e bars in front of the lion's cage, pulls two or three
of them out, and gives that lion the awfullest punch right on the
stomach; honest, Lucien, you could hear it like somebody pounding
beefsteak to make it tender. Well, everybody comes to their senses, or
else loses 'em again, whichever you like, all of a sudden, and the
women that don't faint gets screechin', and the men are hollerin' for
the police, and all except them as are laying in faints begins to run.
We were pretty well up to the front, and when Pa sees the young fellow
pull out the bars he turns kinder white. Then he grabs Dolly and Joey,
and says to the rest of us, 'Vamoose ahead quick,' he says, 'though I
don't think there's much danger,' and Ma don't say much, but she ain't
trying to get far ahead of Pa and we keep turnin' around. At last Pa
says, 'No more runnin',' he says, and he puts Dolly and Joey down,
takes their hands, and begins to walk back towards the show just as a
lot of cops came running up, and so we all go back, and there's that
young fellow has the lion by the tail and he's whipping it to beat the
band, and making it walk slow up the steps. So, by and by, when things
get calmed down again, Pa finds out that them cage bars is wooden ones,
and the lion's about forty years old, and honest, Lucien, all its teeth
are false, and so's most of its claws, and just about all it can do is
to roar and roll around enough to make it look fierce with red lights
and all that around it when Seenor Dan-rell-o goes into the cage.
Don't you believe the yarns the newspapers had about that fellow taking
his life in his hands and all that. If the police hadn't stopped him
he'd likely have taken the lion home and kept it for his kiddies to
play with, if he's married.

"Well, Pa says they're ain't much sense paying to see the wild beast
show after that, 'cause the best of it is on the outside. The next
thing we run across was a show of trained horses. They had a trick
mule outside to attract the crowds, and the spieler says the man,
woman, or child what can stay on the mule's back one minute gets a
dollar and a free ticket to the show. So we watched a few minutes and
saw quite a few fellows try, and the mule threw every one before the
minute was up. Pa he was kinder fidgetin' and snorting like he thought
the triers was a poor bunch, and Ma she says kinder scared like, 'Let's
go, Pa;' but Pa he steps forward, and he says low to the man will he
let our bunc