“‘Put your head in here, sir,’ roared the big man at him, so that the snake shook and shook just like a leaf on one of our maple-trees in a storm. Well, and at last he had his head with the flashing green eyes, fast in a big bag, which you must know in a twinkling the big man had pulled out of his other side pocket, and then he was left to go flopping and flopping around on the ground most dismally. And then the big man scrambled up to his mountain-side again.
“Well,” said Polly with a long breath, “the next thing he saw was a gi-raffe, as much bigger than the others as you can imagine. And he got him fast, too, so he couldn’t get away; and then he went up to spy out more animals. And by the time the sun went down behind the mountain, and he couldn’t catch any more, he had two hundred creatures all tied fast to trees, or with their heads in bags. And then he sat down on a big stone to rest.”
“I should think he’d have to,” said Ben under his breath.
Polly shot him a reproving glance, and hurried on. “Well, after he was all rested nicely again, he jumped up from his stone, and looked them all in the face, that is, he looked those who were tied to trees in the face, but those with their heads in bags, of course he couldn’t, and he said, ‘My friends,’ for he thought he ought to treat them kindly, they’d been so good to him, ‘I’m going to take you to see the world a little.’ Then he untied those who were tied to the trees, and set them in a line, the hippo in front, because he had him the longest, so it was right to give him the first place, and the creatures with their heads in the bags he set in the middle, because they didn’t need to see, but could just follow the noise of the animals stepping in front of them, and then a long line of more animals. Then the big man cut down one of the large trees and switched it at the heels of the last animal, which was a rhododendron.”
“O Polly!” gasped Ben.
“Yes ’twas,” she declared positively, with red cheeks, “I’m quite sure of that word, for I saw it in the book Parson Higginson lent us; so there! Ben Pepper.”
“Well, never mind,” said Ben faintly; “go on with the story, Polly.” So Polly made her rhododendron move as swiftly as all the others in the line; and presently the whole procession, with the big man at its rear switching the heels of the last animal, was at the top of the mountain; and then he called in a loud voice, “Come, Mr. Circus-man, and get your menaj-menaj-arie.” Polly got over this very well, and hurried on glibly. “And all the people who had opened their barn-doors and houses, thinking there was to be no storm, clapped them to again in a fright. All except one man, and they screamed to him that he was risking his life; but he didn’t care, and he wouldn’t pay any attention to them. So he poked his head out of his doorway, and he screamed, ‘I’m going up the mountain to see for myself if there’s going to be a storm.’ And they all bade him good-bye, and said they were sure they should never see him again; and then they locked their doors, and padlocked them, and away he ran up the mountain.
“The big man was waiting for him; and he said to his animals, ‘Now, my friends, when that man’s head begins to show over that scrub-oak there,’ pointing to the tree, ‘do you all say, “How do you do, and how do you do, and how do you do again.”’ So the animals said they would; and as soon as the man’s head was to be seen peeping over the tree-top, as he ran pretty fast, they all said it. The Hippo roared it, and Mr. Snake grumbled it clear down half his length, and the rhi-rhino-cerus squealed it, and the elephant howled it, and the”—
“What did the rhododendron do?” asked Ben.