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
The animals quieted down a little, and pa went into the big tent to
consult the manager, and I thought it was a shame that the lions and
hyenas and tigers couldn't have any fun, so I went to the table where
the meat was laid out ready to feed them, and cut a hole in each piece
of meat and put in a double handful of horseradish, and just then the
feeder came along and began to throw the meat in the cages. Gee, but
those carnivorous animals are bad enough even if you give them nice
boiled sirloin steak, and they fight enough over it, at any time, but
when they began to chew and tear the meat, and get horseradish hot from
the griddle, they didn't do a thing. The audience thought the animals
would kill everybody. The big lion got his meat down, but it didn't set
well, and he turned a somersault, and snarled, and pulled the bars of
the cage, while the grizzly bear rolled up in a ball and rolled over in
his cage till the men had to hold on to the wheels to keep the shebang
from going over. The hyenas, who are always mad, went on a tear that
could be heard in all the tents.
Pa and the managers came back into the menagerie tent with the animal
keeper, who had been sent for, and they began to try to find out what
ailed the animals, and the animal keeper asked what pa had been feeding
them, and pa said he had given them their ground turnips.
"Turnips, indeed," said the keeper, as he took up some of the turnip and
tasted of it, and he handed a handful to pa. Pa tasted it, and pa had a
hot box, and the managers tasted of it, and they said: "No wonder." Then
they asked pa where he got it, and pa said he sent me to order it, and
then they all said: "That settles it."
[Illustration: Pa Tasted of It.]
I thought I would go 'way and jump in the river, but pa said: "Hennery,
come here, my angel," and he spit on his hands and picked up a barrel
stave. I went right up to pa, as innocent as could be, just as any
dutiful son should, and right there before the animals and freaks
pa--well, that's the reason I am not sitting down very much these days.
So long.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Bad Boy and His Pa Inject a Little Politics Into the Show--Rival
Bands of Atlanta Citizens Meet in the Circus Tent--A Bunch of Angry
Hornets Causes Much Bitter Feeling.
I expect that next year I shall be one of the managers of this show,
'cause they tell me I have got the greatest head of any boy that has
ever traveled with the show.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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