Well, Monday morning the parade started, and along about the middle of
the parade, just ahead of the calliope, was pa and his six zebra team,
his freaks and reporters, and pa handled the ribbons like a pirate. The
fat woman sat on the driver's seat with pa, for ballast, and the rest of
the freaks were sandwiched in between the reporters. We went along all
right for half a mile, the circus hands walking beside the zebras, to
kill them if they tried to jump over a house, while I rode the bell
mule. If I had been planning the zebra business, I would have picked out
a level town to try it on, but Kansas City is all hills and ravines, and
going up hill the zebras' tally-ho had to be pushed by a couple of
elephants, 'cause the zebras wouldn't pull the load, and going down hill
we had to lock the wheels, and slide down.
When we got on the main street, where the crowd filled both sides,
almost up to the team, and the people began to cheer, the zebras began
to waltz and kick, and try to jump over each other, but the hands got
them untangled, and we worried along, though pa was pale, and looked
like a man smoking a cigar while sitting on an open powder keg. The fat
woman grabbed pa every little while, and screamed that she wanted to get
off and walk, but pa told her to hush up and try to be a man.
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