morning, and the
management was scared at what pa had advertised to do, and they all
wanted to call off the zebra stunt, but pa said if they cut it out the
people would mob the show, so all day Sunday we hooked up the six
zebras, and the hands led them around the tent with a mule with a bell
on ridden in the lead. They seemed to go pretty well, but I could see
pa's finish when he got out on the streets with that crazy team. Pa
wanted all the freaks to ride on the tally-ho, and he had invited nine
newspaper fellows to ride with him. Pa thought the zebra team would
follow the bell mule ahead, like a 20-mule borax team would.

Well, Monday morning the parade started, and along about the middle of
the parade, just ahead of the calliope, was pa and his six zebra team,
his freaks and reporters, and pa handled the ribbons like a pirate. The
fat woman sat on the driver's seat with pa, for ballast, and the rest of
the freaks were sandwiched in between the reporters. We went along all
right for half a mile, the circus hands walking beside the zebras, to
kill them if they tried to jump over a house, while I rode the bell
mule. If I had been planning the zebra business, I would have picked out
a level town to try it on, but Kansas City is all hills and ravines, and
going up hill the zebras' tally-ho had to be pushed by a couple of
elephants, 'cause the zebras wouldn't pull the load, and going down hill
we had to lock the wheels, and slide down.

When we got on the main street, where the crowd filled both sides,
almost up to the team, and the people began to cheer, the zebras began
to waltz and kick, and try to jump over each other, but the hands got
them untangled, and we worried along, though pa was pale, and looked
like a man smoking a cigar while sitting on an open powder keg. The fat
woman grabbed pa every little while, and screamed that she wanted to get
off and walk, but pa told her to hush up and try to be a man.

Well, as we were going down hill, by a park, near the Midland hotel,
that confounded calliope had got right up behind the tally-ho, and the
organist cut her loose, with the tune: "A Life on the Ocean Wave." Every
zebra jumped into the air, the brake footpiece escaped pa's foot, and
the tally-ho run on to the heels of the wheel zebras, and it was all
off. There never was such a runaway since the days of Ben Hur. Pa had
presence of mind enough to make the fat lady get down off the seat, and
he put his feet on her t