Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/260

240 seven or eight bottles, but it's fortunate I've got plenty of it in the house. Just move in that step-ladder you'll see in the hall closet, please, and I'll go and get the remedy."

In a few minutes more she had mounted a somewhat unsteady perch and began to administer the lotion. "Strange how much this creature's eyes favor Lucy's," she said to herself, massaging energetically. "I always did admire brown eyes. Ebeneezer always used to say you can get a black eye too easy for 'em to be pretty. Lucy admires to get herself up in low-cut gowns; I s'pose she would even if she had a neck like this. Say, Princess, hand me up a couple of them crash bath-towels, will you? I think Milly ought to have a regular bandage. I'll take my needle and thread and sew 'em on good. Don't you think I might tie the top onto his horns so it won't slip down? Hold your head still, won't you, please! My land! the airs this critter puts on! Bridles like a girl of sixteen. There! I guess that 'll keep her from gettin' any worse. She does look ridiculous, don't she? If I once stop to laugh, I'll fall off this step-ladder."

The Princess gazed stolidly at the result. "You got an awful good heart, Mrs. Figtry," she said, "but I don't reckon dumb animals suffer much like us folks."

"What! With all that throat to be sore?" cried Mrs. Noah, descending the steps. "Don't you believe it! Animals have got organs and innerds just like ours. If you'd cleaned and drawn as many chickens as I have, you'd known that. Now what that animal wants is a good hot bath and then be well wrapped up. But I don't suppose we could get her in the tub; that zinc's too slippery; and then the water 'd never reach up beyond her knees, anyway. But I tell you what I'm goin' to do I'm goin' to fill a hot-water bottle and fasten it on this giraffe's chest. That 'll do more good than anything else. But where in the world her neck leaves off and her chest begins I'm jiggered if I can tell! I hope your snake won't get sick, Princess, for I consider I'd have to draw the line at reptiles. They don't hardly seem to deserve even pity from a Christian, but I hope I won't be tempted to allow him to suffer."

Mrs. Noah's ministrations were at last finished by means of a complicated net of tapes, and the two women bade the men good night and prepared for bed. Their repose was somewhat broken, however, by the snoring of the trio of quadrupeds. Joshua's almost continuous performance reverberated through the night. Occasionally the plaintive wheezing of the giraffe in the bath-room awoke Mrs. Noah, and she made several trips of visitation in her nightgown to renew the temperature of the hot-water bottle by means of an alcohol-lamp and a teakettle. The Princess, however, slept on serenely. A heavy jar at midnight and a rattle of window-panes at four o'clock in the morning marked the limits of Jumbo Junior's deep sleep. From the ice-chest no sound was heard.

So a few days passed, during which time Mr. Steggins scoured the neighborhood to find some raft or barge upon which to make his voyage to Memphis. During his absence his hostess's acquaintance with the three animals and the married couple progressed toward friendship.

A feature of Mrs. Noah's methodical habits was her diary—a small octavo bound in faded morocco—the week-days laboriously altered from 1887, the year of its publication, to the current calendar. A few excerpts from this volume would indicate the progress of events in her household:

"Tuesday, March 27.—Last night I heard Jumbo Junior whining in his sleep. Thought he might have a tuskache. Went down-stairs with a bottle of oil of clove and a wash-rag. Stepped on something at foot of stairs. Felt just like a big sausage, only more energetic. Screamed. The Princess (found out she really comes from Hoboken) come down in her shawl. It was the big snake. Sat on banisters while she gave it two soup-ladles full of soothing-syrup. Ramo came out in Ebeneezer's smoking-jacket and helped lift the snake into the ice-chest. Elephant didn't have toothache, after all.

"Wednesday, March 28.—Cloudy, S. W. wind. Giraffe still enjoying poor health. Tried hot applications and tied two pairs of bed-socks on her feet. Wrapped Ebeneezer's flannelette bathrobe round her shoulders. Found later