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 don't see how a big fellow like a giant can be afraid of things
smaller than he is, and shy when a dog barks, and be afraid some one is
going to smash him in the jaw, but pa says the size of a man don't make
any difference, 'cause it is the heart that does the business. A man may
be big enough and strong enough to tip over a box car, loaded with pig
iron, but if his heart is one of these little ones intended for a miser,
with no pepper sauce running from the heart to the arteries and things,
and a liver that is white, and nerves that are trembly, and no gall to
speak of, why a big man is liable to be walked all over by a nervy
little man who is spunky, and gets mad and froths at the mouth.
I have been having great times with the monkeys, and I guess the manager
will make me superintendent of monkeys, 'cause they all seem to be stuck
on me, and will do anything I tell them to. Pa says they think I am some
new kind of a monkey, and they look up to me. I lead out the big monkeys
that ride the goats and dogs, and have a horse race in the ring, and
fasten them on the little animals, and when they ride around the ring on
the dogs and goats and ponies, they keep looking at me as though they
wanted my approval.
There is one little monkey that sleeps nearly all the time, and I played
a trick on pa with it that like to got me arrested and licked by a man
who was mad. A man and woman with a baby in a little wagon were going
through the menagerie, and it was crowded, and they left the baby and
wagon in pa's charge, near the monkey cage, while they went to see the
hippopotamus. Pa is the most accommodating man about holding babies that
ever was. The baby was asleep when its folks left it in the wagon with
pa, but it woke up while they were gone, and pa took it out of the baby
wagon and carried it around just as he would at home, and showed it the
animals, and held it up on his shoulder, and I took the little monkey
and put it in the baby wagon, and it went to sleep, and I put a veil
over it, and was standing by the wagon talking with a peanut butcher,
when the parents of the baby came back, and the woman raised up the veil
to see if the child was asleep, when the monkey woke up and put its
hairy hands up to rub it eyes. The monkey looked up at the woman with
beady eyes and began to chatter, and she yelled and her husband took a
look at the monk, and he was mad. They could both see it was a monkey
instead of a baby, and they asked where the old man with the chin
whiskers was that they left the baby with, and the peanut butcher said:
"What, that old guy with the checkered vest? Why, he has gone with the
baby over to the lion cage, where they are feeding the lions. Don't you
see him holding the baby upon his shoulder?" By ginger, I never saw two
people sprint the way they did, 'cause I guess they thought pa was sure
crazy, and would give the baby to the lions. But I told them the old man
was all right, and would bring the baby back, and if he didn't they
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.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account