and my friends in the grass, for I saw 

 several little ostriches a few days older, 

 around me; but they wandered about, 

 while I had to sit down I was so weak. 

 One of the ladies said:"Oh the dear 

 little birdie, what a funny neck it has." 

 Another said :'There must be something 

 wrong with him, he is so weak." Another 

 had a box fastened to her which she 

 placed in front of us, and, as I after 

 wards found, took our pictures. I heard 

 the keeper say "that little one was born 

 this morning" so I knew I was a special 

 object of interest to all, for the others had 

 been born some other day and were 

 not so weak. But I ate away and never 

 minded those people from Missouri. 



The second day many more people 

 came staring around and all laughed at 

 me; they said I made such funny mo 

 tions when I walked or sat down ; one 

 man said I looked like a common 

 drunkard whatever that may mean; 

 but resting and eating I pursued my way 

 among the sweet, green grass and never 

 minded the remarks of hosts of people 

 who, I heard afterwards, paid two sljil- 

 lings each only to see ostriches. 

 I once heard mother say "a fool 

 and his money are soon parted," 

 so I then remembered that she was 

 rich. But the time passed on and 

 I grew in size amazingly ; my readers 

 would not believe unless they saw, how 

 fast little ostriches grow ; the truth is, 

 they grow at the rate of twelve inches a 

 month for the first six months. When 

 we come into the world there is a pretty 

 tiger stripe around our necks and /we are 

 covered with funny sharp bristles; in 

 about two^months these have all gone 

 and part of our bodies are bare, while 

 some is covered with very little grey 

 feathers. So that in about six weeks I 

 was not half as pretty and "cute" as 

 I was the day I was born ; so the public 

 passed on without much notice of me. 

 Once in a while a rude man would say 

 "look at those walking bladders," or that 

 we looked like half-picked chickens, but 

 we heard this so often that none of us 

 cared. 



One day I felt so good I jumped over 

 the fence and ran down the big sand- 

 covered aisle of the ostrich farm. Here 



I met a dog that so frightened me that 

 I fell down in a faint and a keeper picked 

 me up and put me back in the long 

 grass. 



When I was three feet high and three 

 months old, I was taken out of the green 

 grass and placed in a bare pen covered 

 with sand, with about fifty young 

 ostriches, all of them older than myself; 

 here we had no nice green grass, but 

 three times a day a man came with a 

 lot of chopped hay. We ate this as fast 

 as we could, and had plenty of water to 

 drink; now and then he fed us with 

 sacks of common little oranges. The very 

 young ostrich chicks do not drink 

 water, for the grass is so damp 

 that they do not need it. Here 

 I remained for twenty-one months 

 and then was removed to a much 

 larger pen where a hundred os 

 triches of my size were walking about. 

 I was now seven feet high as large 

 as a door and able to take care of my 

 self; in this pen we were fed with 

 chopped beets, corn and plenty of dry 

 grass as well as the skins of grapes after 

 the juice has been pressed out to make 

 wine. Here is where I am now and do 

 nothing but walk about or play with 

 my friends. 



But my saddest time was about two 

 months ago when a rude man came into 

 the pen and put a stocking over my 

 head ; I was so frightened I dared not 

 say a word; I trembled all over like a 

 leaf . and thought they were going to cut 

 my head off and make me into a fry ; but 

 I have since leared that ostriches are 

 never eaten; that the Jews don't allow 

 it; and that the meat of an ostrich is 

 as tough as sole-leather. This man 

 pushed me along to where another man 

 stood with a pair of shears ; he cut off 

 my longest feathers ; not satisfied with 

 that he pulled out a lot of little feathers, 

 which were, of course, not much use to 

 him. But it made me jump like a jack- 

 rabbit every time he pulled one out. 

 Who can tell my misery? It was a bad 

 quarter of an hour for me and seemed 

 like two hours. At last the stocking 

 was taken from my eyes and I was free. 

 Oh, happiness! Just then a rude boy 

 climbed on my back and away I flew 



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