im, he
don't belong to the show, he lives out in the country. He's a neighbor
of old man Hare's."

Cousin Charley and Alfred were won by the man's eloquence or the
twanging of the stringed musical instruments that could be heard in the
tent. They were soon inside. A platform on a wagon served as a stage,
and a curtain with a cabin and woods as a background hung at the rear of
the stage. The entire company of seven persons attired in shirts and
trousers made of bed-ticking material, were seated in a semi-circle on
the improvised stage.

This was Alfred's first sight of a minstrel first part. "Gentlemen, be
seated." The opening chorus was not half over before Alfred was laughing
as heartily as ever boy laughed. The antics of the fellow with the
tambourine who hit the singer sitting next to him on the head with it in
time with the pattering of the sheepskin on his knees, hands and head,
the assumed anger of the singer as he again hit him a resounding thwack,
the finish, where the man with the bones and tambo worked all over the
small stage and seemed in danger of upsetting it with their antics, had
the crowd wild with their enthusiasm.

[Illustration]

The songs, the jokes, the final farce, "Handy Andy," pleased Alfred so
greatly that he remained for the next performance as did Lin and her
beau, Cousin Charley and several of Alfred's friends. He bought a song
book containing only the words. He caught several of the airs and sang
them all the way home.

It was difficult to convince Alfred that the performers were white men
blacked up. At supper Van Amberg's Great Moral Menagerie received a
lambasting that boded no good for its future in Brownsville. Lin said:

"It was jes a show for Baptusts and sich and they was all thar. Huh,
they let the preachers in free gratis, an' they ought to let everybody
in fer nuthin' caus it warn't wuth nuthin'. Durned ef I walk to the
grounds to see seven shows like it. The niggers in the side show beat
the big show all holler."

Alfred declared that outside of the animals _his_ show was better than
Van Amberg's. Lin added: "Yes, ef Joe Sanford's wall-paper suit wus out
of it."

The supper was not over ere Lin and Alfred were in the parlor with the
melodeon endeavoring to sing the songs of the minstrels. They had the
book and hot were the arguments as to whether they had the tune right or
not.

Lin, Cousin Charley, Alfred, Billy Woods, and Bill Hyatt decided to go
back to the minst