ist studio, and
made every animal show that he had ginger in him. He wanted me to try my
snuff cure on the performers and freaks, 'cause they were getting to be
dead ones.

Well, before the day was over at Wilmington, Del., pa was scared worse
than he ever was in all his life before. The state of Delaware is the
only state that punishes criminals by tying them up and whipping them on
the bare back with a cat-o'-nine-tails, and all our men had been warned
to be good while they were in Delaware, 'cause if they committed any
crime there was no power on earth that could save them from being
publicly horsewhipped. Pa himself impressed it on the men to look out
that they didn't get into any trouble. Gee, but the fear of a public
whipping makes men good.

Twenty years ago some hold-up men from New York robbed a bank in
Delaware, and were caught, and given 50 lashes apiece on the bare back,
by a big negro, and there has never been a burglary in Delaware since.
We thought we would play a joke on pa, so the manager told pa that
constables were looking for him to arrest him for cruelty to animals,
for kicking a camel in the stomach, and hitting the camel with an iron
bar, and that if pa didn't want to be publicly horsewhipped on the bare
back he better skip out for Washington, D.C., where we would show in a
couple of days, and wait for us.

Pa was so frightened he couldn't get supper, and everybody talked about
cats of nine tails, and how prisoners were cut to pieces, and every time
pa saw a jay with a slouch hat he thought it was a constable after him.
After dark he put on an old suit of clothes and said he was going to
Washington. They told him if he went to take a train he would surely be
arrested at the depot, so pa put a saddle on one of the mules, and rode
out of town and rode all night, and all the next day he bought oats of
farmers to be delivered at Wilmington for the circus. Finally he got out
of Delaware, and the next day the farmers came in with the oats, but the
show was gone, and they won't do a thing to pa if he ever shows up in
Delaware again.

[Illustration: Pa Rode Out of Town and Rode All Night.]

Pa met us at the depot in Washington, but he was ever so changed from
his long ride and anxiety over the possibility of being arrested and
pilloried, and lambasted by a negro in Delaware. He said to me, with a
trembling voice: "Hennery, this 'ere show business is too much for your
pa. I would rather be a Mormon,