all rose to their feet and were going off into a panic when pa and a few
brave men came and drove the bob cat up a centerpole, away up above the
torches, and made speeches to the audience, and quieted them down, and
the performance went on. But pa was a sight, and the head circus man
told pa he would have to dress better, or forever after hold his peace,
and pa said if any man could be more patient than he was, with a bob cat
on his neck, a sacred cow walking on him, and a camel trying to eat his
whiskers and shirt, they better hire that man.

But it was all fixed up and everybody apologized to everybody, and the
bob cat went on up the center pole and out on top of the canvas and
escaped into Ohio, where it will probably be holding office before next
fall.

Gee, but the giant is a coward. When the bob cat began to run up the
giant's leg, and then up his back, and then jumped from his shoulder
onto the fat lady, the giant turned pale and cried, and the midget said
to him: "O, you big stiff, why didn't you have sand enough to hold the
kitty till the keeper came? I've a good mind to get on a stepladder and
kick you," and the cowardly giant cried again, and said if the midget
ever struck him he would report him to the management. Just then pa came
along and asked what the row was about, and when pa found that the
midget was trying to pick a quarrel with the giant, he took the midget
across his knee and gave him a few spanks, and told him to quit bullying
the freaks. The midget got up on a barrel and called his son, who is
bigger than pa, when I stepped in between them and told the midget's son
if he struck my father I would have his heart's blood, and he quailed,
and then I bullied the giant, who is a coward, and now they are all
afraid of me.