"'Can't we both git in for fifty cents?'
"'I 'speck we might, but to-morrer you'd be bilin' ober wid wickedness an' I'd be a backslipper from de church. Hush up, now, kase I hain't got but thirty cents, and dar am no show fur crawlin' under de canvas.'
"The boy still continued to cry, and the old man pulled him behind a wagon, and continued:
"'Henry Clay Scott, which had you rather do—go inter de circus an' den take de awfullest lickin' a boy eber got, or have a glass of dat red lemonade an' go to Heaben when you die? Befo' you decide let me explain dat I mean a lickin' which will take ebery inch of de hide off, an' I also mean one of dem big glasses of lemonade. In addishun, I would obsarve dat a circus am gwine on in Heaben all de time, an' de price of admisshun am simply nominal. Now, sah, what do you say?'
"The boy took the lemonade, but he drank it with tears in his eyes."
A man living near Bloomington, Illinois, in 1870, sold his stove to a neighbor to obtain funds to take his family to a circus that had pitched its tents near the city. When he got back he said he was not a bit sorry, that "he'd seen the clown, an' the gals a ridin', an' the fellows doin' flip-flaps, an' waz so perfectly satisfied that ef another suck-cus came along next year, an' he had a stove, he'd go to see it on the same terms ag'in."
CHAPTER XXXIX.
UNDER THE CANVAS.
The one great wish of the small boy's heart, as he stands at a respectful distance from the ticket wagon watching the huge canvas rise and sink—apparently with as much ease as the flag flies from the top of the centre-pole—is to get inside the tent before the band begins to play. He may not have a cent to pay the admission, but he has Micawberish hopes that far surpass any money value that might be placed upon a small boy, that something will turn up to gain him admission to the show. He knows that if the canvas-men give him a good chance he can crawl in under the cloth and make his way up through the seats. He has been told that if he is caught at such a trick the showmen will drag him to the dressing-tent and fill his hair full of powdered sawdust. The canvas-men are, however, vigilant; besides that, they are lazy and do not care to move around, so the small boy must be content to throw hand-springs in the sawdust-sprinkled lot, and keep on hoping until the show is out. In this respect the minute boy does not betray the same shrewdness credited to a Baltimore girl. She was on a visit to her brother's ranche near Austin, Texas, when a small circus came along. It is considered the acme of honesty to beat the circus in that region—in fact, paying is heartily deprecated. Although only a month in the place, the Baltimore belle was thoroughly imbued with the cowboy spirit, in as far as "beating" the circus was concerned, and when the show pitched its tents she made up her mind as to what she was going to do. At night, when the show was under headway, she calmly approached the circus tent on stilts, and viewed the first half of the performance through the opening between the canvas and the roof. One of the fighters of the show detecting something wrong, crept around with a club to "smash" the intruder, but received a kick in the eye from the fair stilt performer, and was so taken aback that the cowboys had time to rally to her support and raid the show while she at a safe distance applauded the conquering herders. The troupe left town that night in a sadly damaged condition.