y
exciting. I like big animals. Maybe a baby elephant would be more
fun."

"Than a tiger?" said Mrs. King, pausing to admire a freshly opened pod
in her hand. "Seven perfect peas," she murmured.

"Yes, I could use a baby elephant," Sarah informed her. "They are very
strong. I have an animal book that tells all about them. Even baby
elephants are strong. I saw a picture of one pulling a tree over."

"My land, a farm won't be big enough for you," commented Mrs. King.
"What you ought to do is to go out West and start a place in the middle
of the desert. But the snakes would probably send you back home before
long."

She was quite unprepared for Sarah's cry of rapture.

"Snakes!" repeated that small girl in a voice of ecstasy. "Are there
snakes in the desert?"

Mrs. King shook her pan vigorously in the effort to find a stray pod
that had slipped through her fingers.

"I've heard that the place is full of snakes," she answered. "Man or
beast isn't safe from them. Rattlesnakes and all kinds--sometimes,
I've heard folks say, if the nights are the least bit chilly, the
rattlers crawl under the blankets to get warm. Imagine waking up in
the morning and finding a snake in bed with you!"

"He wouldn't hurt you, if you didn't provoke him," Sarah asserted.
"Snakes are polite and they'll let you alone if you let them do as they
please. I think snakes are the most interesting things to see!"

"I don't!" said Mrs. King. "I'd run a mile before I'd face one. There
is nothing, to my mind, more disgusting than a wriggling snake."

Sarah looked grieved.

"That's the same way my Aunt Trudy talks," she observed. "She is
scared to death of little, tiny snakes. Even water snakes. And a
water snake never hurts anyone."

"Don't show me one," said Mrs. King hurriedly. "I don't care what kind
of a snake it is, they're all alike as long as they can move. I never
want to see one on the place."

Sarah wisely concluded that another topic would be welcome and
unconsciously the huge gray cat that climbed over the porch railing and
leaped heavily to the floor, provided it.

"What a darling cat!" cried Sarah, abandoning her chair in such haste
that it narrowly missed falling backward. "Is it yours, Mrs. King?"

"Yes, he's mine," said the landlady. "He used to be a right handsome
cat but lately he's getting too fat. The girls in the kitchen feed him
all the time. I don't believe he has caught a mouse or a rat for s