them with their legs
dangling over, or stayed against house walls. It was easy to stand on
your head; one boy stood on his head so much that he had to have it
shaved, in the brain-fever that he got from standing on it; but that did
not stop the other fellows. Another boy fell head downward from a rail
where he was skinning-the-cat, and nearly broke his neck, and made it so
sore that it was stiff ever so long. Another boy, who was playing
Samson, almost had his leg torn off by the fellows that were pulling at
it with a hook; and he did have the leg of his pantaloons torn off.
Nothing could stop the boys but time, or some other play coming in; and
circuses lasted a good while. Some of the boys learned to turn
hand-springs; anybody could turn cart-wheels; one fellow, across the
river, could just run along and throw a somersault and light on his
feet; lots of fellows could light on their backs; but if you had a
spring-board, or shavings under a bank, like those by the turning-shop,
you could practise for somersaults pretty safely.

All the time you were practising you were forming your circus company.
The great trouble was not that any boy minded paying five or ten pins to
come in, but that so many fellows wanted to belong there were hardly any
left to form an audience. You could get girls, but even as spectators
girls were a little _too_ despicable; they did not know anything; they
had no sense; if a fellow got hurt they cried. Then another thing was,
where to have the circus. Of course it was simply hopeless to think of a
tent, and a boy's circus was very glad to get a barn. The boy whose
father owned the barn had to get it for the circus without his father
knowing it; and just as likely as not his mother would hear the noise
and come out and break the whole thing up while you were in the very
middle of it. Then there were all sorts of anxieties and perplexities
about the dress. You could do something by turning your roundabout
inside out, and rolling your trousers up as far as they would go; but
what a fellow wanted to make him a real circus-actor was a long pair of
white cotton stockings, and I never knew a fellow that got a pair; I
heard of many a fellow who was said to have got a pair; but when you
came down to the fact, they vanished like ghosts when you try to verify
them. I believe the fellows always expected to get them out of a
bureau-drawer or the clothes-line at home, but failed. In most other
ways, a boy's cir