Dodge City times., 1883-02-22
Hunting the RhinOceros.

We ought always to be useful, and do
good to everybody. | used to think
that we ought always to improve our
minds, and think SO some now, though
.Ihave got into dreadful difficulties all
through improving my mind. But l am
not going to be discouraged. l tried to
be useful the other day, and do good to
the heather in distant lands, and you
wouldn't believe what trouble it made.
There are some; people who would new
er do good again if they had got into
the trouble that I got into; but the
proverb says that if at first you don t
succeed, cry, cry again; and there was
lots Iof crying, can tell you. over our
rhinoceross that we thought was going
to do so much gOod.sI .7.E 7Ia .1gl
1t all happened because Aunt Eliza
was staying at our house. She had a
SundaY-schOOF one afternoon. and Tom
McGinnis ard were the scholars, and
she told us about boy that got up a
panorama about the Pilgrtnl' s Progress
abby 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 mornahundred
little heathens with it. and how nice it
would be if you dear boys would 60 and
do, likewise and now well sing s Hold
the Fort. ..-a r.. n ,g,os9 u,r7or '.'
Well, Tom. and I thought about it,
and we said we'd get up a, menagerie,
and we'd take turns playing animals,
and we d let folks see it for ten cents
apiece, and make a lot Of money, and
do ever. SO much good aA sa aa.' gs.
We got book full of pictures of ami
mals, 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 sdion's and tigers and a bear s
andarhinOceros' skin, besides awhole
lot Of others. AS fast us we got the
skins made, we hung them up in a, 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 the sewing. and Sue she painted
the stripes on the tiger, and the fancy
touches on the other animals
~ Our rhinoceros was the best animal
we had The rhinoceros is lively
animal when he's alive He is almost
as big as an elephant, ,sandshe has skin
that is SO thick that you can't shoot a
bullet through it unless you hit it in g.
place that is a little softer than the other
places. He has horn on the end of
his nose, and he can toss tiger with it
till the tiger feels sick, and says he won't
play any more. The rhinoceros lives in
Africa, and he'would toss 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 doesn't hurt, and after
awhile the rhinoceros gets discouraged,
and says: ''Oh, well, what's the good
anyhow?'' and goes away into the for
est. At least this is what Mr.. Travers
says, but dom believe itforthe rhinoc-
eros wouldn't stand still and let the ma
tives put an India-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 menagerie on earth. We
had two rows of chairs in the back
yard, and all our folks and all Toms
folk came, and we took in dollar and
tsiRty cents at Che door, = which was the
back gate. -. s.4vge1 aGI
4 Il was a bear, first of all, and grow1ed
so natural that everybody said it was
really frightful. Then it was TOMS
turn to be an animal, and he was to, be
the raging rhinoceros OF Central Africa.
Ihelped dress him in the barn. and
when he was dressed he looked beauti.
fnl.
The rhinocerosN skin went all over
him, and was tied together So that he
cosldn t get out OF it without help. His
horn was made pf,wood painted white,
and his eyes We're two agates. Ofcourse
he couldn't see through them, but they
looked natural, and as | swastato lead
r him, he didn need to see. RI iiaa3
3 Ihad just got him eatside tho barn,
and had begun to say: Ladies and gen
tlemen, this is the. raging rhinoceros," !"
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