The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1879-01-30
FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS.

A TIGER AND AN ELEPHANT
Once there was the biggest kind of a
Royal Bengal tiger, SO big and savage
that even Barnum himself wouldn't dare
to travel around with him unless he had
a double extra-strong cage. He lived in
an Indian jungle. and even the lion,
though they call him the king of the
beasts, wasn't quite sure he was the boss
of the woods when the tiger was around,
for he was a quarrelsome fellow, and a
great fighter. He had a paw as big as
the top of your schoolboy cap, and his
fore-leg was SO strong that he could kill
a man with one blow on his head.
Son whose headw
"Why, the mans, of course"
The leopards were awfully afraid of
him, and changed their spots very lively
when he was prowling around.
"Who was proyling arouudf"
"The tiger, of course; don't you get
excited, Will, but just wait and see how
the story comes out"
Well, one moonlight night this old
i tiger went trotting out of the woods to-
wards a lake that was near by, thinking
he could catch a deer that had gone
| down to drink. The wolves skunk away
before him, and the little white-tailed
rabbits scud and scampered like mice
before the cat. For the tiger is only a
big cat, you know, and the rabbits are
| his mice, and the wolves his rats.
Pretty soon he came down to the edge
of the water, and crouched along look
ing for a deer for his supper, for he
hadn'thad anything to eat but one young
Indian for two days; and he was dread
fully cross-about as you'd be if you'd
had only one sandwich to eat in all day.
But the deer had smelt him, and legged
it away, carrying their bushy tails
straight up behind them, like flags. As
he crawled along he saw some immense
big animal standing in the edge of the
lake, drinking. 1t was an elephant, but
as he'd never met one before, he didn't
know what it was. But he wasn't the
sort of a tiger to stand around waiting
for an introduction before he spoke, and
so he dashed his side with his tail, and
growled:
"Me-ye-o-w! R-r-ow-ow-t-st!"
The old elephant looked up kind of
surprised, as much as to say:
az guess somebody's cat has got lost"
And then the tiger growled and spit
again, savager than before. This riled
the elephant up a little, and he stuck
his trunk down to the bottom, filed il
full of muddy water, and, taking good
aim, spurted it right into the tigers saw
age eyes and wide-open mouth.
You never heard such a howl as he
set up. 1t just split a crack in the all
for half a mile. The old elephant had
no idea that 30 much noise could come
out of one cat, and so he walked slowly
UP to the shore to see about it.
He hadn't been out more'n a quarter
of a second before he wished he hadn't
come; for that tiger just Lit on to hi
back and went to clawing and biting lik'
mad. The elephant tried to shake hin
of, but you might as well try to shake
burr out of your hair. A tiger dom
shake off worth a cent. So the elephan
started on a lively run for the woods, a
they generally do when anything is OF
their back-scooted under the low liml
of a big tree, and that brushed tn
tiger of.
Then he turned and faced the tiger
and put his two long tusks straight out
/. and kept his sharp little eyes on a keel
lookout, for he was mad by this time
! And as the tigers long curly tail KEEP
/ lashing his striped sides, the elephant
! funny little tail, with its bonch of bush,
i hair on the end, kept switching toc
faster than a colts in fiy-time.
Pretty soon the tiger crouched dow
: and made a spring; but the elephan
! caught him on his tusks and tossed hir
:. about ten feet into the air, and when b
came down caught him again with
i sharp iab, and threw. him on the GROUND
e And then he walloped that tiger with hi
: trunk, and punched him with his tusk'
: and "stomped' on him with his bi
:. feet, till he was glad to get up and ru
away, with his tail between his legs.
a And the tiger thought to himself this
y if he ever picked up a quarrel with an
other stranger it would not be with a
t animal s big as a load of hay, with a
9 In%dia-rubber hide, and two great teet
: a yard long, and tails at both ends, OF
t of 'em made on purpose to thrash foil
with.
l. And the elephant went back to IL
b water to wash his wounds, vowing tn,
he never did like cats, any way.-Gotd'
: Rue.