The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1883-02-07
. 10. 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, 50 that we'd Look just like ami
mails when we had them on. We had a
lions and tigers and bears and rhi-
noceros's skin, bssides whole lot of other =.
AS fast as we got the skins made we hung
them up in q corner Of the barn where n :
body could see them. The way we made
them was to show the pictures TO mother
and Aunt Eliza, and they did the cutting
out and sewing, and Sue she painted the
stripes on the tiger, ard the fancy touches
on the other animals.
Our rhinoceros was the best animal we
had. The rhinoceros is lovely animal
when he's alive. He is almost as big as an
elephant, and he has q skin that is so thick
that you cant shoot bullet through it IN
less you hit it in place that is little
softer than the other places. He has a
horn on the end Of his nose, and he can toss
a tiger with it till the tiger feels sick, and
says he won't play any more. The rhi-
noceros lives in Africs, and he would toss
most all .he natives if il wasn't that they
fssten an India-rubber ball on the end of
hi; horn, 30 that when he tries to toss any
body, the horn doesn't hurt, end after a
whils the rhiDoceros gets discouraged, and
ssys, "Oh, well, what's the good anyhow
and goes away into the forest. At least
that is what Dir. Travers says, but
l don't believe it; for the rhi-
noceros wouldn't stand still and let
the natives put an India-rubber ball on his
horn, and they wouldn't want to waste In
dis-rubber balls that way when they could
pay lawn tennis with them.
Last Saturday afternoon we had our first
grand consolidated exhibition of the great
est menagerie on earth. We had two rows
OF chairs in the bsck yard, and all our folks
and all TOMS folks came and we took in a
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 Toms turn to be
snimsl, and he was to be the raging rhino-
ceros OF Central Africa HELPED dress him
in the barn, and when he was dressed he
looked besutiful.
The rhinoceros's skin went sll over him,
ard was tied together so that he couldn't
get out of it without help. His horn was
made of wood painted white and his eyes
were two sgstes. OF course he couldn't see
throrg Oh them, but they looked natural. and
as 1 was TO lead him, ne didn't need to
see.
had Just got him outside the barn, and
had begun TO cay, Ladies' and gentlemen,
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 rush
around ss If be was crszy. He rushed
against Aunt Eliza, and upset her all over
the McGinnis girls, and then he
banged up against the water-barTel,
and upset that, and then he
fell into the hot bed, and broke all the glass.
You never saw such an awful sight. The
rhinoceros kept yelling all the time, only
nobody could understand what he said,
and pulling at his head with his tore-pa VS.,
and jumping up and down, and smashing
everything in his way, and l went after
him Just as If L was q Central African hunt
ing rhinoceEos.
was almost frightened, and as for the
folks, they ran into the house, all except
Aunt Eliza, who had to be carried in. 1
kept as close behind the rhinoceros as
could, begging him to be quiet, and tell me
what was the matter. After a while he Law
down on the ground, and 1 cut the
strings of his skin 80 that he could get his
his head out and talk.
He said he was moot dead. The wasps
had built a nest in one of his hind-legs as it
vas hanging in the barn, and they had
stung him until they got tired. He said he'd
never have anything more to do with the
mensgerie, and went home with his mother,
and my mother said must give him ell the
money, because he had suffered so much.
Bus. as l said, won't be discouraged, and
will try to do good, and be useful to others
the next time see fair chance.