ag carpet, canvas, heavy
with paint, that had been ripped from the hurricane deck of an old
steamboat.

Alfred was to give another show, this time on Jeffries' Commons and
under canvas, or rather, inside of canvas. Since the night the side wall
fell as Dr. Playford and he were leaving the tent, the boy had been
revolving this plan in his mind. He felt certain he could collect, with
the aid of the boys, sufficient material to encircle the ring which had
been long constructed and used to practice in. A center pole with side
poles planted in the ground like fence posts. A top for the tent was out
of the question but nearly sufficient material had been collected to
encircle the poles, making a sidewall nearly ten feet high.

Lin had announced the price of admission at one cent and had so
extensively advertised the show by word of mouth that the children were
already visiting Alfred's home to buy tickets of admission. This
aggravated the mother more greatly than even the cellar show. The mother
feared the neighbors would think that she was interested in the show,
financially.

Lin said: "Let 'em think what they durn please. Some of 'em's in a
mighty big hurry to pay fur their tickets. Ef they'd pay back the
saleratus, salt, sugar, tea, coffee, an' sich they've borryed from us
we'd be better off. But some peepul will spend money quicker fer fun
than they will fer vittles or religion."

It was the night before the show. A consultation was held in the tent
between Alfred and his aids. There was an opening of at least ten feet
in length in the side of the tent and no canvas or other material to
close it up. Turkey Evans had brought the last strip of an old rag
carpet he had taken surreptitiously from an unused room of his home. The
two old quilts Tom White had stolen from Betsy Smart were in place with
half moons, hearts, diamonds, and sunflowers worked on them in raised
figures. They gave the tent the appearance of an Indian tepee.

Win Scott had contributed all the coffee, grain or salt sacks he could
secure by rummaging every building on Stable Street. Some of the boys
had even appropriated the aprons worn by Nimrod Potts, the shoemaker. As
Mr. Potts was of goodly size the two aprons from his shop went a long
ways toward making a partition between the tent and the dressing room.
Spliced to the bed tick Bindley Livingston had thrown out of the third
story window of his father's house, the aprons closed up the opening
com