years. The animals were all old, and there was a shabby great elephant
whose look of general discouragement went to my heart, for it seemed as
if he were miserably conscious of a misspent life. He stood dejected and
motionless at one side of the tent, and it was hard to believe that
there was a spark of vitality left in him. A great number of the people
had never seen an elephant before, and we heard a thin little old man,
who stood near us, say delightedly, "There's the old creatur', and no
mistake, Ann 'Liza. I wanted to see him most of anything. My sakes
alive, ain't he big!"

And Ann 'Liza, who was stout and sleepy-looking, droned out, "Ye-es,
there's consider'ble of him; but he looks as if he ain't got no
animation."

Kate and I turned away and laughed, while Mrs. Kew said confidentially,
as the couple moved away, "_She_ needn't be a reflectin' on the poor
beast. That's Mis Seth Tanner, and there isn't a woman in Deephaven nor
East Parish to be named the same day with her for laziness. I'm glad she
didn't catch sight of me; she'd have talked about nothing for a
fortnight."

There was a picture of a huge snake in Deephaven, and I was just
wondering where he could be, or if there ever had been one, when we
heard a boy ask the same question of the man whose thankless task it was
to stir up the lions with a stick to make them roar. "The snake's dead,"
he answered good-naturedly. "Didn't you have to dig an awful long grave
for him?" asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned they curled him up
some, and smiled as he turned to his lions, who looked as if they needed
a tonic. Everybody lingered longest before the monkeys, who seemed to be
the only lively creatures in the whole collection; and finally we made