Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1905-12-06

sort of butt in, the elephants are on to
you in minute and roll their eyes at
you and look upon you as a COM
mon person. and if you attempt any
familiarity they look at you as much
as to say: .'Sir, l am not allowed to
associate with any except the AGO."
Then they turn their backs and act so
much like shoddy aristOcracy that you
would swear they were human
l remember when pa was first in the
elephant corral, the keeper forgot to
tell the big elephant who pa was, and
when the keeper raised up one foot
of the elephant and examined a corn,
pa went up and pinched bunch on the
elephants leg and said to the keeper:
That looks to me like SPAWN" and
he nebbed it hard. Well, the elephant
groaned like a boy with stone
bruise on his heel, and before pa knew
his trunk under pa and raised pa upon
his tusks and was going to toss him in
the air and catch him as he came
down and walk on him, when pa
yelled murder, and the keeper took an
iron hook and hooked it into the ele-
plants skin. and said: LET that man
down." and he let pa down easy. and
the keeper some way showed the ele-
plant that pa was one of the owners
of the show, and that elephant acted
just as human as could be, for he fair
ly toadied to pa, like society leader
tnat has given the cold shoulder to
some one that is as good or better than
they, or like an impudent employee who
has insulted his employer and is afraid
OF losing his job. After that whenever
pa and l go around the elephants they
bow down to us, and / think l could
take an iron hook and drive an ele-
plant anywhere.
There are all classes among the ami
mails in a menagerie the same as hui
man society. The lions are like the
leaders of society who are we'll born
and proud, but poor. They are always
invited everywhere, but never enter
tain, though they kick and find fault,
and ogle everybody, and look wise and
distinguished.
The sacred cattle are too good to
live and pose as the pious animals who
do not want to associate with the bad
animals and are constantly wearing an
air of Il am holier than any of YOU -
but they will reach through the bars
of their cage and steal alfalfa from the
Yak and the mule deer, and if they
kick about it the sacred cattle look
hurt and act like it was part of their
duty to take up a collection, and they
below sort of hymn to drown the
kicking.
The different kind of goats in a
menagerie are the butters-in. or the
new rich, who get in the way of the
society leaders and try to Guido them
in society stunts, but they smell so
that the other animals are made sick
and the goats are only tolerated be-
cause animal society is afraid to Of
fend them, for fear the leaders may
some time go into bankruptcy and the
goats will take their places and never
let them get smell of the good things
of life
The bears are the working people of
the show. and the big grizzlies are the
walking delegates who control the
amalgamated association of working
bears, and the occupants of the other
cages have got to cater to Uncle
Ephriam, the walking delegate, or
slugged.
The hyenas and the jackals, and the
wolves, represent the anarchists who
are down on everybody in the show.
who won't do a thing to help along
and won't allow any other animal to
do anything, and who seem to want to
burn and Stay, to carry torch by
night and poison by day, and want
everything in the show to be chaos.
Those animals are never so happy as
when the wind and lightning strike the
tent, and blow it down. and kill peo-
pie, and create a panic, and then these
anarchists sing and laugh and enjoy
their peculiar kind of animal re-
ligion
The zebras and CRATES are the
dudes of the show, and you can mag
inc, if they were human, they would
play tennis and golf, drive four in
hands and pose to be admired. while
the Royal Bengal tigers, if they were
half human, would drive automobiles
at the rate of mile a minute on
crowded streets. run over people and
never stop to. help the wounded, but
skip away with sneer, as much as to
say: What are you going to do
about it,
The seals are the clean-cut Baptists
of the show, who believe in INNER
sion, and they have more brain than
my animals in the show, because they
live~on a fish diet, though they have a
pneumonia cough that makes you feel
like sending for doctor.
Gee, but last night when we thought
spring had come and we could start
on the road pretty soon, the snow fell
about a foot deep, and it was so cold
that all the animals howled all night.
and shivered, and went on a regular