The House in Town Part 20

"Make Judith tell first why she wants to go, grandmamma. She has been lots of times."

"Grandmamma," said Judy with her eyes snapping, "I want to see a new sort of wild animal, just come, and to see how it will look at the tigers."

They all laughed, but Mrs. Laval put her arm round Matilda and stooped down and kissed her.

"Judith is a wild animal herself, isn't she, dear? She is a sort of little wild-cat. But she has soft paws; they don't scratch."

Matilda was not quite so sure of this. However, when they left the table Judith set about gaining her point in earnest; but Norton was not to be won over. He was going with Matilda alone, he said, the first time; and so he did.

It was all enjoyment then, as soon as Matilda and Norton left the house together. Matilda was in a new world. Her eyes were busy making observations everywhere.

"How beautiful the houses are, Norton," she said, when they had gone a block or two. "There are not many poor people in New York, are there?"

"Well, occasionally you see one," said Norton.

"I don't see anything that looks like one. Norton, why do they have the middle of the street covered with those round stones? They make such a racket when the carts and carriages go over them. It is very disagreeable."

"Is it?" said Norton. "You won't hear it after you have been here a little while."

"Not hear it? But why do they have it so, Norton?"

"Why Pink, just think of the dust we should have, and the mud, if it was all like Shadywalk, and these thousands of wheels cutting into it all the time."

Matilda was silenced. One difference brings on another, she was learning to find out. But now Norton hailed a street car and they got into it. The warmth of the car was very pleasant after the keen wind in the streets. And here also the people who filled it, though most of them certainly not rich people, and many very far from that, yet looked to a certain degree comfortable. But just as Norton and Matilda got out, and were about to enter the building, where an enormous painted canva.s.s with a large brown lion upon it told that the Menagerie was to be seen, Matilda stopped short. A little ragged boy, about as old as herself, offered her a handful of black round-headed pins. What did he mean? Matilda looked at him, and at the pins.

"Come on," cried Norton. "What is that?--No, we don't want any of your goods just now; at least I don't. Come in, Pink. You need not stop to speak to everybody that stops to speak to you."

"What did he want, Norton? that boy."

"Wanted to sell hairpins. Didn't you see?"

Matilda cast a look back at the sideway, where the boy was trying another pa.s.senger for custom; but Norton drew her on, and the boy was forgotten in some extraordinary noises she heard; she had heard them as soon as she entered the door; strange, mingled noises, going up and down a scale of somewhat powerful, unearthly notes. She asked Norton what they were?

"The lions, Pink," said Norton, with intense satisfaction. "The lions, and the rest of the company. Come--here they are."

And having paid his fee, he pushed open a swinging baize door, and they entered a very long room or gallery, where the sounds became to be sure very unmistakable. They almost terrified Matilda. So wildly were mingled growls and cries and low roarings, all in one restless, confused murmur. The next minute she all but forgot the noise. She was looking at two superb Bengal tigers, a male and a female, in one large cage. They were truly superb. Large and lithe, magnificent in port and action, beautiful in the colour and marking of their smooth hides. But restless? That is no word strong enough to fit the ceaseless impatient movement with which the male tiger went from one corner of his iron cage to the other corner, and back again; changing constantly only to renew the change. One bound in his native jungle would have carried him over many times the s.p.a.ce, which now he paced eagerly or angrily with a few confined steps. The tigress meanwhile knew his mood and her wisdom so well that she took care never to be in his way; and as the cage was not large enough to allow her mate to turn round in the corner where she stood, she regularly took a flying leap over his back whenever he came near that corner. Again and again and again, the one lordly creature trod from end to end the floor of his prison; and every time, like a feather, so lightly and gracefully, the huge powerful form of the other floated over his back and alighted in the other corner.

"Do they keep doing that all the time!" said Matilda, when she had stood spell-bound before the cage for some minutes.

"It's near feeding time," said Norton. "I suppose they know it and it makes them worry. Or else know they are hungry; which answers just as well."

"Poor creatures!" said Matilda. "If that tiger could break his cage, now, how far do you think he could jump, Norton?"

"I don't know," said Norton. "As far as to you or me, I guess. Or else over all our heads, to get at that coloured woman."

The woman was sweeping the floor, a little way behind the two talkers, and heard them. "Yes!" she said, "he'd want me fust thing, sure."

"Why?" whispered Matilda.

"Likes the dark meat best," said Norton. "Fact, Pink; they say they do."

Matilda gazed with a new fascination on the beautiful, terrible creatures. Could it be possible, that those very animals had actually tasted "dark meat" at home?

"Yes," said Norton; "there are hundreds of the natives carried off and eaten by the tigers, I heard a gentleman telling mother, every year, in the province of Bengal alone. Come, Pink; we can look at these fellows again; I want you to see some of the others before they are fed."

They went on, with less delay, till they came to the Russian bear. At the great blocks of ice in his cage Matilda marvelled.

"Is he so warm!" she said. "In this weather?"

"This room's pretty comfortable," said Norton; "and to him I suppose it's as bad as a hundred and fifty degrees of the thermometer would be to us. He's accustomed to fifty degrees below zero."

"I don't know what 'below zero' means, exactly," said Matilda. "But then those great pieces of ice cannot do him much good?"

"Not much," said Norton.

"And he must be miserable," said Matilda; "just that we may look at him."

"Do you wish he was back again where he came from?" said Norton; "all comfortable, with ice at his back and ice under his feet; where we couldn't see him?"

"But Norton, isn't it cruel?"

"Isn't what cruel?"

"To have him here, just for our pleasure? I am very glad to see him, of course."

"I thought you were," said Norton. "Why I suppose we cannot have anything, Pink, without somebody being uncomfortable for it, somewhere.

I am very often uncomfortable myself."

Matilda was inclined to laugh at him; but there was no time. She had come face to face with the lions. Except for those low strange roars, they did not impress her as much as their neighbours from Bengal. But she studied them, carefully enough to please Norton, who was making a very delight to himself, and a great study, of her pleasure.

Further on, Matilda was brought to a long stand again before the wolf's cage. It was a small cage, so small that in turning round he rubbed his nose against the wall at each end; for the ends were boarded up; and the creature did nothing but turn round. At each end of the cage there was a regular spot on the boards, made by his nose as he lifted it a little to get round the more easily, and yet not enough to avoid touching. Yet he went round and round, restlessly, without stopping for more than an instant at a time.

"Poor fellow, poor fellow!" was again Matilda's outcry. "He keeps doing that all the time, Norton; see the places where his nose rubs."

"Don't say 'poor fellow' about a wolf," said Norton.

"Why not? He is only an animal."

"He is a wicked animal."

"Why Norton, he don't know any better than to be wicked. Do you think some animals are really worse than others?"

"I'm certain of it," said Norton.

"But they only do what it is their nature to do."

"Yes, and different animals have different natures. Now look at that wolf's eyes; see what cruel, sly, bad eyes they are. Think what beautiful eyes a horse has; a good horse."

"And sheep have beautiful eyes," said Matilda.