Pecks Bad Boy with the Circus | Page 3

Whiskers Grow.
April 10, 19..--I never thought it would come to this, that I should keep
a diary, because I am not a good little boy. Nobody ever keeps a diary
except a boy that wants to be an angel, and with the angels stand, or a
girl that is in love, or an old maid that can't catch a man unless she
writes down her emotions and leaves them around so some man will
read them, and swallow the bait and not feel the hook in his gills, or a
truly good bank cashier who teaches Sunday school, and skips out for
Canada some Saturday night, after the bank closes, and on Monday
morning they find the combination of the lock on the safe changed, and
when they hire a reformed burglar to open the lock the money is all
gone with the cashier. Those are the only people that ever kept a
successful diary.
But I had to promise ma that I would keep a diary, so she could read it,
or I never could have got her consent for me to go with pa on the road
with a circus. All ma asks of me is to tell the truth about everything that
happens to me and to pa during the whole summer, and I have
consented, and I can see my finish, and pa's finish and ma's finish, and
the finish of the circus that is going to take us along.
Gee, but we have had a hot time at our house since pa and I got back
from our trip abroad. I brought pa back in better health than he was
when he went away, but he has got so accustomed to excitement that I
knew something would be doing pretty soon, so I was not surprised
when he told us at the breakfast table that he supposed he should have

to go and travel with a circus this summer.
Ma looked at pa as though she wanted to call the police and am
ambulance to take him to the emergency hospital. He looked at ma and
at me, speared another waffle, and said: "I know you will think I am
nutty, but for almost ten years I have had a block of stock in a circus
and menagerie. I went into it to help some young circus fellows, and
put up quite a bunch of money, because they were honest and poor, and
for a few years things went wrong, and I thought my money was gone,
but for the last six years the circus has paid dividends bigger than
Standard Oil, and today it stands away up among the financial
successes, and the dividends on my citrus stock is better than any bank
stock I have got, and it comes just like finding money. The company
decided at its annual meeting to invite me to take the position of one of
the managers, and I shall soon go to the winter quarters of the show, to
arrange to put it on the road about the 1st of May. Now any remarks
may be made, pro or con, in regard to my sanity, see?"
Well, ma swallowed something crosswise down her Sunday throat, and
choked, and pa swatted her on the back so she would cough it up, and
when she could speak she said: "Pa, do you have to wear tights, and
jump through hoops on the back of a horse, and cut up didoes, at your
time of life? For if you do I can never live to witness any such
performances."
[Illustration: Pa Swatted Her on the Back.]
Pa was calm, and did not fly off the handle, but he just said, kindly:
"Mother, you have vague ideas of the duties of the owners of a circus.
The owners hire performers to do stunts, and break their necks, while
we manage them and take in the shekels from the Reubens who come
into town on circus day. We proprietors touch the button, and the actors
and animals do the rest. I shall be a director who directs, a man who
sets a dignified and pious example to the men and women who adorn
the profession, coming as they do from all climes, and your pa will be
the guide, philosopher and friend of all who belong to the grandest
aggregation of talent ever gathered under one canvas, at one price of
admission, and do not fail to witness the concert which will be given

under this canvas after the main performance is over."
Ma looked at pa pretty savage, and said: "O, I see, you are going to be
ringmaster, but what is to become of Hennery and me while you are
cracking your whip around the hind legs of the fat woman,