A Kindergarten Experiment 255 



Our attachments are, and should be, more toward 

 our flesh and blood than to the dumb companions 

 about us ; but the life is the same, and the sensation 

 the same when we feel it is about to depart. 



And so I lost the last of my feathered pets lost 

 them largely because I did not understand them, 

 could not comprehend their delicate and sensitive 

 natures, and hence did not properly care for them. 

 I deserve the severest blame, the most unqualified 

 censure. And yet, was I so very much worse in 

 this respect that many others who are to-day keep- 

 ing pets for their own selfish pleasure and subjecting 

 them literally to a lingering death ? Do we always 

 stop to consider, in assuming an obligation, how im- 

 portant it may be and what serious consequences it 

 may involve ? And do we always realize that, hav- 

 ing once assumed such an obligation, its moral re- 

 sponsibility can never be evaded ? How many men, 

 presumably honorable, have sold their speeders, hunt- 

 ers, or carriage horses, after they have outlived their 

 highest usefulness, regardless of the depths of humil- 

 iation and suffering to which the last days of the 

 faithful creatures may be subjected ! The enslave- 



