones they were wearing, to take the clean clothes. She then insisted that these men shower and put on their new clothes. Then they were invited to join her family for whatever meal was being served.

“Well, young man, we can’t have you starving out here while Wilson enjoys all of my carrots, now can we? There is a shower on the back porch. Next to it is a closet filled with clean, repaired clothing. If you can find something in there you would rather have than what you are wearing, feel free to take it. We’ll clean and repair your clothes and they will then go back into the closet for the next person who needs clean clothes.”

Sabu was quite hesitant about Mother’s offer, but he soon realized, like all the other men who came to our door, that there was no arguing with her. Much to my surprise, Sabu found clothes small enough for him, which were not only clean but were better than the clothes he was wearing. After he had showered, Mother fixed a meal for the little man, which he ate, reluctantly, at our big country kitchen table. That night he wanted to sleep in the straw with Wilson, but Mother would have none of that. It was finally agreed that Sabu would sleep in the so called “sitting room” that was the lower floor of the eight-sided well house, which was only about twenty-five feet from where Wilson was tethered.

I had the idea of taking Sabu and Wilson to school on Monday morning for my third grade Show and Tell. Mother told me that my teacher and the school principal probably wouldn’t, or couldn’t, allow it for fear of the damage that Wilson might cause if he got excited. I did the next best thing and shared with my classmates that we had a little elephant named Wilson. I told them he had his own caretaker, who was called Sabu after a character in the book The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. In a fit of enthusiasm, I invited Miss Hutson and my entire third grade class to come up to the ranch after school and meet Wilson and Sabu.

It was only four blocks up the dirt street from school to the ranch, and so Miss Hutson and Mr. Vinson, our principal, decided our class could go, on school time, as a school project, to the ranch and meet Wilson and Sabu.

There were few paved streets in Harbor City, so all twenty-five of us marched down the middle of Senator Street to the ranch. I was so proud. I had an elephant. Many of my classmates had never seen a real elephant, so I would be able to show all of them, including Miss Hutson and our principal, a real elephant and his caretaker.

I led the group up the driveway that is parallel to Lomita Blvd. and into our internal driveway. Right in front of us was the buggy barn, but there was no Wilson and there was no Sabu. I showed my classmates the straw bed that Wilson slept on and the remnants of the alfalfa hay that Wilson had eaten. I even showed them where Wilson had pooped, much to the chagrin of my teacher. Try as I might, I couldn’t explain why there was no Wilson and no Sabu. I was kidded unmercifully about my active imagination, not only by my classmates, but all the big kids in Harbor City Grammar School.

At dinner that night, Dad told us that the carnival owners had paid the liens that held Wilson. Dad further told us that the carnival owners, a deputy sheriff, and Mr. Swartz had come that morning and reclaimed Wilson and Sabu.

Birdie, my second oldest sister, saved my reputation. She took pictures of Wilson and Sabu using an entire roll of film. When the pictures came back, I had the last laugh. I went to school early the next morning and, with Miss Hutson’s permission, I pinned up sixteen pictures of Wilson, Sabu, my entire family, and of course me, with my now famous elephant and Sabu

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1) There is no character in The Jungle Book with this name, but Sabu is the name of the actor who played Mowgli in the 1942 film version of The Jungle Book.

© Copywright Art's Girls Publishing, 2021, All Rights Reserved

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