Page:Babyhood of Wild Beasts.djvu/19

Rh furry head and talked softly to him. He watched me closely as you sometimes see a dog look into the eyes of his master while he is speaking, as though he understood every word.

One day I found the little fellow sick. I looked at him stretched out before me and realised for the first time that my little roly-poly pet had grown into a long, lean, lanky, young lion.

We had been such close friends I hadn't noticed the great change until I saw him under different conditions. I won't linger over the tragedy. One morning we found him cold and stiff lying in his hammock and a little sparrow chirping on the window sill beside him. His dear spirit had gone back to God that gave it and I was alone with my dead. Sometimes I take from the drawer a handbag worn and rusty from which half the beads are gone, with the golden clasps bitten and bent. The twilight playtime comes back to me and I see a tawny little lion playing tug o' war with me. The tears rush to my eyes as I lay it gently away and through the mist I see his kingly little head