I should like to be an animal. Not an insect, of course, nor a snake,
but a nice kind of animal, like an elephant or a dog with a good master.
Animals are awfully intelligent, but they haven't any souls. There was
once an elephant in a circus, and one day a boy said to him, "Want a
lump of sugar, old fellow?" The elephant he nodded, and felt real
grateful, for elephants are very fond of lump-sugar, which is what they
live on in their native forests. But the boy put a cigar instead of a
lump of sugar in his mouth.
The sagacious animal, instead of eating up the cigar or trying to smoke
it and making himself dreadfully sick, took it and carried it across the
circus to a man who kept a candy and cigar stand, and made signs that
he'd sell the cigar for twelve lumps of sugar. The man gave the elephant
the sugar and took the cigar, and then the intelligent animal sat down
on his hind-legs and laughed at the boy who had tried to play a joke on
him, until the boy felt that much ashamed that he went right home and
went to bed.
In the days when there were fairies--only I don't believe there ever
were any fairies, and Mr. Travers says they were rubbish--boys were
frequently changed into animals. There was once a boy who did something
that made a wicked fairy angry, and she changed him into a cat, and
thought she had punished him dreadfully. But the boy after he was a cat
used to come and get on her back fence and yowl as if he was ten or
twelve cats all night long, and she couldn't get a wink of sleep, and
fell into a fever, and had to take lots of castor-oil and dreadful
medicines.
So she sent for the boy who was a cat, you understand, and said she'd
change him back again. But he said, "Oh no; I'd much rather be a cat,
for I'm so fond of singing on the back fence." And the end of it was
that she had to give him a tremendous pile of money before he'd consent
to be changed back into a boy again.
Boys can play being animals, and it's great fun, only the other boys who
don't play they are animals get punished for it, and I say it's unjust,
especially as I never meant any harm at all, and was doing my very best
to amuse the children.
This is the way it happened. Aunt Sarah came to see us the other day,
and brought her three boys with her. I don't think you ever heard of
Aunt Sarah, and I wish I never had. She's one of father's sisters, and
he thinks a great deal more of her than I would if she was my sister,
and I don't think it's much credit to anybody to be a sister anyway. The
boys are twins, that is, two of them are, and they are all about three
or four years old.
Well, one day just before Christmas, when it was almost as warm
out-doors as it is in summer, Aunt Sarah said,
"Jimmy, I want you to take the dear children out and amuse them a few
hours. I know you're so fond of your dear little cousins and what a fine
manly boy you are!" So I took them out, though I didn't want to waste my
time with little children, for we are responsible for wasting time, and
ought to use every minute to improve ourselves.
The boys wanted to see the pigs that belong to Mr. Taylor, who lives
next door, so I took them through a hole in the fence, and they looked
at the pigs, and one of them said,
"Oh my how sweet they are and how I would like to be a little pig and
never be washed and have lots of swill!"
So I said, "Why don't you play you are pigs, and crawl round and grunt?
It's just as easy, and I'll look at you."
You see, I thought I ought to amuse them, and that this would be a nice
way to teach them to amuse themselves.
Well, they got down on all fours and ran round and grunted, until they
began to get tired of it, and then wanted to know what else pigs could
do, so I told them that pigs generally rolled in the mud, and the more
mud a pig could get on himself the happier he would be, and that
there was a mud puddle in our back yard that would make a pig cry like a
child with delight.
The boys went straight to that mud puddle, and they rolled in the mud
until there wasn't an inch of them that wasn't covered with mud so thick
that you would have to get a crowbar to pry it off.
[Illustration: "WE'VE BEEN PLAYING WE WERE PIGS, MA."]
Just then Aunt Sarah came to the door and called them, and when she saw
them she said, "Good gracious what on earth have you been doing?" and
Tommy, that's the oldest boy, said,
"We've been playing we were pigs ma and it's real fun and wasn't Jimmy
good to show us how?"
I think they had to boil the boys in hot water before they could get the
mud off, and their clothes have all got to be sent to the poor people
out West whose things were all lost in the great floods. If you'll
believe it, I never got the least bit of thanks for showing the boys how
to amuse themselves, but Aunt Sarah said that I'd get something when
father came home, and she wasn't mistaken. I'd rather not mention what
it was that I got, but I got it mostly on the legs, and I think bamboo
canes ought not to be sold to fathers any more than poison.
I was going to tell why I should like to be an animal; but as it is
getting late, I must close.