“Well, you are a wonder,” said the ranch-man, looking at Pa in admiration. “I have seen men before that could lie some, but you have got Annanias beaten a block. Now we will go to the house and settle this thing, and I will send my trusty henchmen out henching after your bull.”
Then we went to the house and got dinner, and the men drove up the buffalo into the barnyard and fed them hay, and we went out and played with the buffaloes, and Pa found his bull hadn't a scratch on him, and that he would lean up against Pa and rub against him just like he was a fencepost.
The ranchman told Pa they had been stringing him, and that the animals were so tame you could feed them out of your hand, and that he had been shooting blank cartridges, and the only thing he regretted was that Pa would lie so before strangers. Then pa bought the herd for the show, and next year Pa will show audiences how he can tame the wildest of the animal kingdom, so they will eat out of his hand.
The Bad Boy and His Pa Return to the Circus to Find They Have Been Quite Forgotten--The Fat Lady and the Bearded Woman Give Pa the Cold Shoulder--Pa Finally Makes Himself Recognized and Attends the Last Performance of the Season.
We arrived from the far west and struck the show at Indianapolis, where it was playing its last date of the season, before going to winter quarters. It was a sad home coming, 'cause the animals and the performers had forgotten us, and we had to be introduced to everybody.
We arrived about noon and while I stayed down town to get a shine, Pa took a street car and went right up to the lot, and the crowd was around the ticket wagon getting ready to go in. Pa went up to the ticket taker at the entrance and said, “hello, Bill,” and was going to push right in, when Bill said that was no good, and there couldn't any old geezer play the “hello Bill” business on him.
A couple of bouncers took Pa by the elbows and fired him out, and the crowd laughed at pa, and told him to go and buy a ticket like a man, and Pa told the bouncers he would discharge them on the spot. Pa went to the manager's tent and complained that he had been fired out, and the manager said that was perfectly proper, unless he had a ticket, and he told Pa to get out. Pa told them who he was, but they wouldn't believe him. You see pa's face was all red and sore where the buffaloes had licked him, and the buffaloes had licked all the hair dye out of his hair and whiskers, and they were as white as the driven snow. Pa looked 20 years older than when he went west. While they were arguing about Pa and examining him to see if he had smallpox, I came up and Pa saw me and he said, “Hennery, ain't I your pa?” and I said “you can search me, that's what they always said,” and then I identified pa, and they all shook hands with him, and he reported about the trip to the west, and what talent he had engaged for the wild west department for next year. Then we all went into the tent. I guess everybody was mad and excited, 'cause the show was going to close, and the salaries stop, as some of the performers were crying, and everybody was packed up, and all were paying borrowed money.