P. T. Barnum's Menagerie

Copyright, 1888, by White & Allen.

Lith. By G. H. Buek & Co. N. Y.

WITH THE ANIMALS.

My dear children, unless you have been fortunate enough to be taken to the menagerie by some grown-up friend, somebody who would patiently answer all your questions, and tell you all about the bewitchingly horrible animals in the cages, and into whose arms you might run when they growled and looked fierce, I do not think you can know the joy of Tom, Trixie and Gay as they entered the menagerie with Mr. Barnum.

Trixie hugged his right arm tight, as usual, Gay kept fast hold of his left hand, while Tom was so anxious to miss no part of the show that he did not know that he was walking so clumsily as to put Mr. Barnum's toes in danger; and, notwithstanding they were such old chums, I fancy he was more than once tempted to say to the boy, "Tom, you are as awkward as a grizzly bear!"

At the sight of the zebra, Gay laughed aloud. "He is knitted all in stripes--he is made of garters!" she said; and she thought the gnu looked like a wild bull "in front," but when he turned round she said he was a horse.

And oh! you should have heard the buffalo snort at Gay! "He wants to make a meal of baby," said Tom, but the truth was a man had been teasing him with a cane, and when a buffalo is angry, he is not a very pleasant play-fellow.

"I mean to hunt the buffalo, out West, when I am a man," said Tom.

"Then you must hurry and grow up," said Mr. Barnum, "for the animal, in our own country, is being rapidly exterminated."

"What is the meaning of exterminated?" asked Tom.

"Killed off," said Mr. Barnum; and Tom thought that a much better way of saying it.

"Does a buffalo grow up out of a buffalo bug?" asked Gay. Then they all laughed at her till she pouted, and Trixie thought, "I must remember to tell that to mama."

The reindeer, the antelope, and the moose were all somewhat alike--"cousins," the children called them; and Gay had a very pretty name for two reindeer that she thought especially beautiful--she said they were "Santa Claus's ponies;" and I am sure that even Santa Claus would have been delighted to drive them.

Elephants! Just what Tom had been longing for, and it was strange to see how frisky the great clumsy creatures could be. They stood on one another's backs, they tried to waltz, and then two of them, after much floundering and capering, jumped over a bar; but not even Mr. Barnum himself could say they did it gracefully.

"See those two play see-saw!" cried Trixie, laughing till her little sides shook, "and that little fellow is grinding a hand-organ!"

Others, dressed like clowns, were as full of tricks as so many monkeys. The very largest elephant thrust his trunk forward, and Tom whispered to a boy who stood near, "You pull his front tail, and hear him roar!" But the elephant rolled his eyes toward Tom as if to say, "Better try it yourself, young man," and Tom moved back.

"Mr. Barnum and I remember Jumbo," said he.

"Who was Jumbo?" asked Trixie.

"Oh, a tremendous elephant, as big as six of these rolled into one! He went to Canada, and there a locomotive smashed into his brain, and he turned over and died. But first he wrapped his trunk around the baby elephant and flung him safe off the track."

"Good Jumbo!" said Gay with a smile; but there were tears in Trixie's eyes.

"Yes, baby; and that's the way we would jump for you in any danger," added Tom.

Gay smiled sweetly again, but Trixie squeezed her old friend's hand so hard that he bent down and kissed her, saying, "But there is no danger, Toodles!"

The children were now quite ready to leave the elephants to look at the ostriches and the storks. I think that Trixie expected to see the ostriches wholly covered with long, dangling feathers, such as those she wore on her hat; and she was a little disappointed. The storks were old friends of hers, because mama had a screen at home, upon which storks were embroidered; and some of these birds, like those on the screen, were resting upon one foot.

Tom was very much interested in the sea birds,--the albatross, the penguin, and the auk, but there was such a crowd around their cage that he came away grumbling.

"Never mind, Tom," said Mr. Barnum: "come and see the fisherman that carries his basket under his chin!"

Tom did not understand this joke at first, but Mr. Barnum explained that he meant the pelican, which has a pouch under its beak in which it carries home the fish to feed its young.

"Look out, Trixie!" cried Tom, when they saw the whale. "He swallowed a man once."

"Did this very whale swallow a man?" asked Trixie, solemnly; "and did you know the man?"

"Well, no--not exactly; but I knew of him."

"What was his name?"

"Jonah."

"O, Tom Van Tassel! That was as much as fifty years ago, and Jonah was a bible man. The whale looks kind and I'm not afraid of him," and Trixie went up very close. "But what makes him so floppy? I should think the whalebones in him would stiffen him."

And then Mr. Barnum explained that what we call whalebone is something that grows in the mouth of a whale, and is used as a strainer, to separate the water from the food.

They thought the shark a mean-looking creature, and they were surprised to learn that it turns on its back to bite.

"I'm tired of fish--let us find something furious!" said Tom; so they started toward the lion's cage. The great, grand king of them all was taking his afternoon rest, and he opened his eyes and looked at them once, as if to say, "Behold and admire! I am the King of Beasts, and you are only little human Yankees! I had these bars put up to keep off the crowd. Kings must be neither pushed nor hustled." Then he waved his paw with a flourish which meant, "Begone!" and Mr. Barnum, seeing the roar coming, said, "Come on, Toodles."

But Tom staid, and he was glad that he did so. The keeper of the lions entered the cage, and the excitement began. The poor beasts were all hungry, but the lioness and the little cubs were fed first; and when King Lion seemed ready to tear the bars down in his fury, the keeper fired off a pistol, and the angry creature leaped into the air. I think even his own little baby cubs were afraid of him. When he grew quieter, he, too, was fed, and Tom ran to tell Trixie all about it.

"I am glad I did not stay," she said, "and I have had a very good time, myself. I have been looking at the giraffes in harness, and I do think they make such funny looking horses. They look very much like ostriches--_in the neck_," she added, and Mr. Barnum laughed.

The giraffe is so tall that it can take its food from high trees, and it very seldom stoops to eat. But when a piece of sugar was put on the ground, the temptation was so great that it bent its head down between its fore feet, placed near together, and gobbled with a half-glide. Oh, how the people laughed at its awkwardness.

"What would mama say if we ate like that, Trixie?" said Tom.

"You could'nt do it," said the boy who had refused to pull the elephants "front tail."