February 14, 2013
10-10:25
Water for Elephants
Pages: 160-172

Jacob goes to the menagerie and takes care of the animals and helps them feel better and then goes and does the regular jobs of a menagerie man like cleaning the cages and feeding them and stuff like that. One of the other menagerie men warns the other guys to stay away from August who is mad because uncle al wants the elephant in the parade and hurt camel and also beat up some guy for looking at Marlena. It's also revealed that uncle al only wants the elephant so that he can be like ringling. August hits Rosie the elephant until she goes to her spot. Lots of people are gathering to see the parade and they all surround Rosie. She takes good that they feed her and plays with the people proving she is intelligent. This caused a problem because uncle al saw how much people like Rosie and he told August to get Marlena to do an act with her in the grand spec. August is furious about this but he has to listen to uncle al because he's the boss. The show starts off with some difficulties and Rosie is not cooperating and August hits her a lot but the crowd thinks its part of the show until Rosie runs off and Marlena grabs onto a pole to avoid getting knocked off. The crowd is worried now but Marlena swings on the bar and does an impressive dismount and saves the show. However, she did not land well and is hurt. Jacob and August take her to Barbara's tent where Barbara takes care of her and Jacob goes to get ice. He's stopped by uncle al who tells Jacob that Rosie is in someone's garden and he tells him to get her out before the cops are called. Jacob goes and tries to coax her out of the garden but has no luck until two guys come and help. One of the men goes inside to talk to the lady about paying for the damage and stuff while the other guy is a polish man who gets Rosie out of the garden by giving her some ginger ale and gin. Jacob starts talking to this guy and tries to tell him to come and work for August as the man who takes care of the elephants but the guy refuses because he does not want to work for August and he just likes big animals. The gin works and they are able to get Rosie all the way back to tent where she belongs. With Rosie back in the menagerie, Jacob goes back to Barbara's tent to check on Marlena but she's not there and Barbara tells him they went back to the train to wait for the doctor. As Jacob leaves Barbara's tent, he runs right into August who is mad beyond belief and is going to go and teach Rosie a lesson. Jacob tries to talk him out of it by saying the show is still going on but August just says that the band will drown out the noise. He goes back to his room and Walter comes in and asks Jacob what happened and Jacob fills him in. Jacob is so overwhelmed that he stays in his room throughout dinner and thinks about how he hates August, loves Marlena, cares about the animals especially Rosie and how he hates himself for not stopping August. Walter comes back from dinner and tells Jacob Marlena has bruised her heels and will be out for a couple of weeks but she'll be fine. Jacob admits to Walter that he hates August and Walters tells him that he does have some sense after all. Walter asks why Jacob spends all his time with him and when Jacob doesn't respond Walter takes it to mean that it's because of Marlena even though Jacob says its because he's his boss.

There's a lot of labelling in this book. For example, Barbara is known by very few by her name. She is mostly called the cooch girl and people don't tend to know that her name is Barbara. That's no very nice because she is more than a cooch girl and shouldn't be know by just that. However that's not how the world works. It's like when someone does something bad just once and they're known forever for that one thing. Even if they had done a million good things, they are remembered for that one bad thing. That's not fair or right but it's just the way it is.

I read well because I read in silence without disruptions and could concentrate and finished another chapter.