The principal proprietor of the circus told pa to make himself at home around the tent, and not be offended at any pleasantry on the part of the attaches of the show, for they were full of fun, and he went off to attend to some business and left pa with the gang.  They were practicing riding bare-backed horses around the ring, with a rope hitched in a belt around the waist of the rider and an arm swinging around from the center pole, so if they fell off the horse the rope would prevent the rider from falling to the ground, a practice that the best riders adopt early in the season, the same as new beginners, ’cause they are all stiffened up by being out of practice.  One man rode around a few times, and pa got up close to the ring and was making some comments such as:  “Why, any condemned fool could ride a horse that way,” when the circus gang as quick as you could say scat, fastened a belt around pa’s stomach, that had a ring in it, and before he knew it they had hitched a snap in the ring, and pa was hauled up as high as the horse, and his feet rested on the horse’s back, and the horse started on a gallop.

Well, say, pa was never so surprised in his life, but he dug his heels into the horse’s back, and tried to look pleasant, and the horse went half way around the ring, and just as pa was getting confidence some one hit the horse on the ham with a piece of board, and the horse went out from under pa and he began to fall over backwards, and I thought his circus career would end right there, when the man who had hold of the rope pulled up, and pa was suspended in the air by the ring in the belt, back up, and stomach hanging down like a pillow, his watch dangling about a foot down towards the ring, and the horse came around the ring again and as he went under pa, pa tried to get his feet on the horse’s back, but he couldn’t make it work, and pa said, as cross as could be:  “Lookahere, you fellers, you let me down, or I will discharge every mother’s son of you.”

[Illustration:  Pa Was Suspended in the Air.]

But they didn’t seem to be scared, for one man caught the horse and let it out of the ring, and the man who handled the rope tied it to the center pole by a half hitch, and the fellows all went into the dressing room to play cinch on the trunks, leaving pa hanging there.  Just then the boss canvasman came along and he said:  “Hello, old man, what you doing up there?” And pa said some of the pirates in the show had kidnaped him, and seemed to be holding him up for a ransom, and he said he would give ten dollars if some one would let him down.

The boss canvasman said he could fix it for ten, all right, and he blew a whistle, and the gang came back, and the boss said:  “Bring a blanket and help this gentleman down;” so they brought a big piece of canvas, with handles all around it, and about a dozen fellows held it, and the rope man let pa down on the canvas, and unhitched the ring, and when pa was in the canvas he laughed and said: