THE TRAINER’S WIDOW.
“Dangerous! He et another trainer, and then I lost him. His widder was actilly in love with her husband, and she swore the animal shood be killed, and the people sided with her, and as the broot was gettin’ old, and the killin’ made a sensation, I did it. But I made all there was out of it. I insisted that the husband should have a gorgeous funeral. The woman kicked at the idea of a funeral, for she sed there was nothing to berry, as the lion had eaten her husband. But ain’t the dear departed inside the lion? If we berry the lion, don’t we berry the dear deceast? Cert. And we hed it, and it was gorgeous. We hed a percession, with all our wagons in it—the regelar street parade—only all the riders hed black scarfs on ’em, and the wagons and hosses and elephants and sich was draped in black (mourning goods is cheap,), and the band played a dead
THE GORGEOUS FUNERAL PROCESSION.
march. The widder was in an open carriage, in full mournin’ with a white handkerchief, with a black border, to her eyes lookin’ on his minatoor. There wasn’t no minatoor, but she held a case jist the same. That nite the canvass coodent hold the people, and we run on that two weeks to splendid biz. In two weeks, the woman got over her grief and went into the lion trainin’ line herself, ez ‘Senorita Aguardiente, the Lion Queen.’ I give her some old lions to practis on, and in less than a month she could do jest as well as the old man. She was a good woman, too. She rid in the grand entree, and rid in the ‘Halt in the Desert,’ did the bar’l act, rid a good pad act, and is now practisin’ bare-back. She juggles tollable, and does a society sketch song and dance in a side-show. When I git talent I pay it and keep it. My treasurer changes the names of my people every season, so as to have always fresh attractions. Oh, I know my biz. But that wuzn’t all I made out uv that afflictin’ event. I went and hed a moniment made and sot up over his grave. This is the vig., inscription and all: