clean collar occasionally, and you will
promise me that you will not let any of those circus women in spangles
make eyes at you, I will consent to your going with the circus, just
this once, as the doctor has advised that you lead an active life, and I
guess you will get it traveling with a circus, for it nearly killed me
that time I took Hennery to see the animals, and the tent blew down, and
we got separated and the sacred cow chased ma up the church steps, and
Hennery and a monkey were brought home by a policeman about daylight the
next morning, that time you were off fishing, and I never told you about
going to the circus when you were away. So we are circus proprietors,
are we? Well, it ain't so bad," and ma went upstairs to cry at our
success, and pa and I went out to walk off the effects of the breaking
the news to ma.

[Illustration: Sacred Cow Chased Ma Up the Church Steps.]

I had a long talk with pa about our changed circumstances, and asked him
what I would be expected to do in the show, and he says I will fit in
anywhere. He says that a boy who knows as much about everything as I
think I know, but don't know a blamed thing about, will be invaluable
about a show, and that going into a new business is like going to
college as a freshman, as all the old circus men will haze us, and we
must not expect an easy life, but one full of excitement, sleepless
nights, ginger, the glare of the torchlights, the races, the flying
trapeze, the smell of the sawdust and tanbark, the howling of the wild
beasts, and the plaudits of the multitude of jays and jayesses, and it
will be like one grand circus day spread all over the summer and fall.
He says he wants me to learn the circus business from the ground up,
from the currying of the hyenas with a currycomb and brush, to going up
into the roof of the tent on the trapeze and falling into the net, while
the audience faints with excitement. I asked pa if he wanted me to keep
on playing tricks on him while we were on the road, and he said he had
got so used to my tricks that he couldn't live without them, and he
didn't want me to let a chance escape to make him have a good time.

April 11.--Ma and pa have had several discussions about what kind of a
position it is going to leave her in, among the neighbors, for pa and I
to go off with a circus, and ma wanted to withdraw from the church, and
board up the windows of the house, and make folks think we had gone to
the seashore, bu