ie,
and before I knew it the camels had filled up until they were swelled
four times as big as they ought to be. Then they laid down, and couldn't
march in the grand entree, and pa sent for a plumber to have the camels
fixed with faucets. That boy was a genius, and we kept him and put him
into the lemonade privilege. You can fill a camel with a hydrant all
right, but if you bring the water in pails he will beat the game.

I remember one boy at Wilmington, Del., who insisted on going along with
the show, 'cause his mother made him work after school, and my heart was
touched, 'cause I know how a boy hates to work after school, so I gave
him a job sprinkling insect powder on the buffaloes, that were
scratching themselves against the tent poles so much that I felt they
had something alive concealed about their persons. That boy started in
with his can of insect powder on a buffalo calf, and then he filled the
cow's hair full of the powder, and when he started on the bull, the bull
took a sniff of the powder on the cow, and got it up his nose, and he
held his head up kind of scared like, and turned his upper lip
wrong-side out, and began to paw the ground. Then he made a charge on
that boy, and tossed him through the tent, and I looked through the
hole, and saw the boy scratching gravel towards town. If he is not
running yet, he is probably doing chores for his mother both before and
after school.

[Illustration: The Bull Tossed the Boy Through the Tent.]

I have discouraged most of the boys who wanted to run away and go with
the show, by giving them a curry comb and brush and telling them they
could have a permanent job currying off the hyenas. Most boys would look
sort of dubious about it, but would think it was up to them to be game,
and they would take the curry comb and brush all right. I would take
them to the cage, and tell them to just talk soothing to the hyenas
through the bars, and when the hyenas began to get tame and act as
though it would give them pleasure to be curried off, and laid down and
rolled over, and purred like a cat that wanted to be scratched, and
acted as though they would eat out of one's hand, the boys might call
me, and I would have the cage opened and they could go in and curry them
off.

Well, it would kill you dead to see a fool boy side up to a hyena cage
and try to hypnotize a hyena by kind words and a pious example, saying
soothing words like: "Soo, boss," or "O, come off now, and be