purty hard, and I thinks to myself:     

       "Well, these folks has kind o' brung you up, and you ain't never done more'n Hank made you do. Mebby you orter stick to work a little more when they's a job in the shop, even if Hank don't."     

       Which I tried it fur about two or three years, doing as much work around the shop as Hank done and mebby more. But it wasn't no use. One day when I'm about eighteen, I seen awful plain I'll have to light out from there. They was a circus come to town that day. I says to Hank:     

       "Hank, they is a circus this afternoon and agin to-night."     

       "So I has hearn," says Hank.     

       "Are you going to it?" says I.     

       "I mout," says Hank, "and then agin I moutn't. I don't see as it's no consarns of yourn, nohow." I knowed he was going, though. Hank, he never missed a circus.     

       "Well," I says, "they wasn't no harm to ast, was they?"     

       "Well, you've asted, ain't you?" says Hank.     

       "Well, then," says I, "I'd like to go to that there circus myself."     

       "They ain't no use in me saying fur you not to go," says Hank, "fur you would go anyhow. You always does go off when you is needed."     

       "But I ain't got no money," I says, "and I was going to ast you could you spare me half a dollar?"     

       "Great Jehosephat!" says Hank, "but ain't you getting stuck up! What's the matter of you crawling in under the tent like you always done? First thing I know you'll be wanting a pair of these here yaller shoes and a stove-pipe hat."     

       "No," says I, "I ain't no dude, Hank, and you know it. But they is always things about a circus to spend money on besides jest the circus herself. They is the side show, fur instance, and they is the grand concert afterward. I calkelated I'd take 'em all in this year—the hull dern thing, jest fur oncet."     

       Hank, he looks at me like I'd asted fur a house 'n' lot, or a million dollars, or 

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