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
Well, sir, you can never make me believe that money obtained dishonestly
will stay by a person, or do him any good, and that was demonstrated in
the case of our show the next day. We got acquainted with an old showman
who was out of luck, who used to run a wild west show, but got busted
up, and as he didn't care where he went, we took him with us on the
train, and all day Sunday he talked about his show experiences, and
finally he said if we had any horses with our show that could run races,
we could make a barrel of money at Guthrie, where we were to make our
next stand. He said the Indians and half breeds all had Indian ponies
that they thought could beat any horses that ever wore shoes, and that
they would bet every cent they had on their ponies, and as they had just
been paid their annuities by the government, they had money in bales,
and we could get it all, if we had horses that were any good, and money
to back them. His idea was to give out that owing to some accident we
could not give an afternoon performance, and just get out the horses and
bet the Indians to a standstill, and win all their money, and give a
free evening show as a sort of consolation to the Indians.
Well, it looked good to pa, and he talked to the other managers, and the
result was when we got to Guthrie we had made up our minds that as money
was what we were after, the easiest way was to get it by racing our
horses.
So when we got settled in Guthrie, and got the tent up, we announced
that part of the show was in a wreck down the road in Arkansas, and we
should have to abandon the afternoon performance, but in the meantime
there would be a little horse racing on the side, if anybody in Oklahoma
had any horses they thought could run some.
Well, I thought there were Indians and ponies and squaws enough before
the announcement was made, but in less than two hours more than a
thousand ponies were being brought in, and we got our chariot racers,
and our bareback hippodrome horses, and they were being led around and
admired, and we all laughed at the little runts of Indian ponies, and
the Indians got mad and backed their ponies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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