"
The big elephant is one of the best ring performers, but he has always
been steady in the street parade, with the light of Asia on his back. We
got to the edge of town and stopped to let the rear wagons close up, and
were in front of a saloon, where the bartender had been emptying stale
beer out of the bottoms of kegs into a washtub, which was standing on
the sidewalk, ready to be sold to people who buy it in pails.
Well, sir, that confounded elephant got his trunk in that tub of stale
beer, and he never took it out till the beer was all gone. I looked down
from the pagoda and told pa the elephant was drinking again, and had
drank a washtub of beer, but pa couldn't say anything, 'cause he was
doing the Arab sheik act, and had to look dignified, as though he was
praying to Allah.
But just then the band struck up, and we started down the main street of
Steubenville. The people began to cheer, 'cause our elephant began to
hippity-hop, and waltz sideways across the street and back again, and I
thought pa would die. In the parade one man on a horse attends to the
elephants, so the sheiks don't have anything to say, and pa remained
like a statue, and told me and the Circassian beauties to be calm, and
trust in him and Allah. This Allah business was all right when the
elephant waltzed, but when we got to the next block the beast began to
stand on his hind feet, and pa and the houris rolled to the back end of
the howdah, and were all piled in a heap, while I held on to the cloth
of gold over the elephant's head.
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