Otto had his one good time! One would scarcely have known him, his face was so bright and rosy.
It was almost a miracle that he had not been killed under the buffalo’s hoofs, but the ride did not hurt him in the least. And he is still telling the hospital children, over and over again, all the wonders of that procession in which he rode to the end of the route on the buffalo, and then back to the tent in the Fat Lady’s chariot! For Sonny Boy found the Wild Man both a kind and influential friend.
He has learned to be a Wild Man himself; there was a show in the Plummers’ barn, at Poppleton, in the fall, that many people thought equal to a grown-up circus, and the Wild Man was the chief attraction.
“CAPTAIN SONNY BOY PLUMMER.”
But none of the Plummers were so much surprised that Sonny Boy had learned to be a Wild Man as they were that he had learned spelling and fractions and straightened out his stooping shoulders and his bow-legs!
Sonny Boy explained that he had done it to help a slower and a crookeder boy than himself. And when Otto came down to Poppleton to pay Sonny Boy a visit they understood a little better.
Lena came, too, and they brought the white mice, and those skillful performers took part in the barn show.