Nobody likes to be made an object of ridicule, and it is probable that
this disposition of making fun of people, which seems so natural to
the Orang-outang, would prevent his becoming a domesticated member of
our families, no matter how useful and susceptible of training he
might prove to be.
Nearly all of us have some comical peculiarity, and we would not want
an animal in the house who would be sure, at some time, to expose us
to laughter by his imitative powers.
So I am afraid that the Orang-outangs, intelligent as they are, will
have to stay in the woods.
LITTLE BRIDGET'S BATH.
Little Bridget was a good girl and a pretty one, but she had ideas of
her own. She liked to study her lessons, to mind her mother, and to
behave herself as a little girl should, but she did despise to be
washed. There was something about the very smell of soap and the touch
of water which made her shrink and shiver, and she would rather have
seen the doctor come to her with a teaspoonful of medicine than to
have her Aunt Ann approach with a bowlful of water, a towel, and a
great piece of soap.
[Illustration]
For a long time little Bridget believed that there was no escape from
this terrible daily trial, but one bright morning, when she awoke very
early, long before any one else in the house, she thought that it was
too bad, when everything else was so happy,--when the birds and
butterflies were flying about so gayly in the early sunbeams, and the
flowers were all so gay and bright, and smelling so sweet and
contented, that she should have to lie there on her little bed until
her Aunt Ann came with that horrible soap and towel! She made up her
mind! She wouldn't stand it; she would run away before she came to
wash her.
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