"Oh, Doctor Joe, couldn't you help me up? It would be such a wonderful thing to ride on an elephant that I should be glad all my life."
Daisy Jasper looked so eager and pleading out of her beseeching blue eyes. So many pleasures must be foregone that he had not the heart to deny this.
"Are you quite sure you will not be afraid up there?" he asked earnestly.
"Oh, no, not with Hanny, dear Doctor Joe!"
He looked at Hanny. The little girl could climb trees and walk out to the ends of the limbs and jump; she had swung her arms and said one, two, three, and gone flying over the creek without falling in; she could do "vinegar" with a skipping rope; she could walk the edge of the curb-stone without tilting over; she could swing ever so high and not wink; she wasn't afraid to go up stairs in the dark; but when the elephant took the first long, rocking step, she felt something as she had when Luella Bounett had run downstairs with her in her arms. She grasped Daisy's hand on the one side and Charlie's arm on the other.
"Oh, Hanny, you're not afraid?"
"It's like being out at sea," and Daisy laughed.
But the back of the huge creature seemed up so high and his steps so long. Then she summoned all her courage, and resolved that she would not be a "little 'fraid cat."
The keeper interspersed the rides with stories of elephants in India taking care of babies, fanning flies away from them, watching over sick masters, and moving great timbers. Even if his eyes were small, he could see any danger. You could trust him when he was once your friend; but he never forgave an injury.
The big india-rubber feet came down with scarcely a sound. He flapped his ears lazily, he turned around without spilling them out, and marched up the line as if it was just nothing at all.