Nancy Simms that made him prick up his ears and pull his
mustache, thoughtfully. He had discovered how appallingly ignorant
she was, how untrained, how undisciplined. To-day he saw how really
young she was. She ran from cage to cage. Her laughter made the
corners of his mouth turn up sympathetically.

There was something pathetic in her eager enjoyment, something so
fresh and unspoiled in that laughter of hers that one felt drawn to
her. When she forgot to narrow her eyes, or to furrow her forehead,
or to screw up her mouth, she was almost attractive, despite her
freckles! Her eyes, of an agaty gray-green, were transparently
honest. She had brushed the untidy mop of red hair, parted it in the
middle, and wore it in a thick bright plait, tied with a black
ribbon. She wore a simple middy blouse and a well-made blue skirt.
Altogether, she looked more like a normal young girl than he had yet
seen her.

The Zoo enchanted her. She hurried from house to house. Once, she
told him, when she was a little kid, a traveling-man had taken her
to a circus, because he was sorry for her. That was the happiest day
she had ever spent; it stood out bright and golden in her memory.
There had been a steam-piano hoo-hooing "Wait till the clouds roll
by, Jenny." Wasn't a steam-piano perfectly grand? She liked it
better than anything she'd ever heard. She'd long ago made up her
mind that if she was ever really rich and had a place of her own,
she'd have a big circus steam-piano out in the barn, and she'd play
it on Sundays and holidays--_hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo, hoo-hoo_--like
that, you know.

And to-day reminded her of that long-ago circus day, with even more
animals to look at! She had never seen as many different animals as
she wanted to see, until now. She admitted that she sort of loved
wild things--she even liked the wild smell of 'em. There was
something in here--she touched her breast lightly--that felt kin to
them.

There was not the usual horde of visitors, that day being a pay-day.
A bearded man with a crutch was showing one or two visitors around,
and at a word from him a keeper unlocked a cage door, to allow a
young chimpanzee to leap into his arms. It hugged him, exhibiting
extravagant affection; it thrust out its absurd muzzle to kiss his
cheek, and patted him with its small, leathery, unpleasantly human
hands.

"It's just like any other baby," said the keeper, petting it.

"I sure hope it ain't like any _I_'ll ever have,"