who had been expected ever since we
started on the road, had been quarantined at New Orleans, where the
yellow fever is raging, and finally got through the quarantine guard
somewhere in Mississippi, and got to us Saturday afternoon, and some
official telegraphed to the mayor that two yellow fever refugees had
struck his town to join the circus, and he ordered the chief of police
to hunt them out, and put them in a pest house. The Honduras females
were yellow as saffron, but it was caused by the climate of Honduras,
but the whole show was scared to death for fear we would all have yellow
fever, and the management detailed pa and I to hide the yellow girls
from the police.

Pa fixed up one of the cages, with the girls blacked up as Hottentots
and pa and I blacked up as an African king and prince of the blood, and
we did stunts in the cage at afternoon and evening performances, and the
crowd could not keep away from our cage, until pa got hot and unbuttoned
his shirt and, before we knew it, everybody saw pa's white skin below
where his face and neck were blacked, and while we were talking
gibberish to each other a country jake got mad and he led a crowd to
open the cage and make us remove our shirts to prove that we were
Hottentots.

When they found we were white people blacked up they wanted their money
back and were going to tip over the cage, when pa saved the day by
making a speech, at the evening performance, to the effect that we were
all yellow fever refugees from New Orleans and the mob lit out on the
run for the main tent, where they announced that there were four cases
of fever in the menagerie tent, and that settled it.

The mayor and police closed the show on account of yellow fever, and we
couldn't get out of the tent. Pa had been quite close to the yellow
girls and when he found out that yellow fever was a disease that catches
you when not looking, and in 15 minutes you look like a corpse, and in
four hours you are liable to be a sure enough corpse, he shook the
yellow girls, and asked an old sailor what a man ought to do who has
been exposed to yellow fever, and the old sailor, who has had yellow
fever lots of times, told pa to strip off his clothes and take a bath of
prepared mustard, and rub it in thoroughly, and then wipe it off, and
take a vinegar rub, and after that sprinkle a little red pepper on
himself, put on different clothes and drink about a gallon of red
lemonade and he could defy yellow feve