The Magnolia gazette. [volume] (Magnolia, Miss.) 1872-current, 1883-02-22
Hunting the Rhinoceros.

lhat we ought always To improve our
minds, and think so some now, though
| have got into dreadful difficulties all
through improving my mind. But am
not going to be discouraged tired to
be useful the other day, and do good to
the heather in distant lands, and you
wouldn't believe what tro BILE it made.
There are some people who would new
er do good again if they had got into
the II uble that | got into; but the
proverb says that if at first YOU don't
succeed, cry, cry again and there was
lots of crying, | can tell YOU, over our
rhinoceros, that we thought was going
to do SO much good.
II all happened because Aunt Eliza
was staying at our house. She had
Sunday school one afternoon. and Tom
McGinnis and were the scholars, and
she told us about n boy that got up
panorama about the PRgri0t'S Progress
all by himself, and let people see it for
ten cents apiece, and made ten dollars,
and sent it to the missionaries, and they
took it and educated mornahundrcd
little heathens with ii, and how nice it
would be if you dear boys would go and
do likewise and now Wen sing "Hold
the Fort"
Well, Tom and thought about il,
and we said We ID get up a menagerie,
and we'd take turns playing animals,
aud we d let folks see il for ten cents
apiece, and make a lot OF money, and
do ever so much good.
We got book full of pictures Of ami
mails, and we made skins out of cloth
to 90 all over us, so that we'd look Just
like animals when we had them on. We
had II lion s and tigers and II bears
and rhinoceros' skin, besides awhole
lot of others As fast us we got the
skins made, we hung them up ina corner
OF the barn where nobody would see
them. The wav we made them was to
show the pictures to mother and to
Aunt Eliza, and they did the cutting
out and tie sewing. and Sue she painted
the stripes on the tiger, and the fancy
touches on the other animals. e
Our rhinoceroi was Tie best animal
we had. The rhinoceros is u lively
animal when he's alive. fIe is almost
as big as an elephant, and he has a skin
that is so thick that you cant shoot a
tullet through it unless you hit it in c,
place that is little softer than the other
places. He has horn on the end of
his nose, and he can toss a tiger with it
till the tiger fees sick, and says he won't
play any more. The rhnoceros lives in
Africa, and he would TO most all the
natives if it wasn't that they fasten an
India-rubber ball on the end OF his
horn, so that when he tries TO toss any
body. the horn doe sn' hurt, and after
awhile the rhnoceros gets discouraged,
and says; ''Ch, well, what's the good
anyhow?' and goes away into the for
est. Atleast this is what Mr.. Travers
says, but don't believe it for the RI noe
eros wouldn'tsiand still and let the ma
tives put an Ind da-rubber ball on his
horn, and they wouldn't want to waste
India-rubber balls that way when they
could play lawn tennis with them.
Last Saturday afternoon we had our
first grand consolidated exhibition of
the greatest managerie on earth. We
had two rows of chairs in the back
yard, and all our folks and all Tom
folk came, and we took in dollar and
sixty cents at the door, which was the
back gate.
was bear, first of all, and growled
so natural that everybody said it was
really frightful. Then it was Tom $
turn to be an animal, and he was 10 be
the raging rhinoceros OF Central Africa.
helped dress him in the barn, and
when he was dressed he looked beauti-
full. 5n4.. oa5rra ...
The Thinoceros' skin went all over
him, and was tied together so that he
couldn get out of it without help His
horn was made Of wood painted white,
and his eyes were two agates. Ofcourse
he couldn't see through them, but they
looked natural, and as was to lead
him, lie didn need to see.
had just got him outside the barn,
and had begun to say: ''Ladies and gen
tlemen, this.is the raging rhinoceros,
when he gave the most awful yell you
ever heard, and got up on his hind-legs
and began to IRISH around as If he was
crazy. He rushed against Aunt Elm
and upset her all over the Nc 'iinnis
girls, and then he banged up against
the water-barrel, and upset that, and
then he fell into the hot-bed, an broke
all the glass. You never saw such an
awful sight The rhnoceros kept veil
ing all the time. only nobody could un-
derstand what he said, and pulling ~
his head with his fore-paws. and jump
ing up and down, and smashing every
thing in his way, and | went after him
just as if was a Central African hunt
ing a rhinoceros. Hsa
/ was almost frightened. and as for
the folks, they rin into the house, all
except Aunt Eliza, who had to he car
ried in. / kept as close behind the
rhinoceros as could, begging him to be
quiet, and tell me what was the matter
After a while he lay down on the
ground, and cut The strings of his
skin SO that he could get his head oat
and talk, s,si nt
He sad he was most dead. The
wasps had built nest in one of his
hind legs as hea.was hanging in, the
barn. and they had stHng h m;rBDtil
they got tired He said he'd never
have anything more i to. do with the
menagerie. and went home with MS
mother. and my mother said | must
give him all the money, because he had
suffered so much.