“’But I shore hears Jule’s views of me as a beau!  They’re hot enough to fry meat!  Moreover, Jule tells all Sni-a-bar an’ I’m at once a scoff an’ jeer from the Kaw to the Gasconade.  Jule’s old pap washes out his rifle an’ signs a pledge to plug me if ever ag’in I puts my hand on his front gate.  As I su’gests, it rooins my social c’reer in Sni-a-bar.

“’While I’m ground like a toad that a-way beneath the harrow of this double setback of the drum an’ Jule, thar’s a circus shows up an’ pitches its merry tent in Sni-a-bar.  I knows this caravan of yore—­for I’m a master-hand for shows in my yooth an’ allers goes—­an’ bein’ by virchoo of my troubles ready to plunge into dissipation’s mad an’ swirlin’ midst, I sa’nters down the moment the waggons shows up; an’ after that, while that circus stays, folks who wants to see me, day or night, has to come to the show.

“’The outfit is one of them little old jim-crow shows that charges two-bits an’ stays a month; an’ by the end of the first day, me an’ the clown gets wropped up like brothers; which I’m like one of the fam’iy!  I fetches water an’ he’ps rub hosses an’, speakin’ gen’ral, does more nigger work than I ever crosses up with prior endoorin’ my entire life.  But knowin’ the clown pays for all; sech trivial considerations as pullin’ on tent ropes an’ spreadin’ sawdust disappears before the honour of his a’quaintance.  It’s my knowin’ the clown that leads to disaster.

“’This merrymaker, who’s a “jocund wight” as Colonel Sterett says, gets a heap drunk one evenin’ ‘an’ sleeps out in the rain, an’ he awakes as hoarse as bull-frogs.  He ain’t able to sing his song in the ring.  It’s jest before they begins.

“‘"Dan,” he croaks, plenty dejected, “I wish you’d clown up an’ go in an’ sing that song.”

“‘This cantata he alloodes to, is easy; it’s “Roll Jurdan, Roll,” an’ I hears it so much at nigger camp meetin’s an’ sim’lar distractions, that I carols it in my sleep.  As the clown throws out his bluff I considers awhile some ser’ous.  I feels like mebby I’ve cut the trail of a cunnin’ idee.  When Jule an’ old Hickey an’ the balance of them Sni-a-bar outcasts sees me in a clown’s yooniform, tyrannisin’ about, singin’ songs an’ leadin’ up the war-jig gen’ral, they’ll regret the opinions they so freely expresses an’ take to standin’ about, hopin’ I’ll bow.  They’ll regyard knowin’ me as a boon.  With that, I tells the clown to be of good cheer.  I’ll prance in an’ render that lay an’ his hoarseness won’t prove no setback to the gaiety of nations.

“‘But I don’t sing after all; an’ I don’t pile up Jule an’ old Hickey an’ the sports of Sni-a-bar neither in any all ’round jumble of amazement at my genius.

“‘"Dan,” says the ring master when we’re in the dressin’ room, “when the leapin’ begins, you-all go on with the others an’ do a somersault or two?”

“’"Shore!” I says.

“’I feels as confidant as a kangaroo!  Which I never does try it none; but I supposes that all you has to do is hit the springboard an’ let the springboard do the rest.  That’s where I’m barkin’ at a knot!