All the sights there
are to see in strange places. And then when the show came back to
your own home-town next year, people would wonder whose was that
slim and gracile figure in the green silk tights and spangled
breech-clout that capered so nimbly on the bounding courser's back,
that switched the natty switch and shrilly called out: "Hep! Hep!"
They'd screw up their eyes to look hard, and they'd say: "Yes, sir.
It is. It's him. It's Willie Bigelow. Well, of all things!" And
they'd clap their hands, and be so proud of you. And they'd wonder
how it was that they could have been so blind to your many merits
when they had you with them. They'd feel sorry that they ever said
you were a "regular little imp," if ever there was one, and that
you had the Old Boy in you as big as a horse. They'd feel ashamed
of themselves, so they would. And they'd come and apologize to
you for the way they had acted, and you'd say: "Oh, that's all
right. Forgive and forget." And they'd miss you at home, too.
Your daddy would wish he hadn't whaled you the way he did, just for
nothing at all. And your mother, too, she'd be sorry for the way
she acted to you, tormenting the life and soul out of you, sending
you on errands just when you got a man in the king row, and making
you wash your feet in a bucket before you went to bed, instead of
being satisfied to let you pump on them, as any reasonable mother
would.
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