The Bad Boy and the Senator's Son Go on an Elephant Chase--The
Senator's Son Gets His Friend a Bid to Dinner at the White
House--The Trained Seal Swallows an Alarm Clock.
The show remained in Washington two days, 'cause it took all one day and
night to catch the elephants, after the senator's boy and I turned the
rats and mice loose in the ring while the elephants were forming a
pyramid. Pa and all the circus hands had to go away down towards the
Bull Run battlefield to round them up, and young Mr. Senator let me ride
one of his ponies and he and I went along to help catch the elephants.
We went out through Alexandria towards Bull Run battlefield. There we
overtook pa and the boss canvasman and the elephant handler, and we met
some farmers coming into Alexandria with their families, stampeding like
people out west when the Indians go on the warpath. They had got up in
the morning to milk the cows and found about 20 elephants in the
barnyard, making the cows do a song and dance. Pa told them there was no
danger at all, 'cause he would take any elephant by the tail and snap
its head off, like boys snap the heads off garter snakes, and I told
them that me and the senator's boy stampeded the elephants and we could
drive them back to town like a drove of sheep.
[Illustration: We Met Some Farmers.]
The farmers thought we were great and they followed us back to the farm,
where we found the herd of elephants had taken possession and were
having the time of their lives. About a dozen of the big elephants had
found a couple of barrels of cider in a shed and had been drinking it,
and when we got there they were like section hands with jags on.
Bolivar, the big elephant, was the drunkest, and when he saw pa coming
with the gang of hands, with ropes and spears, he winked at the other
elephants and seemed to say: "Watch me tree 'em," for he came out of the
gate and bellowed, and made a charge at the gang, and pa beat them all
going up crab apple trees. The senator's son saw pa up a tree, and he
said: "Old gentleman, if these are your animals, or insects, or whatever
they are, you ought to come down off your perch and take them to a
Keeley cure, because they are intoxicated."
[Illustration: Old Gentleman, You Ought to Come Down Off Your Perch.]
And pa came down and took a fence rail and sharpened it with an ax, and
he run it into Bolivar about a foot, and Bolivar trumpeted for
surrender, and that settled the elephant strike, for pa ordered Bolivar
into the road, and in five minutes the whole herd of elephants was
following Bolivar back to Washington, as meek as a drunken husband being
led home by his wife.
Gee, what do you think? The president heard how the senator's boy and I
stampeded the elephants and invited the senator's boy to bring his young
friend around to the white house to supper. Well, we went.
I forgot what we had to eat, I was so interested in the president's
conversation. He talked about the show business as though he had been a
ringmaster in a circus. He said he was in the show the day before when
we stampeded the elephants, and he told us about his hunting trips in
the west, until I could smell bacon cooking at the camp fire, and I
could smell the balsam boughs they slept on, on the ground.
When he let up a little on his talk, I braced up and asked him if he had
rather shoot wild cats and bears than be president. He hedged and said
both occupations worked pretty well together and he had enjoyed 'em
both. Then I asked him if he was going to run for president again, and
he winked at his wife, and then he asked me what made me ask the
question. I told him pa wanted me to find out. I told him all the boys
wanted him to run, 'cause he was a good feller, and not afraid of the
cars.
The president laughed and said: "Well, it's this way. The president
business is a good deal like bear hunting. You get on a fresh track,
either in politics or bear hunting, and follow the game with dogs, or
politicians, as the case may be. The trail keeps getting fresher and by
and by the game is in sight, and the dogs are nipping its hind legs, if
it is a bear, or chewing big words if it is an opposing candidate, and
nipping him in exposed places. You ride like mad, your clothes or your
reputation torn by briars if it is a bear, or by opposition newspapers
if it is a political campaign, and you wish it was over, many times, and
are so tired you wish you were dead. Finally your bear or your opponent
in politics is treed and the dogs are trying to climb the tree, and your
bear or your political opponent is up on a limb snarling and showing his
teeth at the dogs or the politicians, and then you ride up, look the
ground over, wait till your heart stops beating and fire the shot at a
vital part, and your bear or your political opponent comes tumbling to
the ground. When he ceases to kick you put your foot on his neck and
feel sorry you killed him, but you go to work and skin him and hang his
hide on the fence. Then you have got to ride all night to get to camp,
if it is a bear, and work harder than a man on a treadmill for four
years, if it is a presidential candidate you have skun."
I had sat with my mouth open while the president talked, and never said
a word, but when he quit I said: "Yes, but suppose when you got your
bear skun, another bear should come after you and dare you to knock a
chip off his shoulder, and growl, and walk sideways with his bristles
all up, would you run, or would you stand your ground?"
"We better change the subject," said the president, and rose from the
table, and we all got up. He patted me on the head, and said: "Tell your
pa I will see him later, and in the meantime, you run your circus and I
will try to run mine."
The queerest thing happened that night. The senator's boy spoke of our
trained seals, that catch a fish if you throw it to them and swallow it
whole. He said it would be fun to take a little alarm clock and sew it
up in a fish, and set the alarm at seven o'clock p. m., when the crowd
is watching the seals swallow fish, and throw it to the big seal, and
the alarm would go off inside him.
Well, I bit like a bass, and said we would do it, so he took a little
alarm clock and set it for seven o'clock. We got it into a fish, and I
am ashamed to tell what happened. Gee, but that seal grabbed the fish
with a clock in it, and tried to swallow it, but the brass ring caught
on one of his teeth, and he was trying to get it loose when the alarm
went off, and the seal jumped out of the tank and began to prance around
the crowd, scaring the women, and making all the animals nervous. He
stood on his head and bellowed, and all the circus hands came rushing
up. Finally the alarm clock quit jingling, and they caught the seal and
pulled the clock off his tooth, and just then pa came up to me and said:
"What deviltry you boys up to now? Suppose that seal had swallowed that
clock, and you couldn't wind it up; it might kill him. Now, go to the
car, 'cause we are going to get out of this town right off. You make me
tired." And pa helped to lift the slippery seal into the tank, and
looked mad at his little boy, and hurt the feelings of the senator's
boy.