The bob cat just walked around and snarled and spit at the happy
family through the bars, and kept them awake all night on the road, and
the happy family held a sort of convention and I could see by the way
they all looked at me that they were passing resolutions inviting me to
break up the bob cat business. The manager of the menagerie told pa he
wished the confounded bob cat would escape, 'cause he was a blooming
nuisance, so I thought I would help get rid of the beast, and save the
show from disgrace. So when we got to Oberlin I thought that was a pious
community that could stand a wild bob cat, so I put several sheets of
sticky tanglefoot fly paper in the bob cat's cage and opened the door of
the cage, after the crowd had gone into the main tent to the big show,
and the menagerie tent was empty except the keepers. They were all
asleep under the wagons, and the animals had all curled down for a nap,
and the freaks were on their platform lolling around, waiting for the
main show to be out so they could do their stunts over again.
The bob cat got all his four feet in the tanglefoot fly paper, then he
grabbed a sheet in his mouth and rolled over in a few more sheets, and
when he was entirely harmless and you couldn't tell what he was, I
opened the door of the cage and he went out like a rocket, and rolled
over a few times in the sawdust, and then jumped on the platform with
the freaks, run over the fat woman, who was laying back in a Morris
chair, and left one of the sheets of fly paper on her low neck, and it
stuck like a porous plaster.
Pages:
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60