The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1891-08-11
THE OSsIFIED MANS REVENGE
New York Would

~ .NS NAV AsSN ON>NO
/ was limping around the tavern
with a sprained ankle when a boat
came up the Missouri and landed a
travelling circus. All circuses travel,
Of course, but this one travelled into
strange lands and byplaces. The
town only had 400 inhabitants, of
which at least halt were colored, and
couldn't raise nickle apiece. but the
circus wasn't a bit discouraged at the
prospect. The show consisted of an
three byenas, q faded old
camel and a ring performance. There
wee only fur horses and three aero
bats. and when the Gown was not
he vas bossing The job of
putting up The tent and currying down
horses.
Something Use struck tie same
town at the SAME time. IL was an
ossi6ed man who l,sei IN \ farm
three miles away. He wasn't ossi6ed
at that time. After putting in twelve
years ut the business he had taxed his
savings and bought him = country
home and gone out of the oas.6ed pro-
fession. Heari' g that a circus had
arrived his bosom began to swell with
recollections of the past, and he had
come down to extend the frsternal
hand. If l had been that circus own
er l should have treated that ossifed
man as one of the guild, and should
have fastened to offer him a dead
head ticket for a reserved seat. was
astonishei to see that he was treated
badly, and to hear from the lips of
the circus man, who was the owner,
treasurer, ticket.seller and ring-mas-
ter combined, that no blooming fakir
could dead head into his monster sg-
and come out alive. The
ex-Ossified man was sensitive and his
feelings was hurt, and there were tears
in his eyes as he took me in the wash-
room and said:
81 have travelled from Maine to
California in my time, and this is the
first case of unp:Ofessionaf conduct
have ever met with. Why, sir, if
that man knew his business he'd pay
me to take front seat in his show.
He's selling . medicine on the outside
warrented to cure chills and fever.
and what an opportunity is here to
claim that this very stuff is what
changed me from an ossi6ed freak to
a healthy farmerl"
l sympathized with him, but he
went away grieved and insulted. I
was going to hobble over to the tent,
but he warned me to keep away, and
he selected q spot on the tavern YER
ands from which he said l could see
the fun. ! didn't ask for particulars.
You can always trust an ossi6ed man
on general principles. He went gal
lopino away on his mule, and it was
fully two hours before I heard of him
again.
The afternoon performance was we'll
under way when heard the rumble
of thunder up the road leading to
Plum Creek. l thought it was thun-
der, but it turned out to be a big
black bull belonging to the ossi6ed
man. The animal came slowly up the
highway. looking all around him for
q free fight, and stopping now and
then to paw up a CARLOAD of soil and
make the heavens tremble with his
believing. The ossifed man got in
ahead of him, and as be sat down be-
hide me he grinned and chuckled, and
whispered:
"There's going to be some fun here,
Or was never advertised as the
greatest living wonder Of the nine
tenth century"
He was a prophet. That bull no
sooner caught light of the tent than
bis eyes opened an inch wider. The
odor of the elephant and the hyenas
reached his nos:rils on the balmy
breeze and, after throwing dirt thirty
feet high and taking a couple of twists
in his tail, he started to in
vestigate. 1t was a living, breath
ing cyclone which struck that
tent. 1t was an unparalleled museum
IF anatomy which lifted that old
camel ten feet high, which rolled that
elephant over and over, which busted
he cage and let the dreadful hyenas
loose to terrorize the State of Missouri
Tor the next FIVE years. The tent was
knocked down. the people flew in all
and before that bull looked
,ver in our direction and winked at
lis ossi6ed owner and started of
,omewards, the unsurpassed collect
on of living wonders, gathered ter
'ific outlay Of money from the four
quarters Of the globe, was a wreck.
indeed II took two DAYS and niphts tn