it, you old
catamaran, or I'll kill you," and Bolivar was so scared of pa he eat the
carpet, which shows the power of brain over avoirdupois, pa says.

[Illustration: Pa Turned the Cock of the Extinguisher and Pointed the
Nozzle at Bolivar's Head.]

The regular keeper of Bolivar heard he was on the rampage, and he came
back on the run to conquer him, after pa had got him back in the tent,
but Bolivar looked at him with a faraway look in his eyes, as much as to
say: "Seems to me I have met you somewhere before, but a new king has
been crowned," and he took his old keeper by the back of his coat and
threw him toward the monkey cage. The monkeys gave the keeper the laugh,
and Bolivar put his trunk lovingly on pa's shoulder, and seemed to say:
"Old man, you are it, from this time out." Pa looked proud, and the old
keeper looked sick. The people in the show are going to present pa with
a loving cup, and I guess he can run the menagerie part of the show.

When the freaks heard of pa's bravery, the fat woman and the bearded
lady wanted to hug pa, but pa waved them away, and said he liked the
elephant business best.

May 7.--I used to think that if I could belong to a circus, and go away
with it when it left the town I lived in, that it would be pretty near
going to heaven. I used to hope for the time when I would get nerve
enough to run away, and go with a circus, and wear a dirty shirt, and be
around a tent and wash off the legs of a spotted horse with castile
soap, and when people gathered about me to watch the proceedings, to
look tough and tell them in a hoarse voice way down my throat, sort of
husky from sleeping in the wet straw with the spotted horse, that they
must go on about their business, and not disturb the horse.

I had thought if I should run away and go with a circus, some day, when
I got far enough away from ma, that I would up and swear, and be tough,
and when I came home in the fall, and the neighbor boys would come
around me, I would chew tobacco and tell them of the joys of circus
life. Well, maybe I will some day, but at present I am sleepy all the
time.

We have showed six times the last week, and traveled a thousand miles,
and it seems as though there is nothing doing but putting up and taking
down tents, and going to and from the cars, and you can't be tough,
'cause there is always some boss around to tell you to look pleasant if
you are cross, and to tell you to change your shirt or get out of t