He arrived at the great stable where he was to be exhibited, thinking that it was an admirable thing to be an elephant. They gave him something to eat, and soon the men and boys came in to see him. For half an hour he had a fine time, walking around, carrying boys about on his tusks,—taking his keeper’s head into his mouth,—picking up nuts and pieces of gingerbread with the finger and thumb at the end of his proboscis,—laying down and rising again at the keeper’s command. Pretty soon, however, he got tired, and when the keeper ordered him to lay down, he concluded that he would not get up again. But the keeper taught him by blows that he was not his own master, if he was a gentleman. New troops of starers kept coming in, and Rollo got tired out completely with going over and over again the same evolutions. He could hardly stand at last, and when they left him for the night, and he lay down to try to rest, and he reflected that it must be just so to-morrow, and the next day, and so on as long as he lived, he was almost in despair. “Oh!” said he, how foolish I was to wish to be an elephant! I had rather be any thing else. What a hard life I lead!
“And then such a window as this to look out of, after my hard day’s work,” said he, as he turned his eye upward towards a little square hole in the stable wall. “What a window for an elephant’s residence!”
As he looked out this hole, his eye rested upon a green tree growing in a garden behind the wall. A bird was perched upon a branch, singing an evening song.
“Ah, you little bird, what a happy time you must have there,—free as air, and full of happiness. You find plenty to eat, you have your own pleasant home upon a lofty tree, out of the reach of any danger. You go where you please with your swift wings. Oh, if I only had wings, how easily I could escape from all my troubles.”
As he said this, his long proboscis which was lying over his leg as he was reclining upon the stable floor, began to straighten out and stiffen,—turning into a huge bill,—feathers began to come out all over him—his immense body dwindled down to the size of an ox, then to that of a sheep, and finally he became smaller than a dove. Beautiful wings covered his sides. He hopped along upon the floor, and finding that he was really a bird, he leaped up and flew out of the window,—away from the ugly stable forever.
He spent a pleasant night among the trees, and early the next morning was singing blithely upon a branch. A man came into the field with something in his hand. Rollo looked at him, happy to think that no man could catch him or hurt him, now that he had such a pair of wings. In a minute the man held up the thing he had in his hands and pointed at him. Rollo had just time to see that it was a gun, and to stretch his wings in terrible fear, when,—flash,—BANG,—went the gun, and down came the poor bird to the ground, with his wing and leg torn away, and a dozen leaden shot lodged in his red breast,—for he was a robin. The terror and pain waked him up, and he found himself sitting in his arbor, with his book on the ground, where it had fallen from his hand. He got up, and went to the house, thinking that a discontented mind would find trouble enough in any situation, and that a boy with kind parents, a pleasant home, and plenty of food and clothing, ought not to complain of his lot, even if he was called upon sometimes to help his mother.
THE COLD MORNING.
One pleasant morning in the fall of the year, little Charles, who had been sleeping on the trundle-bed in his mother’s chamber, waked up and opened his eyes. He looked around him, and saw that his father was dressing himself.
“Father,” said he, “may I get up too?”