A Story Like the Wind (The Collected works of Laurens van der Post)

by Sir Laurens Van Der Post

two large assegai trees, no doubt undermined by the formidable armies of white ants who constantly marauded the bush, had collapsed and thrown a barricade across the track. The elderly elephants and the adolescent calves had no difficulty in stepping over the barricade. But there was one little calf who found it impossible. So two elephants who apparently were responsible for conveying the rear of their procession, turned back, stepped back over the barricade and took up position on either side of the little calf, who was beginning to whimper pitifully with dismay. They put their trunks underneath its stomach and carefully helped it scramble over the fallen tree-trunks. So delighted was the little calf at being restored to its family that it ran up and down the line, almost like a puppy, thanking the rest of the crowd by fondling them with its trunk.