THE COUNTRY BOY 173 



needed a sort of a cheap clown, so I joined 

 them. 



I heard from some of the neighbors that it 

 looked bad, owing to father's standing in the 

 State as a man, but I went ahead. I learned 

 to sing the clown's song while standing on a 

 barrel, with brass band accompaniment, and at 

 that I did fairly well, if the band played loud ; 

 but Joe McJMahan, the manager of the circus, 

 thought I ought to do more, so I tried the 

 spring-board. They had led up an old ele- 

 phant and a horse with spots on him. All the 

 acrobats and tumblers ran down this steep in- 

 cline and hit the spring-board, and went up and 

 turned from one to three somersaults, going 

 over the elephant and horse, and lit on a big 

 straw tick on the other side. My clown make- 

 up consisted of a heavy, ponderous stomach, 

 also made of straw. I'd never jumped on a 

 spring-board, and no one explained to me the 

 angles at which it was best to hit. I took a 

 long run as I hit the spring-board. I evi- 

 dently hit it too high up, and instead of going 

 up over the elephant and horse, I cushioned 

 back up the spring-board, lit on the back of my 



