Pa came in the tent just then, with a new suit of clothes on, having
been discharged from the hospital as cured of yellow fever, and I gave
him my seat, and he held me in his lap.
The preacher then preached a sermon that did them all good. He dwelt
upon the hard life of the showman, and gave them such good advice that
when it was all over and he said he wanted to shake hands with every man
in the bunch, Ike marshaled them all up to the ring and introduced them,
and no minister ever was more cordially congratulated, and they wanted
him to go along with the show, and preach every Sunday.
The preacher said he couldn't join the show, but he traveled around a
good deal and he would probably be in the same town with the show
several times during the summer and he would drop in on them
occasionally and keep them straight.
Pa was watching the crowd for the sailor who prescribed cayenne pepper
for yellow fever, and when he saw the sailor come up to the minister,
with tears in his eyes, and say: "Parson, I has been a bad man and
killed a man once, but he was a Portuguese sailor, and he had the drop
on me, the same as you did on Big Ike at the opening of these
proceedings, and I had to kill him. And I begs the pardon of this old
gentleman for lying to him.
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