The circus people that could be spared from the wagons came to help us,
and the citizens helped out the Circassian beauties who were praying to
Allah, and wringing out their clothes, and I crawled up on the neck of a
cast-iron swan in the fountain. Pa yelled and talked profane, and told
'em to bring a cannon and kill the elephant, which kept ducking him with
his trunk, and swabbing out the bottom of the fountain basin with pa. It
seemed as though he never would get through using pa for a mop, but
finally the people got a rope around pa, and a keeper got an iron hook
in the elephant's ear, and they pulled pa out on one side, and got the
elephant away on the other side, and just then the callipoe, that ends
the parade, came by us and played the "Blue Danube," and the elephant
got on his hind feet and waltzed on the pavement. They put pa and the
Circassian beauties in a patrol wagon and took them to the show lot, and
I sat by the driver, and he let me drive the team.
[Illustration: The Elephant Kept Ducking Pa and Swabbing Out the Bottom
of the Fountain.]
Pa had his sheik clothes rolled up around his waist, and was wringing
them out, and talking awful sassy, and when we got to the lot it took a
long time to convince the policemen that we were not guilty of
disorderly conduct, and just then the elephant came tearing by us, with
the keeper on horseback behind him, prodding him in the ham every jump
with a sharp iron, and he went through the side of the tent as though he
was mighty sorry he didn't kill us all.
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