at could eight-and-thirty men
do, hampered as they were with half-a-dozen children, and twice as many
women? Not that all the women were likely to hamper us, for there was
Mrs Bantem, busy as a bee, working here, comforting there, helping
women to make themselves snug in different rooms; and once, as she came
near me, she gave me one of her tremendous slaps on the back, her eyes
twinkling with pleasure, and the perspiration streaming down her face
the while. "Ike Smith," she says, "this is something like, isn't it?
But ask Captain Dyer to have that breastwork strengthened--there isn't
half enough of it. Glad Bantem hasn't gone. But I say, only think of
that poor woman! I saw her just now crying, fit to break her poor
heart."

"What poor woman?" I said, staring hard.

"Why, the colonel's wife. Poor soul, it's pitiful to see her! it went
through me like a knife.--What! are you there, my pretties!" she cried,
flumping down on the stones as the colonel's two little ones came
running out. "Bless your pretty hearts, you'll come and say a word to
old Mother Bantem, won't you?"

"What's everybody tying about?" says the little girl in her prattling
way. "I don't like people to ty. Has my ma been whipped, and Aunt
Elsie been naughty?"

"Look, look!" cries the boy excitedly; "dere's old _Nabob_!" And
toddling off, the next minute he was close to the great beast, his
little sister running after him, to catch hold of his hand; and there
the little mites stood close to, and staring up at the great elephant,
as he kept on amusing himself by twisting up a little hay in his trunk,
and then lightly scattering it over his back, to get rid of the flies--
for what nature could have been about to give him such a scrap of a
tail, I can't understand. He'd work it, and flip it about hard enough;
but as to getting rid of a fly, it's my belief that if insects can
laugh, they laughed at it, as they watched him from where they were
buzzing about the stone walls and windows in the hot sunshine.

The next minute, like a chorus, there came a scream from one of the
upper windows, one from another, and a sort of howl from Mrs Bantem,
and we all stood startled and staring, for what does Jenny Wren do, but
in a staggering way, lift up her little brother for him to touch the
elephant's trunk, and then she stood laughing and clapping her hands
with delight, seeing no fear, bless her! as that long, soft trunk was
gently curled round the boy