Pa is like a
cat, 'cause he always falls on his feet all right and he thinks the
zebra tally-ho in the parade was the feature that caused the crowd to
visit the show; but he says he will never drive zebras again, on account
of the excitement.
The fat woman talks of having pa arrested for breaking one of her ribs
when he held her down with his feet; but pa says his feet did not sink
into her more than a foot or so, and he couldn't have hit a rib, nohow.
Well, I'm glad to be back in the show, 'cause there is more going on
than there was in the hospital, where I put in a week while the doctors
were pulling the cactus pin feathers out of pa that grew out on him in
Indian Territory. Gee, but if I had to leave the circus business and go
back to school, I know I should die of lonesomeness.
I got a chance to talk with pa at supper, and asked him if he was really
crazy, as the hands say he is, and how he liked zebras, anyway, and he
said: "Hennery, zebras are just people, they stampede just like
politicians and bankers, and business men generally, and never know
enough to let well enough alone. The mule is the only draft animal that
always pulls straight and gets there right side up."
If I was going to run a circus for easy money, and a picnic, I wouldn't
have any menagerie connected with it, 'cause the animals make more
trouble than all the rest of the show.
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