Peck's Bad Boy with the CircusPeck, George W. (George Wilbur)
General
Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus
Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Circus -- Juvenile fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account