HUNTING THE RHINOCEROS.

We ought always to be useful, and do good to everybody. I used to think that we ought always to improve our minds, and I think so some now, though I have got into dreadful difficulties all through improving my mind. But I am not going to be discouraged. I tried to be useful the other day, and do good to the heathen in distant lands, and you wouldn't believe what trouble it made. There are some people who would never do good again if they had got into the trouble that I got into; but the proverb says that if at first you don't succeed, cry, cry again; and there was lots of crying, I can tell you, over our rhinoceros¹, that we thought was going to do so much good.

It all happened because Aunt Eliza was staying at our house. She had a Sunday-school one afternoon, and Tom McGinnis and I were the scholars, and she told us about a boy that got up a panorama² about the Pilgrim's Progress all by himself, and let people see it for ten cents apiece, and made ten dollars, and sent it to the missionaries³, and they took it and educated mornahundred little heathens[Pg 118] with it, and how nice it would be if you dear boys would go and do likewise and now we'll sing "Hold the Fort."

Well, Tom and I thought about it, and we said we'd get up a menagerie, and we'd take turns playing animals, and we'd let folks see it for ten cents apiece, and make a lot of money, and do ever so much good.

We got a book full of pictures of animals, and we made skins out of cloth to go all over us, so that we'd look just like animals when we had them on. We had a lion's and a tiger's and a bear's and a rhinoceros's skin, besides a whole lot of others. As fast as we got the skins made, we hung them up in a corner of the barn where nobody would see them. The way we made them was to show the pictures to mother and to Aunt Eliza, and they did the cutting out and the sewing, and Sue she painted the[Pg 119] stripes on the tiger, and the fancy touches on the other animals.

Our rhinoceros was the best animal we had. The rhinoceros is a lovely animal when he's alive. He is almost as big as an elephant, and he has a skin that is so thick that you can't shoot a bullet through it unless you hit it in a place that is a little softer than the other places. He has a horn on the end of his nose, and he can toss a tiger with it till the tiger feels sick, and says he won't play any more. The rhinoceros lives in Africa, and he would toss 'most all the natives if it wasn't that they fasten an India-rubber ball[Pg 120] on the end of his horn, so that when he tries to toss anybody, the horn doesn't hurt, and after a while the rhinoceros gets discouraged, and says, "Oh, well, what's the good anyhow?" and goes away into the forest. At least this is what Mr. Travers says, but I don't believe it; for the rhinoceros wouldn't stand still and let the natives put an India-rubber ball on his horn, and they wouldn't want to waste India-rubber balls that way when they could play lawn-tennis with them.

Last Saturday afternoon we had our first grand consolidated⁴ exhibition[Pg 121] of the greatest menagerie on earth. We had two rows of chairs in the back yard, and all our folks and all Tom's folks came, and we took in a dollar and sixty cents at the door, which was the back gate.

I was a bear, first of all, and growled⁵ so natural that everybody said it was really frightful⁶. Then it was Tom's turn to be an animal, and he was to be the raging rhinoceros of Central Africa. I helped dress him in the barn, and when he was dressed he looked beautiful.

The rhinoceros's skin went all over him, and was tied together so that he couldn't get out of it without help. His horn was made of wood painted white, and his eyes were two agates⁷. Of course he couldn't see through them, but they looked natural, and as I was to lead him, he didn't need to see.

[Pg 122]
THEN HE FELL INTO THE HOT-BED, AND BROKE ALL THE GLASS.

I had just got him outside the barn, and had begun to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the raging rhinoceros," when he gave the most awful yell you ever heard, and got up on his hind-legs, and began to rush around as if he was crazy. He rushed against Aunt Eliza, and upset her all over the McGinnis girls, and then he banged up against the water-barrel, and upset that, and then he fell into the hot-bed, and broke all the glass. You never saw such an awful sight. The rhinoceros kept yelling all the time, only nobody could understand what he said, and pulling at his head with his fore-paws, and jumping up and down, and smashing everything in his way, and I went after him just as if I was a Central African hunting a rhinoceros.

I was almost frightened, and as for the folks, they ran into the house, all except Aunt Eliza, who had to be carried in. I kept as close behind the rhinoceros as I could, begging him to be quiet, and tell me what was the matter. After a while he lay down on the ground, and I cut the strings⁸ of his skin, so that he could get his head out and talk.

He said he was 'most dead. The wasps⁹ had built a nest in one of his hind-legs as it was hanging in the barn, and they had stung him until they got tired. He said he'd never have anything more to do with the menagerie, and went home with his mother, and my mother said I[Pg 123] must give him all the money, because he had suffered so much.

But, as I said, I won't be discouraged, and will try to do good, and be useful to others the next time I see a fair chance.

1 rhinoceros   

n.犀牛

参考例句：

• The rhinoceros has one horn on its nose.犀牛鼻子上有一个角。
• The body of the rhinoceros likes a cattle and the head likes a triangle.犀牛的形体像牛，头呈三角形。

2 panorama   

n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置]

参考例句：

• A vast panorama of the valley lay before us.山谷的广阔全景展现在我们面前。
• A flourishing and prosperous panorama spread out before our eyes.一派欣欣向荣的景象展现在我们的眼前。

3 missionaries   

n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Some missionaries came from England in the Qing Dynasty. 清朝时，从英国来了一些传教士。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The missionaries rebuked the natives for worshipping images. 传教士指责当地人崇拜偶像。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 consolidated   

a.联合的

参考例句：

• With this new movie he has consolidated his position as the country's leading director. 他新执导的影片巩固了他作为全国最佳导演的地位。
• Those two banks have consolidated and formed a single large bank. 那两家银行已合并成一家大银行。

5 growled   

v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说

参考例句：

• \"They ought to be birched, \" growled the old man. 老人咆哮道：“他们应受到鞭打。” 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He growled out an answer. 他低声威胁着回答。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 frightful   

adj.可怕的；讨厌的

参考例句：

• How frightful to have a husband who snores!有一个发鼾声的丈夫多讨厌啊！
• We're having frightful weather these days.这几天天气坏极了。

7 agates   

n.玛瑙( agate的名词复数 )；玛瑙制（或装有玛瑙的）工具； （小孩玩的）玛瑙纹玩具弹子；5。5磅铅字

参考例句：

• The colorful agates are engraved for pursuing lofty spirit. 绚丽的玛尼石，镌刻着崇高的精神追求。 来自互联网
• Today, Earth teems with thousands of kinds of minerals, from agates to zircons. 现在，地球上到处是各种各样的矿物，从玛瑙到锆石应有尽有。 来自互联网

8 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

9 wasps   

黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人

参考例句：

• There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
• We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中，而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中