ain't he big!"

And Ann 'Liza, who was stout and sleepy-looking, droned out: "Ye-es,
there's consider'ble of him; but he looks as if he ain't got no
animation."

Kate and I turned away and laughed, while Mrs. Kew said, confidentially,
as the couple moved away: "_She_ needn't be a reflectin' on the poor
beast. That's Mis' Seth Tanner, and there isn't a woman in Deep Haven
nor East Parish to be named the same day with her for laziness. I'm glad
she didn't catch sight of me; she'd have talked about nothing for a
fortnight." There was a picture of a huge snake in Deep Haven, and I
was just wondering where he could be, or if there ever had been one,
when we heard a boy ask the same question of the man whose thankless
task it was to stir up the lions with a stick to make them roar. "The
snake's dead," he answered, good-naturedly. "Didn't you have to dig an
awful long grave for him?" asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned
they curled him up some, and smiled as he turned to his lions, that
looked as if they needed a tonic. Everybody lingered longest before the
monkeys, that seemed to be the only lively creatures in the whole
collection....

Coming out of the great tent was disagreeable enough, and we seemed to
have chosen the worst time, for the crowd pushed fiercely, though I
suppose nobody was in the least hurry, and we were all severely jammed,
while from somewhere underneath came the wails of a deserted dog. We had
not meant to see the side shows; but when we came in sight of the
picture of the Kentucky giantess, we noticed that Mrs. Kew looked at it
wistfully, and we immediately asked if she cared anything about going to
see the wonder, whereupon she confessed that she never heard of such a
thing as a woman's weighing six hundred and fifty pounds; so we all
three went in. There were only two or three persons inside the tent,
beside a little boy who played the hand-organ.

The Kentucky giantess sat in two chairs on a platform, and there was a
large cage of monkeys just beyond, toward which Kate and I went at once.
"Why, she isn't more than two thirds as big as the picture," said Mrs.
Kew, in a regretful whisper; "but I guess she's big enough; doesn't she
look discouraged, poor creatur'?" Kate and I felt ashamed of ourselves
for being there. No matter if she had consented to be carried round for
a show, it must have been horrible to be stared at and joked about day
after day; and we gravely looked at the monkeys, a