on your right, boldly.
“An’ call me a liar an’ everything!” added a friend on your left.
Oh, how solicitous of your honor were they who were not to do the
fighting!
“He _is_ a liar if he says I tripped him on purpose,” stoutly reiterated
Ted, slightly qualifying his former blunt statement.
“You’re another!” you returned. “Anyhow, it _looked_ as if you tripped
me on purpose.”
You, likewise, were hedging a mite.
“There! He called _you_ a liar, too!” admonished the circle to Ted.
“Then he’s another, an’ he da’sn’t back it,” responded Ted, grimly
performing his duty.
This harmless verbal fencing might have been continued up to the very
present, and the ethics of the duello not have been violated, had not
some over-zealous enthusiast pushed Ted and you together, with the
result that, in fending each other off, you, according to the eager
verdict of the highly observant critics, “backed it,” and he hit you,
simultaneously; whereupon, not seeing anything else left to do, at each
other you went like a couple of jumping-jacks, until (fortunately, you
held, for Ted) the approach of the man caused him to be removed from on
top of you.
[Illustration: “YOU ... ARE THE INVENTOR OF A PECULIAR, IRRESISTIBLE
BLOW”]
Flushed, excited, and disheveled, you went your way; and flushed,
excited, and disheveled, Ted went his way. Throughout your route, you
and your babbling escorts, with many a “Gee!” and “Darn!” discoursed
upon what you had done, and what Ted had not done, and what would have
happened had the fight lasted only a minute longer.
Loudly you wrangled with them as to which got the worst of it, quite
blind to the fact, which now you are free to acknowledge, that the one
who got the worst of it was your mother, for she had to mend your
clothes.
She was always getting the worst of it. She was the unlucky
non-combatant.
The duello produced the best of feeling between Ted and you. Fights were
for mutual benefit. Swelling dignity and biceps so demanded expression
that they could not forever be gratified by merely playfully poking
chums in the ribs.
Therefore it is plain why, when a friend mischievously reported to you,
“Say, Speck says he can lick you,” it was all that was required. Like to
a strutting cockerel who hears a distant crow, you bristled in answer.
“He can’t, either. I can lick him with one hand tied behind my back.”
Fast flew the news to Speck, and Speck promptly resented the slur, as he
should. The boys of the neighborhood were pleased.
Now you, and likewise Speck, are the objects of much flattering
attention. You let your following feel your muscle, and they let you
feel theirs, and you are firmly convinced that yours is the hardest.
Also, you are convinced that you have a great knack at fisticuffs, and
are the inventor of a peculiar, irresistible blow which you deliver, the
knuckle of the middle finger carefully protruded, under your warding
left arm. More or less secretly you have demonstrated it while “fooling”
with your companions.
You can chin yourself six times, and you are, in valor and strength, a
boy wonder.
Your companions favor you with adulation to a degree compatible with
their own self-respect; for most of them, too, are boy wonders.
Well as Speck and you are satisfied with bravado and careful avoidance
of each other, it is inevitable that you meet.
“There’s Speck—see? Come on; _you_ ain’t afraid of _him_!”
You have committed yourself too far for graceful retreat, and in the
midst of your crowd you advance boldly to join Speck and his crowd.
The rival clans come together and mingle, but Speck and you pretend not
to see each other.
“John says he can lick you, Speck!”
Yes, you have said so, but it was under provocation of, presumably, a
direct challenge from him. However, the duello does not thrive on
explanations, and Speck and you are in the hands of your friends.
The all-engaging topic has been broached. Speck apparently does not
hear. Maybe the matter will be dropped. But no.
“He says he can lick you with one hand—aw, Speck!”
“He can’t, though,” defends Speck.
“Speck says he can’t, either,” obligingly announces his backers.
“Well, he can, I bet you.”
“Bet you he can’t.”
“He’ll show him whether he can or not.”
“Huh! I’d just like to see him once!”
You find yourself hustled forward and set against Speck, who in like
manner has been pressed to the front. Your hands hang limply by your
side; so do Speck’s. You feel very tame and pale and artificial; not a
whit mad; not a whit like fighting. The pugnacity is your seconds’.
[Illustration: “‘KNOCK THAT OFF, IF YOU DARE’”]
Somebody laboriously balances a small block on Speck’s shoulder.
“Knock that off, if you dare,” bids a Speck chorus.
“I will if I want to,” you assert.
“Well, do it, then!” invites Speck.
“I will if I want to.”
“Well, do it, then!”
“I will if I want to.”
You strive to work up steam by biting your lips, and raising your voice,
and spitting ferociously into the dust; you are assisted by the
irritating shoves bestowed upon you from behind.
“Well, do it, then!”
“I will if I want to.”
Impatient fingers supply you also with a gage of defiance, an
impertinent sliver laid athwart your collarbone.
“Now let’s see Speck knock _that_ off!”
Speck disdainfully lifts his hand and brushes the offending chip to the
ground.
“Hit him, John!”
“Don’t you stand that!”
“There!” you say, tapping him gently on the breast.
“There!” he answers, tapping you a little harder.
“There!” you return, tapping him harder still.
“There!” he retaliates, tapping you yet harder.
Then with a final “There!” that breaks through all restraint, and amid
shrill, rapturous cheers, two pairs of arms begin to whirl with wild
rapidity, the sole thought of their owners being a blind offense
according to hit-who-hit-can rules.
The engagement did not last long. A horrified and meddlesome old lady
interfered, and after informing you both many times that “little boys
shouldn’t fight,” your temperature down again to normal, she sent you
off with your disappointed encouragers, while she conscientiously
watched you out of sight.
Up to date the question whether you can lick Speck or Speck can lick you
is no further settled. Henceforth the spirit of amity prevailed between
you. Mettle had been proved, the fight had been fought, and now somebody
else must furnish entertainment.
Although victory, actual or prospective, of course never was doubtful
(either you were winning, or the other fellow was winning, according as
to which did the telling), at some times it appeared to a spectator more
decisive than at others.
You were feeling very spunky that noon when amid your preserves you
descried a stranger boy; but civilly you challenged him. One may witness
two bluff but wary fox-terriers thus approach each other, accost, and
investigate.
“Hello!” you wagged; that is, said.
“Hello, yourself!” wagged he.
[Illustration: “TWO PAIRS OF ARMS BEGIN TO WHIRL”]
“Say—what’s your name?” you inquired, as you had every right to do.
“Puddin’ tame; ask me again, an’ I’ll tell you the same,” he replied
insolently.
At the unmerited rebuff you stiffened.
“Better not give _me_ any of your sass!” you growled.
“Pooh! What’ll _you_ do!” he growled back.
“I’ll show you what I’ll do.”
“You couldn’t hurt a flea.”
“I couldn’t, couldn’t I?”
“Naw, you couldn’t, ‘couldn’t I.’”
Walking circles around each other, after this fashion you and he sowed
crimination and recrimination, while larger and larger waxed an audience
hopeful of seeing them spring up as blows.
Only when the flurry came did you discover too late how much taller and
stronger and older than you he was. Your bleeding nose showed this to
you; and cowed and weeping, you retreated in bad order.
“I’ll tell my big brother, an’ _he_’ll fix you!” you howled
threateningly.
“Aw, he ain’t got any big brother,” jeered the heartless crowd, who saw
no pathos in your abused organ.
That was true; you had none.
“I’ll tell my father, then,” you wailed angrily—another empty boast; and
still sniffling and, fearsomely gory, with the handkerchiefs of yourself
and your one faithful companion quite exhausted, you reached the haven
of a friendly pump.
Yet you had not been whipped—not exactly.
“Got licked, didn’t you?” unkindly commented various friends and
enemies.
“I didn’t, either!” you asserted, indignant. “I had to quit ’cause my
nose was bleedin’. It takes more’n him to lick me.”
“He gave you a bloody nose just the samee.”
You would not admit so much as that.
“He didn’t, either; he never touched my nose. It bleeds awful easy. It
bleeds sometimes when you just _look_ at it—don’t it, Hen?”
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CIRCUS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CIRCUS
TIME: When “You” were a Boy
PLACE: Up-stairs in Hen’s Barn
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
HEN SCHMIDT, Proprietor and Ringmaster
YOU, Proprietor and Contortionist
BILLY LUNT, Trapeze and Tumbling
TOM KEMP, Trapeze and Juggling
NIXIE KEMP, Trapeze and Tight Rope
FAT DAY, Clown
SNOOPIE MITCHELL, Everything
ADMISSION—Ten Pins to All, including Grand Menagerie
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CIRCUS
CIRCUS was in the air. Circus had been in the air for some time, exhaled
broadcast by village billboards and fences, and the fronts and exposed
sides of numerous buildings. Breathing this atmosphere, small wonder is
it that you and your compatriots were circus-crazy, and cared not who
knew it.
The circus came. From half-past four, in the pink of the dawn, until
nightfall, it was given your unremitting aid and presence—the two in
one. Your fellows were equally assiduous. Nothing that might be done
outside the tent was left undone; nothing that might be inspected was
overlooked. As for the inside, some of your friends penetrated, like
yourself, with the escort of father, mother, uncle, brother, or
neighbor; some, like Snoopie Mitchell, “snuk under”; but all were there.
The circus went. Behind it remained, as evidences of its visit, the
still contagious bills; one more welt in the shape of a ring, added to
the other similar but older welts upon the face of that historic pasture
patch; and a burning ambition in the breast of every youth.
[Illustration]
Now witness each back yard a training-school for tumblers,
trapeze-experts, weight-slingers, jugglers, bareback-riders, and
tight-rope walkers. Right among the foremost were _you_.
“Hen and me are goin’ to have a circus,” you vouchsafed importantly at
the family board.
“Hen and who?” queried father, quizzically.
“Hen and _me_.” Why fuss with grammar, when greater things were
impending? It is not what one says, but what one does, that counts: at
least, according to your copy-book at school, in which you had
laboriously written, “Deeds, not Words,” twenty times.
“We’re goin’ to give it in Hen’s barn, and you and mama’ve got to come.”
“I don’t know that I can get away, having just been to one,” stated
father, gravely. “I didn’t expect another so soon.”
“_I_’ll come,” comforted mother. “When is it?”
“We dunno yet; but everybody that gets in has got to bring ten pins—and
bent ones don’t count, either. Hen’s mother’s comin’.”
“Do you think we can spare ten pins?” inquired mother of father.
The idea seemed preposterous to you, with a whole cushion bristling on
the bedroom bureau; but nevertheless you awaited, with considerable
anxiety, father’s reply.
“I guess so,” answered father. “But members of the performers’ families
ought to go in free. How’s that, John?”
You shook your head decidedly. Such a suggestion must be nipped in the
bud.
“_Naw_, sir! Everybody has to pay!”
* * * * *
There was no dearth of performers; they were as plenty as ball-players,
and you had an embarrassing number of volunteers, who offered themselves
as soon as the news of your circus spread through the neighborhood.
Snoopie Mitchell was among the earliest.
“Say, I’ll be in your circus,” he proposed. “I can skin the cat twice,
an’ do the giant’s swing, an’ turn flip-flops both ways, an’—”
[Illustration]
“Pooh! That’s nothin’. So can I,” scoffed Hen.
“You can’t, neither!” contradicted Snoopie. “Le’ ’s see you, now.”
Hen obligingly cut a caper.
“Aw, gee!” sneered the redoubtable Snoopie, in high scorn. “That ain’t
no hand-spring! That’s a cart-wheel! Anybody can turn a cart-wheel! Aw,
gee! Lookee here! Here’s the way _you_ did.” He demonstrated.
“Lookee!”—and again he demonstrated.—“_That’s_ a reg’lar hand-spring.”
“Well—I can do it, only my back’s lame,” faltered the abashed Hen. “And
I can skin the cat, too. Can’t I, John?”
You nodded.
“But I’ve skun it twice, an’ John’s seen me, haven’t you, John?”
trumpeted Snoopie.
You nodded confirmation to this, also.
“Yep,” you said; “he did, Hen; truly he did.”
“Without changin’ hands?” insisted Hen.
“Of course,” asserted Snoopie.
Snoopie was accepted.
Tom Kemp and Nixie Kemp were organizing a circus of their own, but
consented to be in yours if you’d be in theirs.
Over Billy Lunt occurred almost a fight, because a rival company set up
the claim that he had promised them; but by bribe of a jews’-harp he was
won to your side. Fat Day was asked chiefly on account of his pair of
white rats, which would prove a valuable addition to the prospective
menagerie.
[Illustration]
“If you’ll lemme be clown, I’ll bring ’em,” consented Fat.
“But John he’s clown,” explained Hen.
This was true. Before advertising for talent, Hen had preempted
ringmaster, and you, clown, as the choice positions, which was only the
part of ordinary discretion.
“I tell you, Fat: you can be fat boy, and wiggle your ears and make
folks laugh,” suggested Hen, eagerly.
“Uh-uh! If I can’t be clown, I won’t be nothin’,” declared Fat. “An’ you
can’t have my white rats, either.”
Hen looked at you dubiously.
“All right. I don’t care. Let him,” you assented moodily, kicking up the
dirt with your toe.
“You can be one clown, Fat, and John’ll be the other,” proffered Hen,
with fine diplomacy. “And you and he can make b’lieve fight, and things.
We ought to have two clowns, you know.”
But the glowing picture of the two clowns did not appeal to Fat’s
imagination.
“Naw,” he whined. “If anybody else is goin’ to be clown, _I_ don’t want
to.”
Accordingly Fat was awarded the clownship, and you said you’d just as
lief be contortionist, which he _couldn’t_ be.
Clowns were really a drug on the market. Not a boy but aspired to the
chair, and it required no little tact to steer them into other lines.
The organization, as finally effected, was as follows:
Hen, ringmaster.
You, contortionist.
Billy, who could hang by his toes and do other things on the trapeze,
and who, as a tumbler, could stand on his head (sometimes) without
touching his hands.
Tom, who could do things on the trapeze, and who was a juggler learning
to keep three balls going in the air.
Nixie, who also could do things on the trapeze, and who was an aspiring
(and at times almost an _ex_piring) clothes-line walker.
Fat, who could wiggle his ears.
Snoopie, indefatigable, marvelous, a genius of one suspender, whom a
special providence seemed to have endowed.
[Illustration]
Menagerie (in prospect): Don, your dog; Snap, the Kemps’ dog; Lunt’s
cat; Fat’s white rats; Hen’s “bantie” rooster.
A rehearsal was not only unnecessary, but impracticable as well; that
is, a rehearsal in company. However, individual practice went on daily,
and not a member of the troupe but emulated the most daring feats
produced under Barnum’s tent, as could be testified to by the most
casual observer, and by that emergency Band of Mercy, the Sisterhood of
Mothers, adepts with court-plaster and needle.
“Oh, John!” sighed your own mother. “How _do_ you manage to tear your
pants so! This is the third time, and in the very same place! Can’t you
be careful?”
[Illustration]
“I’m practisin’ splits,” you offered.
“‘Splits’?” repeated mother, densely ignorant.
“Yes. You straddle, and you keep on straddlin’, and see how near you can
come to sittin’; and you’ve got to get up again without usin’ your
hands. There was a man and woman and little girl and boy no bigger ’n me
in the circus that could go clear down till they touched. I can ’most do
it.”
“John!” exclaimed mother, in horror. Then she noted something else. “And
your waist, too!”
You condescended to explain farther.
“Yes; I tumbled off the trapeze when I was swingin’. Look here!” Pulling
up your sleeve you proudly exhibited an elbow. It was an elbow that
earned you distinction among your comrades, although Nixie had a knee
which he boasted was “skinned” much worse.
The date of the circus was set for Wednesday afternoon, and that morning
a show-bill, tacked upon the Schmidt front gate-post, announced it to
all the world.
All the little girls of the neighborhood were by turns flippant and
wheedling, and boys, your rivals, were positively libelous in their
derision.
Schmidt’s barn-loft had long been empty of hay and tenanted chiefly by
spiders and rats and mice. It was a splendid place for the circus, a
commodious tent being lacking.
Throughout the morning you and Hen, assisted by your associate
performers, labored like fury, a profound secrecy enveloping your
operations. No one except Billy’s small brother (he having sacredly been
sworn “not to tell,” an investiture of confidence that gave him a
decided strut) was admitted to gaze upon the advance proceedings; but
the noise of hammering and other preparations was carried afar, together
with a cloud of dust out of the open loft door.
“Where was your parade?” asked father at noon, when, hot and excited and
somewhat grimy, you feverishly attacked your well-heaped plate.
“Didn’t have any,” you mumbled. “Fat wouldn’t let us take his rats out
on the street, ’cause he said they’d get away; and, besides, we didn’t
have wagons enough for all the cages.”
But to the timid inquiries of the little girls during the morning you
had replied boldly:
“There ain’t goin’ to be any parade. Of course there ain’t! Do you
s’pose we’re goin’ to let everybody see what we got?”
At half-past one o’clock the public was invited to ascend. The
ticket-taker was Billy’s small brother aforesaid, and never was
receiving-teller of a national bank more vigilant or particular.
“You didn’t gimme only nine!” he would accuse shrilly. “You didn’t,
either! You didn’t, either! You’ve got to gimme another pin or you
sha’n’t come in!”
“I gave you ten! I did! I did! Didn’t I, Susie? You dropped one.”
Peace would be restored by the number being made up through the
prodigality of a friend, and the ruffled damsel would pass in.
[Illustration]
Your mother and Hen’s mother, and your hired girl, and the Schmidt hired
girl arrived together, their appearance causing a flurry and
contributing to the circus the importance due it. Mrs. Schmidt panted
heavily after the toilsome climb,—she was a large, short-winded
woman,—and, choosing a seat near the door, fanned herself vigorously.
A few boys, after poking their heads above the floor and grinningly
surveying the scene, ended by trooping in with apologetic and bantering
mien. But in the main the spectators were feminine.
The amphitheater, constructed of boards laid across boxes, in two lines,
slowly filled. As the etiquette of the profession required that
circus-performers not be seen until the time for their act, you and Hen
and the other stars remained in close seclusion, huddled in the
dressing-room—the far corner, veiled by a calico curtain (from the
Schmidt clothes-press) tacked to convenient rafters. Meanwhile the
public might enjoy the collection arrayed at one side of the loft, where
was conspicuously exposed the sign, in white chalk: “Managerie.”
In a soap-box with slats across the front wrathfully crouched Lunt’s
gaunt gray Thomas-cat, who had been rudely awakened from a matutinal
slumber in the Lunt cellar and ignominiously confined. At regular
intervals he uttered an appealing, protesting “Yow!” while he glared
through his bars.
Next to him was Hen’s red “bantie,” also in a soap-box, but more
composed.
Then came Don, for whom no cage procurable was ample enough; so he was
tied to a nail, which afforded him liberty to fawn impartially upon old
and young, and occasionally to make frantic endeavors to reach you in
the dressing-room.
Next to him was Snap, the Kemps’ black-and-tan, miserable in close
quarters; and at the end of the row, quaking in abject terror over the
proximity of so many enemies, were Fat’s precious white rats.
“Is _that_ all the m’nag’rie you kids got? Aw, gee!” sneered the
invidious boys among the spectators.
“It’s more’n _you_ got, anyhow!” you and Hen retorted from your covert.
“Don’t you touch those rats!” commanded Fat, with a jealous eye out for
meddling fingers. “They’re my rats.”
It was very hard restraining the members of the troupe in their quarters
until time was ripe. Fat, his face streaked in red and white
water-colors, and wearing a costume devised by his mother from
large-figured calico, was wild to exhibit himself; and Snoopie, bursting
with prowess, demanded careful watching or he would anticipate the
program.
“Stay in here, darn you! You’ve all got to wait till the ringmaster says
to come.”
[Illustration]
“Let go of me, will you!”
“You sha’n’t go out! ’Tain’t your circus!”
“Who’s goin’ out!”
Signs of revolt manifested themselves.
“Why don’t you begin?”
“Gee, I’m hot!”
“If you don’t begin pretty soon I’m goin’ home, and I’ll take my rats,
too!”
So, urged from behind, Ringmaster Hen stalked forth and announced:
“We’re ready to begin now.”
He swaggered and magnificently cracked his whip—a treasure consisting of
a double length of leather lash, cut by the shoemaker from a square of
oak calf, with a twine snapper and a skilfully whittled stock.
Fat Day, needing no second summons, immediately bolted out. He gamboled
and pranced and grimaced and “wiggled” his ears, to the applause of the
amphitheater and the tremendous excitement of the menagerie.
“Lem_me_! It’s my turn!” besought Snoopie.
“No, lem_me_!” implored Nixie.
“You said _I_ could go first, didn’t you, John?” reminded Billy.
Privately, you thought that the honor should be yours; but you waived
your rights as proprietor and decreed:
“Yes, let Billy go first, ’cause I promised.”
Out went Billy and distinguished himself by all the feats in his
repertoire, after each one saluting with the expansive gesture of the
real professional. Having exhausted the trapeze, and having poised for a
breathless instant on his head, he finished by vaulting over three
saw-horses, in lieu of elephants, and plunging into the dressing-room.
“Now _I_’m goin’,” asserted Snoopie.
“Naw; it’s my turn!” opposed Tom and Nixie together.
But Snoopie shoved between them and past you, and was in the ring.
Snoopie Mitchell—ragged, wandering, independent, but at times despised
Snoopie—was as one inspired. Never before had he such a circle of
witnesses, and the wine went to his brain.
He flip-flopped frontward clear across the loft from the dressing-room
corner into Mrs. Schmidt’s lap, and flip-flopped backward to the
dressing-room again; and bowed. He walked about on his hands; and bowed.
He stood on his head (“That ain’t fair!” called Billy. “I did that!”)
longer than Billy did, and while in that position spit, besides; and
bowed. He did the “splits” farther than you could, and kissed his hand,
while the spectators murmured various acknowledgments of his posture.
He rubbed his palms and lightly sprang to the trapeze dangling from the
beam.
_He_ skinned the cat, but he skinned it twice, and half into the third,
and impishly hung poised, while his shoulder-joints cracked and the
Schmidt hired girl moaned:
“Howly saints!”
_He_ hung by his toes and threw wide his arms; but, suddenly letting go,
with preconceived adroitness fell on his back, amidst muffled shrieks.
_He_ chinned himself, but he did it ten times.
“Come in! That’s enough!” you ordered.