I am learning more about animals every day, and when the season is over I will be an expert animal man. Animals naturally have a language of their own, and lions understand each other, and bears can converse with bears, but in a show, all animals seem to have a common language, so they understand each other a little.

I found that out when I put a paper of cayenne pepper into a head of lettuce and gave it to the sacred cow. She chewed the lettuce as peacefully as could be, and swallowed the cayenne pepper, and then stopped to think. You could tell by the expression on her face that when the pepper began to heat her up inside she wanted to swear, although she was a sacred cow. She humped herself, and shivered, and then bellowed like a calf who has been left in the barn to be weaned, while its mother goes out to pasture, and the sacred bull, her husband, he came and put his nose up to her nose, as much as to say: "What is the matter, dearie?" and she talked sacred cattle talk to him for a minute, and then the bull turned to me and chased me out of the tent. Now, as sure as you live that cow told the bull that I had given her something hot. All the animals within hearing were onto me, and they would snarl, and make noises when I came along, and act as though they wanted to make me understand that they knew I gave that cow a hot box, and they all wanted to get a chance at me.

They don't like pa any better than they do me, and the big elephant seems to have been laying for pa ever since he run the sharp iron into him, the time he got on a tear and tried to run a town. When the elephants are performing in the ring, they all have an eye on pa, so everybody notices it. I knew something would happen to pa, so when the man who plays the sheik, and rides the elephant in the street parade, in a howdah, with a canopy over it, with some female houris in it, and they called for a volunteer to do the sheik act, at Steubenville, and pa offered to do the stunt, I went along as an Egyptian girl, 'cause I knew there would be something doing.

The elephant eyed pa when he got up into the bungalow on top of him with the Circassian woman and me, and winked at the other elephants, as much as to say: "Watch my smoke." As he went out from the lot, on the way downtown, ahead of the bunch, all the other animals acted peculiar, and seemed to say: "He will get his before we get through this parade."

The big elephant is one of the best ring performers, but he has always been steady in the street parade, with the light of Asia on his back. We got to the edge of town and stopped to let the rear wagons close up, and were in front of a saloon, where the bartender had been emptying stale beer out of the bottoms of kegs into a washtub, which was standing on the sidewalk, ready to be sold to people who buy it in pails.

Well, sir, that confounded elephant got his trunk in that tub of stale beer, and he never took it out till the beer was all gone. I looked down from the pagoda and told pa the elephant was drinking again, and had drank a washtub of beer, but pa couldn't say anything, 'cause he was doing the Arab sheik act, and had to look dignified, as though he was praying to Allah.

But just then the band struck up, and we started down the main street of Steubenville. The people began to cheer, 'cause our elephant began to hippity-hop, and waltz sideways across the street and back again, and I thought pa would die. In the parade one man on a horse attends to the elephants, so the sheiks don't have anything to say, and pa remained like a statue, and told me and the Circassian beauties to be calm, and trust in him and Allah. This Allah business was all right when the elephant waltzed, but when we got to the next block the beast began to stand on his hind feet, and pa and the houris rolled to the back end of the howdah, and were all piled in a heap, while I held on to the cloth of gold over the elephant's head.

Pa yelled to the people on horseback to kill the elephant, and the crowd cheered, thinking it was the best performance they ever saw in a free street parade, and the animals in the cages behind were yapping as though they knew what was going on. The elephant got down on all fours, and we straightened up in the pagoda, and for a block or so the beast only waltzed around. As we got to some sort of a public square, where there were thousands of people, the stale beer seemed to be getting in its work, for the elephant looked at the people, as much as to say: "Now I will show you something not down on the bills," and, by ginger, if he didn't raise up his hind quarters and stand on his front feet, right by the side of a big fountain, and he reached in his trunk for a drink, when all of us on the pagoda clung to pa, and we all slid right off into the big basin of water. The fountain played on us, and pa was under water, with the four Circassian beauties, and when we rolled or slid down over the elephant's head, he looked at us and seemed to chuckle: "What you getting off here for, the show ain't half out."

Well, the parade went on and left the elephant and the rest of us at the fountain, and to show that animals understand each other, and can appreciate a joke, every animal that passed us gave us the laugh, even the hippopotamus, which opened his mouth as big as a tunnel, and showed his teeth and acted as though he would like to exchange tanks with us.

The circus people that could be spared from the wagons came to help us, and the citizens helped out the Circassian beauties who were praying to Allah, and wringing out their clothes, and I crawled up on the neck of a cast-iron swan in the fountain. Pa yelled and talked profane, and told 'em to bring a cannon and kill the elephant, which kept ducking him with his trunk, and swabbing out the bottom of the fountain basin with pa. It seemed as though he never would get through using pa for a mop, but finally the people got a rope around pa, and a keeper got an iron hook in the elephant's ear, and they pulled pa out on one side, and got the elephant away on the other side, and just then the callipoe, that ends the parade, came by us and played the "Blue Danube," and the elephant got on his hind feet and waltzed on the pavement. They put pa and the Circassian beauties in a patrol wagon and took them to the show lot, and I sat by the driver, and he let me drive the team.

Pa had his sheik clothes rolled up around his waist, and was wringing them out, and talking awful sassy, and when we got to the lot it took a long time to convince the policemen that we were not guilty of disorderly conduct, and just then the elephant came tearing by us, with the keeper on horseback behind him, prodding him in the ham every jump with a sharp iron, and he went through the side of the tent as though he was mighty sorry he didn't kill us all.

They made him get down on his knees and bellow in token of surrender, and then we all went and changed our clothes for the afternoon performance. As we passed through the menagerie tent, dripping, every animal set up a yell, as much as to say: "There, maybe you will give cayenne pepper to a pious sacred cow again, confound you," and that convinces me that animals are human.

The last week has been the hardest on pa of any week since we have been out with the circus. The trouble with pa is that he wants to be "Johnny on the spot," as the boys say, and if anything breaks he volunteers to go to work and fix it, and if anybody is sick or disabled, he wants to take their place, as he says so he will learn everything about the circus, and be competent to run a show alone next year.

But it was a mean trick the principal owner of the show played on pa at Canton, O. You see John L. Sullivan used to do a boxing act with this show, years ago, and everybody likes John, and when he shows up where the show gives a performance he has the freedom of the whole place, and everybody about the show is ready to fall over themselves to do John L. a service.

Well, Sullivan showed up at Canton, and he went everywhere, all the forenoon, and met all the old timers, and at the afternoon performance he was awfully jolly.

John was standing beside the ring when the Japanese jugglers were juggling, and he leaned against a pole. Pa came in from the menagerie tent, and he didn't know Sullivan, and when he saw Sullivan holding the pole up, pa said to the boss proprietor that the fat man who was interfering with the show ought to be called down or put out.

The boss said to pa: "You go take him by the ear and put him out," and pa, who is as brave as lion, started for Sullivan, and the boss winked at the other circus men, and pa went up to Sullivan and took hold of John's neck with both hands, and said: "Come on out of here."

Well, sir, we ought to have moving pictures of what followed. Sullivan turned on pa, and growled just like a lion. Then he took pa around the waist and held him up under his arm, and picked up a piece of board and slatted pa just as though pa was a child, and the audience just yelled, and pa called to the circus men for help, but they just laughed.

Pa got a chance at the fat man and he hit him in the jaw, but it did not hurt Sullivan, only made him mad. He took pa up by the collar and whirled him around until pa was dizzy, and then he started with him for the menagerie tent, and called to the boss canvasman: "Bill, come on and tell me which is the hungriest lion, and I will feed him with this cold meat."

Pa yelled, 'cause he thought he was in the hands of an escaped lunatic, and the circus hands came and took him away. Then the owner told pa who Sullivan was, and pa almost fainted. But finally, after breathing hard for awhile, pa went up to Sullivan and shook his hand, and said: "Mr. Sullivan, you must excuse me. If I had known you were the great John L., I would not have licked you." Sullivan looked at pa and said: "Well, you are a wonder, old man, and you did do me up," and pa and Sullivan became great friends. Since then pa is pretty chesty, 'cause the circus men point him out to the jays as the man who whipped John L. Sullivan.