alt="sea animals with a hunter coming up to them" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}img"/>

But how could they all fail to be happy together, living as they did, in a menagerie! Oh! how the boys and girls envied them, feeling that they would almost be willing to give up quarreling with[Pg 16]
[Pg 17]
[Pg 18] their dear brothers and sisters to enjoy such a life!

"Trixie," cried Tom, when they had wandered away from the Happy Family, "come and see this queer big pin-cushion!"

"What is it?" she asked, starting back.

"A porcupine," said Tom, laughing loudly. He had startled the strange animal, which, fearing some danger near, had rolled itself into a ball, and thrust out the quills with which it protects itself.

"Would you like to pet and smooth it, Gay?" asked Mr. Barnum.

"No, no! I'd rather smooth that little animal," said she, pointing to the chinchilla. "It looks like a sister of my little muff."

"O, Gay! you are a funny baby," said Trixie, laughing, and speaking as though she, herself, were quite an elderly person.

"Do you want to see the kangaroo do the high running jump?" Tom asked. But the kangaroo refused to jump for them. Mr. Barnum then told them how, like the opossum, the mother carries her babies snugly tucked in her pocket.

"We haven't seen any bears yet," said Trixie.

"No, but you shall see them, Toodles," said Mr. Barnum. "Who ever heard of a menagerie without its bears? And here they are!"

Up on their hind legs they stood, waiting a minute till the music began, and then, at the first note of the fiddle, off they went—slowly at first, then faster and faster, until really they were almost graceful! Even the baby bears danced! But a grey old grizzly sat gossiping with a polar bear in a corner, while they too watched the dancing, like old ladies at a ball. Afterward, at a sign from the master, the same old grizzly took the fiddle himself, and played for the young people's dancing. Then the bears marched up and down, singly and in pairs, "cooling off," Tom said.

Trixie heard a lady say to her friend, "The camels are coming!" and then they both laughed, but Trixie could not see why. Sure enough, the camels were coming, and racing camels are even more awkward than dancing bears.

"Their backs are all broken," said Gay.

"No," said Tom, "they were born all humps and bumps—they are camels."

"Oh, yes!" said Gay. "I know—mama has got a shawl made out of one."

"And," added Tom, "he can drink enough at one time to last him a hundred years."

"Don't stretch it, sir," said Mr. Barnum, shaking his head at the boy; but Tom went on—"and he will carry you across the desert quicker than lightning!"

The snakes, and especially the boa-constrictor, made Gay shiver, and she refused to look at them after the first glance. But the others enjoyed seeing them. "Nothing that is quiet frightens me," said Trixie, "and I love to see the snakes twist and wriggle."

"I like the big green frogs," said Gay—"Ker-chong! ker-chong!" She had learned the whole frog language in an instant!

Then she straggled away with Tom, to listen to wonderful stories about the beaver, and how he builds his curious log hut; "But," added Tom, "his roof always leaks."

"Gay, here is an animal with a name longer than you are yourself!" said Mr. Barnum.

"What is it?" she asked, as they paused before a creature with a tremendous mouth.

"The Hippopotamus."

"Hip-po-pot-a-mus!" baby tried to say after him, adding, "he is not pretty, and I do not like him."

Tom was still less polite, and called the animal "beastly ugly;" though he seemed to admire the one-horned rhinoceros, which Gay thought still more frightful. "But how wallopy his skin is!" said Tom.

"Yes," said Mr. Barnum, "but he has a thinner skin under his heavy hide, which is only what Trixie would call his 'upper skirt'—eh, Toodles?" and the little girl laughed to think that he should know anything about such drapery.

When she saw the alligator she wished for his scaly skin, that she might have it made into slippers for papa.

But what had become of Gay? She had left the others, and they found her trying to stroke a downy little yellow chicken, which was just beyond her reach.

"Why this is like being in the country!" cried the delighted Trixie, looking around at the horses and the cattle, the pigs and the chickens. "Where's Tom?"

But a barn-yard scene was quite too tame for that young gentleman, who was chattering away to a funny little squat Esquimau, who did not understand a word he said. Near him were a fat seal and a walrus with two great tusks which seemed to say, "The better to eat you, my dear!"

The Esquimau and his pets had come from a faraway, cold country, where there were very few people, and I do not think they liked the crowd and the noise.

"Where are the tigers?" Tom asked, suddenly remembering that he had set his heart on being half-scared to death by the glance from a tiger's eye.

"They certainly would never forgive us if we forgot to present ourselves," said Mr. Barnum, bowing low before a cage, against the bars of which the Royal Bengal Tiger was rubbing his glossy sides, as he marched angrily backward and forward.

"Come away!" cried Trixie, trying to clasp her three friends in her tiny arms.

"You go, Toodles, if you are afraid," said Mr. Barnum.

"No, no!" she cried, "I will not go without you!" and she became still more frightened when she saw a beautiful, fierce-eyed leopard, and a hyena whose horrible grin showed three rows of teeth.

"The little goose!" said Tom. "See! Gay enjoys it all." And so she did, afterward going with him to look at the wolves, the wildcats, and the dainty little red foxes, while Mr. Barnum took his pet to see the brilliant birds which had been brought from their own homes in the hot countries to our town of the little brown sparrow.

Great green parrots, gold and silver pheasants, white cockatoos, and the flaming red flamingo! Trixie was wild with joy, but, oh! she could not half enjoy them without Gay and Tom; so she scampered off after them, not noticing in her joy that she passed