everything he had ever come across, and seemed
fraught with the most alarming potentialities.

Could one of his pets be choking to death, and was that cry meant for a
signal to summon him to the rescue? The thought flashed into his excited
mind, causing Toby to spring from his bed like a flash, and rush over to
where the closed shutters prevented a view of the back yard.

If Toby did have an impediment in his speech there was certainly nothing
of that kind connected with his movements. He was known to be one of the
smartest players on the high school nine; though tongue-tied, he could
equal the swiftest player on the football eleven, and had more than
once claimed a share in carrying victory to the colors of Carson High.

He reached the window, and with trembling fingers fumbled at the catch,
intending to throw the shutters wide open. As he was doing so he became
aware of the fact that a confused jumble of mysterious sounds seemed to
come floating up to him.

Toby gave his head a shake, as he again took himself to task.

"It's the old dream ahangin' on to me," he thought. "Chances are now
that's only a door aswingin' in the breeze, and groanin' to beat the
band; yet I'm so filled chuck full of things, because of that book, and
my dream, that I'm silly enough to think I'm ahearin' wild animals
asnortin' and agruntin'. Bah! get your eyes wide open, Toby Jucklin, and
let up with this nonsense."

He flung open the shutters as he came to this part of hauling himself
over the coals. Then he crouched there as though transfixed, hardly even
drawing in a single breath. All Toby could do was to remain as though
changed into a statue, and take it out in staring; though he did want to
rub his eyes the worst kind, and see if the magical vision would vanish.

Indeed, there was enough reason for him to stare as though his eyes
would pop out of his head. What he gazed upon might make the most
sensible person believe he had been taken with a very bad case of
nightmare, and was seeing things that could exist only in dreams.

There, right in the same back yard where he had his own private little
menagerie Toby was looking down upon the most remarkable collection of
wild animals any boy could imagine would drop down from the clouds of a
stormy night--two big elephants, and a cunning baby one in the bargain;
three dromedaries, with their double humps all in place; an ostrich; a
striped zebra, and last but far from least, a cowering