Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/201

Rh with as much grace as he had shown. What was all this talk of giraffes and the way they drank?

"I have seen giraffes lots of times, but never noticed the way they drank until I saw a movie of some animals in the jungle," Rebecca continued. "It was a picture of a drinking hole during a great drouth when all the animals came to drink. Kipling tells about a drinking hole in one of his stories. When I saw the movie it made me understand Kipling better."

Spot scowled and turned his back. If this talk was to keep up he would have Aunt Testy take his food into the dining room and give up the back porch to the interloper. And Rebecca, serenely unconscious, chattered on.

"That movie of the jungle animals made me very sad. It seems terrible to snare them and place them in captivity. There was one great hyena that dragged the trap that had sprung on him for miles and miles until he was so exhausted it almost broke my heart and then he was put in a cage and brought to New York. You can see him now up at the Bronx Zoo."

Aunt Testy appeared with a tray of food, to break Spot's silence, handing Rebecca a plate of hot corn bread and a mug of cold buttermilk, and taking a similar repast to the table for her young master. She then waddled back to her