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not going to dive into a string of lights. There was also the matter of spotlights which were thrown on the performers after they got up to the top. These, too, had to be placed with extreme care, for light shining in the horse’s eyes could blind or confuse him. Therefore, the spots were aimed to shine from either above or behind.
    All in all, it was expensive, a single tower costing something in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars. This was, however, always at the expense of the park or fair, a part of the Carver contract.
    The process of building was exciting to me and I watched the tower go up plank by plank. For some reason I could not fathom, my constant attendance at the project seemed to annoy Dr. Carver, and one day he asked me why I stayed around so close. I told him I wanted to learn how it was done and he said I didn’t need to know, which was an answer he might have given anyone but which didn’t set too well with me.
    He did not, however, forbid my climbing it once it was finished. When I did, the first look down from that height caused me to step back involuntarily and grasp the railing on either side. Still grasping the railing, I bent forward and peered cautiously over the edge again to see if I had been mistaken, but no, it still seemed much higher from there looking down than it had appeared on the ground looking up. By the time I had climbed the tower a few more times the distance no longer bothered me and I was able to gaze down or out or wherever I chose without the slightest feeling of uneasiness.
    When the tower was up and the tank dug and filled, the workmen began to build another platform, much lower, within the tower uprights. This one was only twelve feet from the water and was used for training purposes, both for new riders and new horses. This height was sufficient to give the horse the feel of the jump without frightening him to death, and the same was true for the rider.
    Before I began my training from this low tower, however, Dr. Carver decided he wanted me to learn to do some dives. These were not ordinary dives, which I already knew, but trick dives and swimming stunts that I would be able to use in a special act at parks and fairs if so requested. Lorena had added some dives to her riding act, and the crowds had responded well. Having decided I should do the same, Dr. Carver ordered a fireman’s ladder and had a portable pedestal built. With the ladder and the pedestal he could then promote me to any height on the tower he chose and not only teach me fancy dives but gradually accustom me to perform from the forty-foot height.
    I was eager to learn dives and swimming tricks, but Dr. Carver nearly removed all my enthusiasm. Sitting in the shade in a comfortable chair, he would give me orders. “All right, three somersaults backward, a log roll, and finish up with the water wheel.”
    This took a little doing, but I would no sooner accomplish that mixture than he would say, “All right, now a swan dive, followed by the dead man’s float, and after that the waltzing trick.”
    I’d clamber up the ladder, panting and beginning to change color, but no matter how advanced the state of my exhaustion, if I so much as stopped for a moment to get my breath he would glower at me and say, “If you’re too tired to practice you might as well get dressed.”
    Finally one day when I was fed to the teeth I snapped, “Don’t hurry me! It makes me nervous.”
    For a minute it stopped Dr. Carver cold. I had never talked back to him before. Nobody did. Al and Lorena let him run the show in his own way (no matter how much better they thought they might have run it) and never gave advice except in a roundabout manner, tactfully indicating that the suggestion originally had been his.
    Now he looked at me from beneath the brim of his hat, which, I had learned, was not a hat but a weather vane. If it was on straight, things were going well; at an angle, he was feeling cocky. If it was on the back of