Gee, but you never saw such a change in a lion. The crowd of visitors
were right near his cage, when he sniffed, and when he got the snuff
into him, he began to heave his sides like a man who is preparing to
sneeze, caught his breath a few times, and let out a sneeze that sounded
like the explosion of an automobile tire. It threw cut feed all over the
audience, and everybody ran away yelling that the lion busted.
He kept on sneezing, and looking so astounded, as though he couldn't
make out what had got into him. Pa heard the commotion and came running
up to the cage to find out what ailed the lion. After I had gone around
to the other cages and put snuff in all of them, I came up to the lion's
cage. The lion had stopped sneezing and was roaring and jumping up and
down, with his mouth open, trying to catch his breath, like a man who
has taken too big a dose of fresh horse-radish.
Pa said: "What have you been doing to Shadrack?"
I told pa I had woke Shadrack up, and that in about a minute he would
find that the whole animal kingdom had got a bellyful, and would join in
the chorus.
Pa tried to soothe the lion by going up to the cage and stroking his
mane, but the lion looked cross-eyed and stopped prancing and gave a
sneeze right at pa, which blew pa clear across the tent to where the
sacred cow had just got hers.
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