I was visiting in Chicago this fall. I went to the Exposition, and
at night I attended the Grand Opera, and saw the electric light. I
went to Lincoln Park, and saw a petrified alligator lying on the
bank of a pond, with its mouth wide open, and I kept close to mamma
till the lady we were with said it was dead. There were two live
alligators in the same pond, but they were small ones. I saw a live
buffalo. There were some swans there, and I poked my parasol at
one, and it ran at me. I saw some panthers and bears, and two
sea-lions, which would stick their heads up out of the water, and
bark like dogs. A gentleman was pointing at something in the water,
and a sea-lion, being hungry, thought he was going to feed it, and
it jumped almost out of the water. I went to visit the greenhouse,
and there was a parrot which would talk, and a whole cage full of
other kinds of birds. I talked to the parrot, and said, "Robin,"
and it repeated the word after me. Not long ago I saw a letter
signed Lena W., and as I have sent two other letters which have not
been published, I thought it was my own name until I read the
letter. I am ten years old.