Ma didn't
remember them, but she remembered Barnum, because Barnum lectured on
temperance, and she said she hoped pa would emulate Barnum's example,
and pa said he would, and then he took a watch chain with links as big
as a trace chain and spread it across his checkered vest, from one
pocket to the other, with a life-size gold elk hanging down the middle,
and ma almost had a convulsion.
Gee, but if pa wears that rig in the menagerie tent the animals will paw
and bellow like a drove of cattle that smell blood. Pa is going to wear
a sack coat with his outfit, so as to look tough, and he wouldn't hear
to ma when she tried to get him to wear a frock coat. He said a frock
coat was all right in society or among the crowned heads, but when you
have to mingle with lions and elephants one minute that would snatch the
tail off a coat and chew it and the next minute you are mixed up with a
bunch of freaks or a lot of bareback riders or trapeze performers, you
have got to compromise on a coat that will fit any climate, and not
cause invidious remarks, whatever that is.
I will have to stand up beside the giant once in a while to show the
difference in the size of men, and at other times I will have to stand
beside the midgets and look like a giant myself.
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