142 



FOUR-HANDED FOLK. 



started with my unmanageable freight for the 

 quiet village in New England that was my des- 

 tination. 



The dismay of my family at my fellow-trav- 

 elers, — for beside the monkeys I had several 

 parrots and a baby ocelot, — the exclamations of 

 surprise, not to say horror ; the anxious " What 

 can we do with five monkeys ! " " And a house- 

 ful of parrots!" "And a tiger!" — all this I 

 leave to the reader's imagination. 



The first thing was to release them from 

 prison ; so I took them out, one by one, and 

 tied them in a row to the garden fence. A vil- 

 lage with the usual number of small boys, five 

 queer monkeys tied in a row, a free show ! The 

 news spread like wildfire. The audience was 

 perhaps not large, but it was all there was ; it 

 was the whole population, at least the younger 

 part. 



A crowd surrounded the yard all day ; car- 

 riages drove up and stopped ; and every country 

 wagon that passed within ten miles, I 'm sure, 

 came around by our street to see the strangers. 

 The monkeys enjoyed this succession of com- 

 pany ; nothing pleased them like an audience, 

 and they cut all the pranks they could think of 

 for the amusement of their guests. 



At night they slept in the stable, where they 

 huddled together under a quilt, and as it grew 



