of one piece of white cheese-cloth and two of Mary's most ardent freshman
admirers. There was a certain wobbly buoyancy in its gait and a
jauntiness about its waving white trunk,--which was locked at the end, as
Mary explained, to guard against the ferocious assaults of this terrible
man-eater,--which never failed to convulse the audience and put them in
the proper humor for the rest of the performance. The snake-charmer
exhibited her paper pets. The lion, made up on the principle of the one
in "Midsummer Night's Dream" pawed and roared and assured timid ladies
that she was not a lion at all, but only that far more awful creature, a
Harding senior. And finally Mary opened the cage containing the Happy
Family, and there filed out a quartette of strange beasts which no
Harding girl in the audience failed to recognize as the four "class
animals,"--the seniors' red lion, the juniors' purple cow, the green
dragon beloved by the sophomores, and the freshmen's yellow chicken.

"They dance" announced Mary in beatific tones, and the three four-legged
creatures stood on their hind legs and, joining paws and wings with the
chicken, went through a solemn Alice-in-Wonderland-like dance. This was
always terminated abruptly by some animal or another's being overcome by
mirth or suffocation, and rushing unceremoniously back into the cage to
recuperate. When the Happy Family was again reunited, Mary announced that
they could also sing, and, each in a different key, the creatures burst
forth with the "Animal Song," dear to the hearts of all Harding girls:

"I went to the Animal Fair; the great Red Lion was there.
The Purple Cow was telling how
She'd come to take the air.
The Dragon he looked sick, and the little Yellow Chick,
Looked awfully blue, and I think, don't you,
He'd better clear out quick--quick!"