le-box where you got it. Go on, now. And if I catch you foolin' with
my things again, I'll.... Well, I don't know what I will do to you." So
I put it back. Anyhow, I don't think rosin would have helped me stay on
a second longer, because old Tib, with an intelligence you wouldn't have
suspected in her, walked under the wagon-shed and calmly scraped me off
her back.

And did you ever try to walk the tight-rope? You take the clothes-line
and stretch it in the grape-arbor--better not make it too high at
first--and then you take the clothes-prop for a balance-pole and go
right ahead--er--er as far as you can. The real reason why you fall
off so is that you don't have chalk on your shoes. Got to have lots of
chalk. Then after you get used to the rope wabbling so all-fired fast,
you can do it like a mice. And while I'm about it, I might as well tell
you that if you ever expect to amount to a hill of beans as a trapeze
performer you must have clear-starch with oil of cloves in it to rub on
your hands. Finest thing in the world. My mother wouldn't let me have
any. She said she couldn't have me messing around that way, I blame
her as much as anybody that I am not now a competent performer on the
trapeze.

I don't know that I had better go into details about the state of mind
boys are in from the time the bills are first put up until after the
circus has actually departed. I don't mean the boys that get to go to
everything that comes along, and that have pennies to spend for candy,
and all like that, whenever they ask for it. I mean the regular, proper,
natural boys, that used to be "Back Home," boys whose daddies tormented
them with: "Well, we Il see--" that's so exasperating!--or, "I wish you
wouldn't tease, when you know we can't spare the money just at present."
A perfectly foolish answer, that last. They had money to fritter away at
the grocery, and the butcher-shop, and the dry-goods store, but when it
came to a necessity of life, such as going to the circus, they let on
they couldn't afford it. A likely story.

"Only jist this little bit of a once. Aw, now, please. Please, cain't I
go? Aw now, I think you might. Aw now, woncha? Aw, paw. I ain't been to
a reely show for ever so long. Aw, the Scripture pammerammer, that don't
count. Aw, paw. Please cain't I go? Aw, please!" And so forth and so on,
with much more of the same sort. No, I can't go into details, it's too
terrible.

Even those of us whose daddies said plainly