FLOSSIE'S PET ALLIGATOR.
UNT MEG, did you ever see an alligator,—a real live one, such as papa took me to see in Boston, last summer?"
"Oh, yes, Toddy! I have seen more alligators than you can count fingers and thumbs on your little dimpled hands. But I saw the funniest one when I was in Kansas last winter; and if you will sit here on my lap, I will tell you all about it.
"One day, last year, when Flossie was in Jacksonville, Florida, with her parents, she saw a baby-alligator, and took such a fancy to it, that her papa bought it for her. They brought it home in the spring, and cousin Fred made a pen for it in the back-yard, near a large puddle of water; for alligators, you know, live in the water.
"Always after a rain, the water was quite deep, and 'Allie,' as Flossie named her pet, would splash about in it, as happy as could be. Flossie and all the children in the neighborhood, used to play with him every day.
"Before the spring was over, Allie was so tame, that he would follow Flossie up to the house, where the children would feed him with fish or meat.
"The alligator kept growing and growing, until he was too large for the pen; and as he grew old, he grew so cross, that Flossie's papa sold him to a circus-man for a twenty-dollar gold-piece, and the children never saw their pet again."
AUNT MEG.
