"Let's see the bears, first," suggested Sunny Boy.
And they did. Sunny Boy pressed so close to the cages of the animals that his mother pulled him back repeatedly. They saw lions and tigers and bears and elephants and more queer and curious animals than Sunny Boy dreamed existed.
"I like the bears best," he told Mother, as they came away. "The polar bear looked just like our fur rug at home. And he had cakes of ice to sleep on."
"That is because he is used to cold weather," explained Mrs. Horton. "The polar bear isn't well or happy unless his den is nice and cold."
In the monkey house Sunny Boy was fascinated by one little black-faced monkey that kept running up to the top of his cage, swinging across, and then hanging by his tail at the other end before he dropped with a bang that would shake any one else's teeth loose.
"Doesn't he get a headache?" asked Sunny Boy aloud.
A boy who had been standing with his nose pressed against the cage bars, a rather shabby-looking boy with big holes in his tan stockings, answered without turning around.
"He's been doing that for the last hour," said the boy. "I think some one was mean to him early this morning and he is just mad."
Sunny moved closer to the other boy.
"You are Joe Brown, aren't you?" he asked, puzzled.