She kept the experience to herself, but one day it was witnessed by a tunnelman. On that day Peggy's reputation was made! From this time henceforth the major part of Blue Cement Ridge became serious collectors for what was known as “Peggy's menagerie,” and two of the tunnelmen constructed a stockaded inclosure--not half a mile from the blacksmith's cabin, but unknown to him--for the reception of specimens. For a long time its existence was kept a secret between Peggy and her loyal friends. Her parents, aware of her eccentric tastes only through the introduction of such smaller creatures as lizards, toads, and tarantulas into their house,--which usually escaped from their tin cans and boxes and sought refuge in the family slippers,--had frowned upon her zoological studies. Her mother found that her woodland rambles entailed an extraordinary wear and tear of her clothing. A pinafore reduced to ribbons by a young fox, and a straw hat half swallowed by a mountain kid, did not seem to be a natural incident to an ordinary walk to the schoolhouse. Her sisters thought her tastes “low,” and her familiar association with the miners inconsistent with their own dignity. But Peggy went regularly to school, was a fair scholar in elementary studies (what she knew of natural history, in fact, quite startled her teachers), and being also a teachable child, was allowed some latitude. As for Peggy herself, she kept her own faith unshaken; her little creed, whose shibboleth was not “to be afraid” of God's creatures, but to “love 'em,” sustained her through reprimand, torn clothing, and, it is to be feared, occasional bites and scratches from the loved ones themselves.