45° 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 21, 1908. 
aggregation as a trunk. Sells Brothers’ polar 
bear, standing upon an iceberg, was equipped 
with the neck and head of Ringling’s giraffe, 
reaching up into the thick foliage of a tropical 
jungle. Buffalo Bill’s Indians were charging re¬ 
lentlessly into a cage of monkeys. With only a 
slight fracture of the ankle, and a blue slipper 
in place of a white one, the naturally clad eques¬ 
trian queen spanned the space of twenty-five 
years as she stood with one foot on the back of 
Forepaugh’s dapple gray and the other on the 
rump of Van Amburg’s famous chestnut. Un¬ 
less help could be secured at once, Barnum & 
Bailey’s high diver was coming down squarely 
into Ringling’s band wagon. A great and por¬ 
tentous word lost much of its awe-inspiring 
force when the last few syllables were brushed 
away by the whirling hat of a clown. 
Musing upon what new and marvelous kinds 
of beasts would appear when wind and rain 
should have had their chance at the latest coat¬ 
ing of posters, I continued my walk to and from 
the oak woods. 
Upon my return the men had left. A solitary 
small boy, from the little tenement house just 
above, sat by the road holding his knees in his 
clasped hands, as he surveyed the gorgeous dis¬ 
play from end to end. 
“Gee, Mister, that’s goin’ to be a big circus” 
he exclaimed, when we had both completed our 
inspection. 
“It certainly does look so—think you will 
go?” I asked. 
“I don’t know whether I can or not, but you 
bet I want to. Suppose they’d let me carry 
water or anything for a ticket?” 
Just then what promised to be an interesting 
visit was interrupted by Mr. Smith coming out 
of his horsebarn and walking toward us, while 
his soil-worn fingers fumbled in his vest pocket 
in search of something. 
“Jimmy, I made the show fellows give me an 
extra ticket when they put up their posters, so 
that you could go, here it is,” he said, as find¬ 
ing the yellow scrap, he handed it to the lad. 
You have seen the sun come out after a 
shower, and suddenly light things up? Well, 
that is just what happened to Jimmy’s face. He 
stood and stared speechless for a second or two, 
and then wheeling about, ran toward home with 
his bare legs working like piston rods. We 
watched until he was out of sight, and then Mr. 
Smith, turning to me with a grin, said: 
“He’s only lived around here since spring, or 
he wouldn’t be so much surprised. You see the 
old wagon house is pretty long, and I make 
them give me a good many tickets for putting 
their advertisin’ on it. Then I let the boys have 
most of them. I’m a little bit tender on the cir¬ 
cus subject myself, and have been ever since I 
was that lad’s age. Did you ever notice them 
old faded bills up there under the cornice, where 
the storms can’t get at them? Well, some of 
them have been there more than fifty years. 
That one with the corner just sticking out was 
put there when Van Amburg went through here 
once. I was about ten years old then. My folks 
lived in a little house up beyond where Jimmy 
lives, and they were poorer than poverty. They 
couldn’t any more afford to give me a quarter 
to go to a show with than I could afford to give 
away a team of horses, or maybe not so much. 
’T any rate I knew they couldn’t and so I never 
thought of asking them to. But oh, how I did 
want to go to that show! I never wanted any¬ 
thing so bad before or since. 
“There wasn’t any chance in them days for a 
boy to earn money, as there is now,” Mr. Smith 
continued. “Folks did most all their own odd 
jobs, and they pinched the dimes mighty close. 
If they did give a boy a penny, they thought it 
ought to last him a year. I had just one way of 
getting a few cents, and that was selling apples. 
Old Deacon Rose used to own this farm, and he 
had a tree of early apples standing over in the 
corner of the orchard—it’s blown down since 
then. When the apples got ripe the deacon would 
let me pick them and sell them to halves, at the 
village. That time when Van Amburg put up 
his bills, the apples was gettin’ most full grown, 
and I figured there was just a chance that they 
would be ripe by circus day. If I could sell fifty 
at a penny apiece while the crowd was gathering, 
I could use my half to get into the show with. 
“I didn’t tell my folks what I was planning 
on, because I knew they’d put a stop to it, but I 
kept a sharp watch on the apples. They would 
turn a little yellowish, when they ripened, and I 
wasn’t allowed to touch them till then. The dea¬ 
con would go with me to see that I didn’t pick 
them too soon, and to count what I took. Folks 
was queerer and suspiciouser in them days than 
they are now. When it got pretty near time for 
the circus I’d go three or four times a day to 
look at the apples, and it did seem as if they 
wasn’t ever going to turn yellow. Finally, the 
last day before the show, I was sure they was 
ripening, and I went and told the deacon. He 
said he’d go with me to the tree the next morn¬ 
ing and see about it. I was in a regular pucker 
all day, and scarcely slept a wink that night. 
“In the morning I went with a big enough 
basket so I knew it would hold fifty, and when 
the deacon got up he found me waiting there by 
that horse block. It most seemed as if he 
wouldn’t ever get his chores done and have his 
breakfast, but finally he did, and said he was 
ready to start. I could see he was a little grumpy 
because I had fretted around so much. When 
we got to the tree he just give one look and 
said: ‘Pshaw, you little numbskull, they won’t 
be ripe for a week yet.’ Then he turned on his 
heel and walked off. 
“I guess there never was a heartbrokener boy 
than I was,” Mr. Smith went on. “I always re¬ 
membered that day, and if I could be put right 
back there, the first thing I would do would be 
to go to that circus. When I got grown up I 
bought the farm off’n the deacon’s heirs, and 
after I’d had a tight pull getting out from under 
the mortgage, I built over all the buildings, and 
you see they’re just as good as anybody has now. 
except the old wagon house. There was bits of 
them same Van Amburg bills on there when I 
got the farm, only they’d been covered over a 
good many times. I never quite liked to tear 
them off, so I just put a new roof on, and I’m 
goin’ to let it stand as long as I need buildings.” 
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