“No,” said Mrs. Cullom, “I’m engaged to hear ye, but nobody ’d suppose to see ye now that ye was such a f’lorn little critter as you make out.”

“It’s jest as I’m tellin’ ye, an’ more also, as the Bible says,” returned David, and then, rather more impressively, as if he were leading up to his conclusion, “it come along to a time when I was ’twixt thirteen an’ fourteen.  The’ was a cirkis billed to show down here in Homeville, an’ ev’ry barn an’ shed fer miles around had pictures stuck onto ’em of el’phants, an’ rhinoceroses, an’ ev’ry animul that went into the ark; an’ girls ridin’ bareback an’ jumpin’ through hoops, an’ fellers ridin’ bareback an’ turnin’ summersets, an’ doin’ turnovers on swings; an’ clowns gettin’ hoss-whipped, an’ ev’ry kind of a thing that could be pictered out; an’ how the’ was to be a grand percession at ten o’clock, ‘ith golden chariots, an’ scripteral allegories, an’ the hull bus’nis; an’ the gran’ performance at two o’clock; admission twenty-five cents, children under twelve, at cetery, an’ so forth.  Wa’al, I hadn’t no more idee o’ goin’ to that cirkis ‘n I had o’ flyin’ to the moon, but the night before the show somethin’ waked me ’bout twelve o’clock.  I don’t know how ‘t was.  I’d ben helpin’ mend fence all day, an’ gen’ally I never knowed nothin’ after my head struck the bed till mornin’.  But that night, anyhow, somethin’ waked me, an’ I went an’ looked out the windo’, an’ there was the hull thing goin’ by the house.  The’ was more or less moon, an’ I see the el’phant, an’ the big wagins—­the drivers kind o’ noddin’ over the dashboards—­an’ the chariots with canvas covers—­I don’t know how many of ’em—­an’ the cages of the tigers an’ lions, an’ all.  Wa’al, I got up the next mornin’ at sun-up an’ done my chores; an’ after breakfust I set off fer the ten-acre lot where I was mendin’ fence.  The ten-acre was the farthest off of any, Homeville way, an’ I had my dinner in a tin pail so’t I needn’t lose no time goin’ home at noon, an’, as luck would have it, the’ wa’n’t nobody with me that mornin’.  Wa’al, I got down to the lot an’ set to work; but somehow I couldn’t git that show out o’ my head nohow.  As I said, I hadn’t no more notion of goin’ to that cirkis ’n I had of kingdom come.  I’d never had two shillin’ of my own in my hull life.  But the more I thought on’t the uneasier I got.  Somethin’ seemed pullin’ an’ haulin’ at me, an’ fin’ly I gin in.  I allowed I’d see that percession anyway if it took a leg, an’ mebbe I c’d git back ‘ithout nobody missin’ me.  ’T any rate, I’d take the chances of a lickin’ jest once—­fer that’s what it meant—­an’ I up an’ put fer the village lickity-cut.  I done them four mile lively, I c’n tell ye, an’ the stun-bruises never hurt me once.