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Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

"The 30,000 Dollar Bequest and Other Stories"


When night comes I shall throw them outdoors. I will not sleep
with them again, for I find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among
when a person hasn't anything on.
SUNDAY.--Pulled through.
TUESDAY.--She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad,
for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them;
and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get
a rest.
FRIDAY.--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,
and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education.
I told her there would be another result, too--it would introduce
death into the world. That was a mistake--it had been better
to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an idea--she could
save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to the despondent
lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree.
She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will emigrate.
WEDNESDAY.--I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night,
and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get
clear of the Park and hide in some other country before the
trouble should begin; but it was not to be. About an hour after
sun-up, as I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands
of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other,
according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest
of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion
and every beast was destroying its neighbor.


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