of bad boys in school when visitors make a call. Pa went around to visit
all the animals, officially, while I got interested in a female
kangaroo, with a couple of babies, not more than three weeks old, and I
noticed the mother kangaroo made the old man kangaroo, her husband,
stand around and he acted just like some men I have seen who were afraid
to say their souls were their own in the presence of their wives.

The female kangaroo is surely a wonder, and seems to be built on plans
and specifications different from any other animal, cause she has got a
fur-lined pouch on her stomach, just like a vest, that she carries her
young in. When the babies are frightened they make a hurry-up move
towards ma, the pouch opens, and they jump in out of sight, like a
gopher going into its hole, and the mother looks around as innocent as
can be, as much as to say: "You can search me. I don't know, honestly,
where those kids have gone, but they were around here not more than a
minute ago." And when the fright is over the two heads peep out of the
top of the pouch, and the old man grunts, as much as to say: "O, come on
out, there is no danger, and let your ma have a little rest, 'cause she
is nervous," and then the babies come out and run around the cage, and
sit up on their hind feet and look wise. That kangaroo pouch is a
success, and I wonder why nature did not provide pouches for all animals
to carry their young in. I think Pullman must have got his ideas for the
upper and lower berths of a sleeping car by seeing a kangaroo pouch. I
am going to study the kangaroo and make friends with the old man
kangaroo, 'cause he looks as though he had troubles of his own.

Pa showed up without any coat, while I was kangarooing, and there was a
rip in his pants, and I asked him what was the trouble, and he said he
got too near the cage of a leopard that seemed to be asleep, and the
traitor reached out his paw and gathered in the tail of pa's coat, and