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قراءة كتاب P. T. Barnum's Menagerie
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"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."
Far off, in one corner, the children saw something which they thought, at first, was a dog, but as they came closer, it sat up like a monkey.
"That is a baboon," said Mr. Barnum. "It is so cross that I don't believe it has a friend in the world; while the bright-looking baby ourang-outang there, is always sure of a petting. That gray old grandfather ourang-outang, however, can be very ugly; but we must always be patient with old people," said he, smiling.
The Happy Family, they all declared, was less exciting, but quite as interesting, as the lions' cage. They had enjoyed seeing the monkeys alone, but a monkey isn't half a monkey until you see him with other animals. Two solemn, old owls sat perched in one corner, and, when a monkey flung an orange into the face of one of them, the other wouldn't even wink. A funny old gray fellow put his paw through the bars and pulled off Tom's cap, and it was only by the offer of a handful of nuts that the owner got it back.
Another took a guinea-pig in her lap, and rocked it as if it were her baby; but the sly chance of pulling a rabbit's ear was too much for mother monkey, so she was off again, tossing a nut at a squirrel as she passed.
White mice, little and pink-eyed, nibbled and squeaked, while the friendly cats lapped their milk close by; and even the parrots seemed to love the monkeys—a thing never heard of before.





