Meadow Grass: Tales of New England LifeBrown, Alice
General
Meadow Grass: Tales of New England Life
Brown, Alice
New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
heights? Here was the plain, homely setting of our plainer lives, and
right into the midst of it had come the East. The elephants affected us
most; we probably thought little about the immemorial mystery, the
vague, occult tradition wrapped in that mouse-colored hide; but even to
our dense Western imagination such quickening suggestion was vividly
apparent. We knew our world; usually it seemed to us the only one, even
when we looked at the stars. But at least one other had been created,
and before us appeared its visible sign,--my lord the elephant! There
he was, swaying along, conscious philosopher, conscious might, yet
holding his omniscience in the background, and keeping a wary eye out
for the peanuts with which we simple country souls had not provided
ourselves. There was one curious thing about it all. We had seen the
circus at Sudleigh, as I have said, yet the fact of entertaining it
within our borders made it seem exactly as if we had never laid eyes
upon it before. This was our caravan, and God Almighty had created the
elephant for us. Dilly Joyce slipped her hand quickly in mine and
pressed it hard. She was quite pale. Yet it was she who acted upon the
first practical thought. She recovered herself before my lord went by,
took a ginger cookie from her pocket, and put it into Davie Tolman's
hand.
"Here," she said, pushing him forward, "you go an' offer it to him.
He'll take it. See'f he don't!"
Davie accepted the mission with joy, and persisted in it until he found
himself close beside that swaying bulk, and saw the long trunk curved
enticingly toward him. Then he uttered one explosive howl, and fell
back on the very toes of us who were pressing forward to partake, by
right of sympathy, in the little drama.
"Lordy Massy, keep still!" cried out Nance Pete; and she snatched him
up bodily, and held him out to the elephant. I believe my own pang at
that moment to have been general. I forgot that elephants are not
carnivorous, and shuddered back, under the expectation of seeing Davie
devoured, hide and hair. But Nance had the address to stiffen the
little arm, and my lord took the cookie, still clutched in the
despairing hand, and passed on. Then Davie wiped his eyes, after
peeping stealthily about to see whether any one was disposed to jeer at
him, and took such courage that he posed, ever after, as the hero of
the day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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