baby in a little wagon were going
through the menagerie, and it was crowded, and they left the baby and
wagon in pa's charge, near the monkey cage, while they went to see the
hippopotamus. Pa is the most accommodating man about holding babies that
ever was. The baby was asleep when its folks left it in the wagon with
pa, but it woke up while they were gone, and pa took it out of the baby
wagon and carried it around just as he would at home, and showed it the
animals, and held it up on his shoulder, and I took the little monkey
and put it in the baby wagon, and it went to sleep, and I put a veil
over it, and was standing by the wagon talking with a peanut butcher,
when the parents of the baby came back, and the woman raised up the veil
to see if the child was asleep, when the monkey woke up and put its
hairy hands up to rub it eyes. The monkey looked up at the woman with
beady eyes and began to chatter, and she yelled and her husband took a
look at the monk, and he was mad. They could both see it was a monkey
instead of a baby, and they asked where the old man with the chin
whiskers was that they left the baby with, and the peanut butcher said:
"What, that old guy with the checkered vest? Why, he has gone with the
baby over to the lion cage, where they are feeding the lions. Don't you
see him holding the baby upon his shoulder?" By ginger, I never saw two
people sprint the way they did, 'cause I guess they thought pa was sure
crazy, and would give the baby to the lions. But I told them the old man
was all right, and would bring the baby back, and if he didn't they
could have the monkey, 'cause I didn't want them to think they were
going to be losers while attending our show. Then I chucked the monkey
under the chin and said: "Maybe this is your baby, 'cause they change
wonderfully when they get into a show."

Well, I just had time to put the monkey back in the cage when I saw that
couple surround pa, and the woman grabbed the baby out of his arms, and
the man tackled pa around the legs below the knee, and threw pa down
under the ostrich cage, and said: "You kidnaper! I am a good mind to
choke the life out of you," and he squeezed pa's windpipe until pa's
tongue run out, when a canvasman came along and hit the man in the ear,
and he laid down near a zebra, and the zebra kicked at the man and hit
pa, 'cause a zebra is crosseyed and kicks like a woman throws a stone,
and no man knows where it listeth.

[Illustration: The M