"Do you like the country?" asked Mrs. King, glancing toward her small visitor while her clever, quick fingers sent a continuous shower of peas rattling into the pan in her lap. "Oh, yes, I like it," nodded Sarah with enthusiasm. "I like it lots better than Eastshore and going to school. I wouldn't mind living in the country for always." "But you'd have to go to school if you lived in the country," said Mrs. King mildly. "You can't get away from lesson-books, no matter where you go." "Not in Africa?" suggested Sarah who never disdained an argument. "I've never been in Africa," Mrs. King replied, "so I can't tell you positively. But my guess is all the children who aren't natives, have to be educated." "What do the children who are natives do?" asked Sarah. Mrs. King considered. "I imagine they go around without any clothes on and the tigers eat them," she decided, recalling to mind several doleful pictures she had seen in an old geography. Sarah shivered, not in sympathy with the scantily clad children, but because of the tigers mentioned. "I wouldn't want to be eaten by a tiger," she declared, rocking violently back and forth, "but I would love to have a baby tiger to play with me." "Look out you don't go over backward," warned the landlady. "Don't you know a baby tiger would grow up to be a fierce, wild animal and probably end up by eating you?" she added. "He wouldn't eat me, if I brought him up tame," said Sarah. "Baby tigers are like kittens--I saw some pictures of them once. I'd keep mine to guard my farm and I'll bet no robbers would come if they knew a live tiger was roaming around." "No, robbers wouldn't come, or your friends, either," Mrs. King said grimly. "And the butcher would be afraid to turn up, for fear the tiger might think he was the meat ordered for his dinner. You and your tiger would get lonely after a while." "I have a tiger cat home," volunteered Sarah. "But she isn't very exciting. I like big animals. Maybe a baby elephant would be more fun." "Than a tiger?" said Mrs. King, pausing to admire a freshly opened pod in her hand. "Seven perfect peas," she murmured. "Yes, I could use a baby elephant," Sarah informed her. "They are very strong. I have an animal book that tells all about them. Even baby elephants are strong. I saw a picture of one pulling a tree over." "My land, a farm won't be big enough for you," commented Mrs. King. "What you ought to do is to go out West and start a place in the middle of the desert. But the snakes would probably send you back home before long." She was quite unprepared for Sarah's cry of rapture. "Snakes!" repeated that small girl in a voice of ecstasy. "Are there snakes in the desert?" Mrs. King shook her pan vigorously in the effort to find a stray pod that had slipped through her fingers.