"Since that time I have never heard any of the cranes doing very much bragging, and it is a pity that there are yet others around this place who ought to get just such a lesson, for many of the animals here need it sadly."
"You among the rest?" your Aunt Amy asked laughingly, and Mrs. Mouser Cat replied:
"Thank goodness, I am not proud, and perhaps it is because I haven't very much to take pride in. But I have lived long enough in this world to know that one of us is of just about as much importance as another, and the animal or the bird who thinks this world couldn't move very well without him, is making a big mistake. There is nobody whose place cannot be filled when it becomes necessary; there would even be somebody to run this farm as well as Mr. Man does, if he should die to-morrow."
MENAGERIE POETRY.
"What I have in mind is told, in a foolish kind of a way, I suppose, by Mr. Crow, who wrote the verses when Mr. Man's little girl Dolly wanted a pet, and no matter how much she thought of one, if it died, or got lost, the next that came along suited her almost as well.
"Of course I don't want you to suppose I think this is anything but nonsense; but at the same time it carries out the idea of what I have been trying to say," and then Mrs. Mouser repeated the following:
I once possessed an Elephant
Who fed on potted grouse;
One day I lost him, but I think
He's somewhere in the house.
I had a Hippopotamus
Who really was quite slim;
He caught a chill, and so I thought
I'd best get rid of him.
I also had a gay Giraffe,
Whose antics made me wince;
He went a walk to Brooklyn town,
I've never seen him since.