There was a big bed made up on the floor of my room,—the best chamber at Gail's,—and there I laid out my little pets, tucking them in with infinite concern; for they looked so like three diminutive mummies, as they lay there, that I didn't know whether they would think it worth while to wake up again into life; and what would I be worth then, without my wild boys?—I, who was born, by some mischance, out of my tropical element, and whose birthright is Polynesia! Gail laughed when she saw me fretting so, and she patted the curly heads of the babies, and stroked the Zebra's shaggy pate, and said "Good night" to us, as her step measured the hall, and a door closed in the distance; whereupon, instead of freezing in the icy linen of the spare bed at the other end of the room, I crept softly into the nest of cannibals, and we slept like kittens until morning.
At a seasonable hour the next day, I got my jewels—my little inhuman jewels—into their thick, winter clothes again, and we trotted down to breakfast, as hungry as bears. Deborah was good enough to embrace both the little ones, but she gave the Zebra a wide berth, and was not entirely satisfied at leaving him loose in the house.
He was rather odd-looking, I confess. He used to curl up under the table and go to sleep, at all hours of the day,—I think it was the cold weather that encouraged him in it,—stretching himself, now and then, like a spaniel, and showing his sharp saw-teeth in a queer way, when he laughed in his dreams. Presently Gail came in, and we sat at table, and came near to eating her out of house and home. Deborah said grace,—rather a long one, considering we were so hungry,—a grace in which my babies were not forgotten, and the Zebra was made the subject of a special prayer. To my horror, Zebra was helping himself surreptitiously to the nearest dish, the while. It was a merry meal. I rose in the midst of it, and laid before Gail an enormous placard, printed in as many colors as even the Zebra could boast, and Gail read it out to Deborah:—
JENKINS' HALL.
IMMENSE ATTRACTION!
FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY!
HOKY AND POKY,
A BRACE OF SOUTH-SEA BABIES, FROM THE ANCIENT RIVERS
OF KABALA-KUM,
—AND—
THE WONDERFUL BOY
ZEBRA,
A CANNIBAL PRINCE, FROM THE PALMY PLAINS OF POTTOBOKEE,
IN THEIR GRAND MORAL DIVERSION.
The first and only opportunity is now afforded the great public
to observe with safety how the heathen, in his blindness,
bows down to wood and stone.
These are the only original and genuine representatives of the
Kabalakumists and Pottobokees that ever left
their coral strand.
Admission, ——. Children, Half Price.
Deborah was awed into silence, and Gail was apparently thinking over the possible result of this strange advertisement, for she said nothing, but took deliberate sips of coffee, and broke the dry toast between her fingers, while she looked at all four of us savages in a peculiar and ominous manner. Nothing was said, however, to disparage any further announcement of the entertainment; and, having appeased our hunger, we adjourned to the reading of another chapter, during which the South Sea babies would play cat's-cradles under Gail's writing-table, and the Zebra put his foot into the middle of her work-basket, and was very miserable indeed.