There we
overtook pa and the boss canvasman and the elephant handler, and we met
some farmers coming into Alexandria with their families, stampeding like
people out west when the Indians go on the warpath. They had got up in
the morning to milk the cows and found about 20 elephants in the
barnyard, making the cows do a song and dance. Pa told them there was no
danger at all, 'cause he would take any elephant by the tail and snap
its head off, like boys snap the heads off garter snakes, and I told
them that me and the senator's boy stampeded the elephants and we could
drive them back to town like a drove of sheep.
[Illustration: We Met Some Farmers.]
The farmers thought we were great and they followed us back to the farm,
where we found the herd of elephants had taken possession and were
having the time of their lives. About a dozen of the big elephants had
found a couple of barrels of cider in a shed and had been drinking it,
and when we got there they were like section hands with jags on.
Bolivar, the big elephant, was the drunkest, and when he saw pa coming
with the gang of hands, with ropes and spears, he winked at the other
elephants and seemed to say: "Watch me tree 'em," for he came out of the
gate and bellowed, and made a charge at the gang, and pa beat them all
going up crab apple trees.
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