RED WAGON STORIES
OR
TALES TOLD UNDER THE TENT
BY
WELLS HAWKS
[Illustration]
I. & M. OTTENHEIMER
PUBLISHERS
NO. 321 WEST BALTIMORE STREET
BALTIMORE, MD.
Cover Design by
J. R. CROSSLEY.
Copyrighted 1904.
I. & M. OTTENHEIMER.
BALTIMORE, MD.
Between the shows there were seven of the circus outfit who would sit
around the ring bank and on the carpet pads just to talk. Here are some
of the tales told under the big round top when the tent was empty.
And to those happy days of bread and preserves, when we bare-footed kids
sneaked out of the backyard gate to the circus lot and led the spotted
ponies to water, these little yarns are affectionately dedicated:--
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
THE PRESS AGENT’S STORY 7
THE OLD GRAFTER’S LAMENT 14
THE BILL POSTER’S VISIT 21
THE CANDY BUTCHER’S DREAM OF LOVE 30
THE BOSS CANVASMAN’S YARN 33
THE SIDE SHOW SPIELER SPEAKS 48
THE BAND MASTER’S SOLO 54
THE CANDY BUTCHER TALKS ABOUT A LOVE AFFAIR AND HIS
ENCOUNTER WITH THE BUCKWHEAT MAN 59
THE CONCERT MANAGER GETS REMINISCENT 70
THE HANDS AT THE WINDOW 75
THE CONCERT MANAGER TELLS THE BOYS AN ELEPHANT STORY 83
THE PRESS AGENT’S STORY.
The Press Agent of the Big Show had formerly been dramatic editor of
the leading daily in Council Bluffs. It was his star boast that he was
the only critic in the Middle West that ever had the nerve to roast Joe
Jefferson, and he said he did it in the interest of art.
“Art,” says he, “must be preserved, an’ the only way to do it is by
knockin’.”
The Press Agent wore his hair long, had a smooth face, and looked like
a police reporter out on a three-column story with the facts coming in
slowly. He hadn’t much baggage, but he always carried about a ream of
adjective hit paper, two lead pencils, and a pass-pad. No man ever heard
him talk without wondering what kind of stuff he beat out on a typewriter.
The saw dust spreader was smoothing out the ring for the night acts
and the rest of the gang were sitting around roasting the route when
the Press Agent came through the red curtains at the dressing tent
entrance picking his teeth with a straw. He sat down on the box where the
Greaser Knife Thrower kept his keen steels, and filling his pipe waited
for a break in the conversation. Then he asked the gasoline man for a
match. After he got the fire he saw there were no words loose from the
ring-bankers, so he starts his skein.
“Well, lads, we hit ’em up hard at the mat today, 12,000 on the blue
boards an’ the ticket wagon window down before the harness is on for
the entree. S’pose them laddy-bucks in No. 2 car will say it was a good
billin’, but I’m tellin’ you people that this is a readin’ community, an’
it was the press work that had the coin hittin’ the window this date, an’
that’s no cold cream con, either. The Gov’nor knows it, for he gives me
a good word an’ a back pat jus’ as the parade was startin’ for the main
highway.
“I’m given youse the real word, an’ it’s this--when you can get ’em
readin’ about the Big Show you’ve already got ’em feelin’ for change to
buy, an’ that’s as true as ticker talk. The old man sees in the paper
that the Big Show will soon be on the lot, an’ when he gets home to daily
bread he tells it to the old woman; the kids get next and there’s no let
up on papa ’till he promises to buy in for the whole family. An’ workin’
one is workin’ all--that’s my motto. It’s the press work that gets ’em
talkin’, an’ it’s the talkin’ that’ll make ’em give up even when wheat is
down to 48 an’ interest on mortgages is starin’ ’em in the face. Get the
paper talk an’ the money is so sure that you can be plannin’ new acts for
next season before the first pasteboard hits the bottom of the red box on
the gate.
“But, say, it ain’t no children’s game to get this paper talk. The good
old days when you could blow into the newspaper offices with a loud vest
and a tiger claw hangin’ on your watch guard is done. Them times the old
agent would lay down a cigar on the editor’s desk, spread a lot of salve
about the greatest yet and the only one in captivity story, and then work
the gag ‘write me somethin’, old man.’ But them days is strictly past.
It’s a new make up now, an’ a new line of talk that wins ’em. You want
to enter quiet like just as if you were one of them Sunday school boys
with a write-up on a rally in the church basement. The editor gives you
the size-up for this, an’ when you says ‘I’m ahead of the Big Show comin’
25th and 26th,’ he’s so surprised that he’s glad to see you, an’ it’s
once aroun’ the track before the bunch sees the flag that he asks you out
to drink before you spring your pass-pad. And, if you don’t believe me,
ask soft talking Jim Jay Brady and have it passed off for gospel.
“It’s the approach that makes the center shot this new century. Go in
easy, be skimp with your talk, don’t spread the salve too thick, an’ give
’em clean copy--that’s the game; be you ahead of Henry Irving with ten
carloads of stuff, a dinky little farce comedy with a society dame doin’
the lead, a melodrama with a real convict a-cracking the safe, or one
of them Broadway big ones--no matter, it’s the same, an’ what goes for
them goes for the Big Show, whether you’ve got 68 cars on the sidin’, or
you have slipped in after night with rubber boots on--and that’s no Tody
Hamilton catch line.
“But you don’t want to be too certain; you can get your chances in this
line just as easy as in the shootin’ gallery when its bullets against
clay pipes. Some of the boys that handles the copy for the Eastern press
can put up a frost that would keep Chicago beef around the world in a
sailin’ ship. But you can melt ’em if you make good. Remember hittin’
Boston las’ season an’ runnin’ up against one of these heady boys with a
foldin’ forehead. I give it to ’em easy, an’ when I says circus he looks
at me through his windows an’ says so haughty:
“‘Ah, the circus! Quite a diverting entertainment. Originated with the
Greeks.’
“Now wouldn’t that make you itch? Me mind gets to chasin’ ’roun’ for a
proper come-back, an’ I tries to recollect the names of some of them old
guys what went paddlin’ ’roun’ in a sheet an’ sandals spittin’ out wise
words that no one has forgot. An’ mem’ry lands me at the right dock, so I
han’s this to the college boy:
“‘Yes,’ sez I, ‘I believe it was Aristophanes who wrote an epic on the
circus to be read at one of Nero’s spring openin’s.’
“The words is hardly out of me mouth when he gives me one of those
looks that would have made Peary thought he had found the pole. So I
lays me copy on the desk and gives five bells to back water an’ I’m in
the elevator. An’ so help me Bob, I hardly reaches the pavement before
I sees sheets of paper flutterin’ in the air an’ me copy falls on the
asphalt. The college boy had lifted it. Now you would think that it was a
sheet that roasted us. Not at all, not at all. He gives us a two-column
write-up and three half tones that had me up to the bar an’ dizzy for a
day. The worst will fool you.
“An’, say, that reminds me. Remember when we was playin’ the week’s run
in Chicago las’ July? Well, I’d been skatin’ roun’ to the papers an’
buyin’ drinks for the press boys, an’ it was joggin’ along to three on
the dials when I remembers I have a bed at the hotel. It was out near the
lot, an’ I starts out to walk. I’m crossin’ the railroad tracks when a
weary steps out an’ asks me for a match. I gives up, when another comes
into the talk an’ says, ‘Give us money.’ Say, I didn’t have but thirty
cents, an’ I gave up. But the highwaymen thought I was lyin’, an’ was
going to tap me when I says, ‘Now, boys, let’s argue this out.’ So I
takes them two Jesse Jameses under a lamp post an’ gives them a josh talk
on the Big Show that has ’em serfy.”
“Well,” said the Boss Canvasman, who was always interested when there was
any fight talk, “what happened, what happened?”
“What happened?” says the Press Agent. “Hear me! I takes out me pass-pad
an’ writes passes for them robbers until a policeman comes, when I turns
’em over. An’ that ain’t all; I gets a column story in each of the
afternoon sheets on how the Press Agent of the Big Show captures two bold
boys, an’ the Gov’nor gives me the good word and a double X, an’ I says
thankee an’ repeats me motto, ‘An’ workin’ one is workin’ all,’ to every
barkeeper that was sellin’ after midnight that evenin’.”
THE OLD GRAFTER’S LAMENT.
The Old Grafter had corns on his knuckles from holding greenbacks between
his fingers.
He looked a trifle seedy about the costume, but his moustache was
waxed--the moustache, too, was dyed and you saw the reason when he took
his hat off. The Old Grafter wore a celluloid collar and a polka dotted
dickey, and when his vest was opened it showed up the shyness of his
linen.
The Concert Manager was springing gossip about the principal clown who
was having trouble with his wife who did the iron jaw swing. He saw the
Old Grafter coming across the ring and he stopped, for it was pretty well
known that old-timer wouldn’t stand for scandal. The Old Grafter bit off
enough tobacco from the canvasman’s plug to make a comfortable quid and
then sat down on the snake box. He was looking sad and there was silence.
Presently he sent a splash of juice up against the center pole and after
shifting the quid he opened up.
“Say fellers, I’ve been cuttin’ the cards since John Robinson had money
in tent shows an’ I’ve come to the verdict, it’s this--when you’ve got
the green in your pocket an’ the suckers is tipped off they’ll crowd you
as thick as flies on the popcorn pile, but when there ain’t no coin to
jingle you kin get so lonesome that you’ll go to bed with a hot water
bot’l for company.”
This bit of wisdom impressed the gang, for no one spoke, and the Old
Grafter threw his reversing bar and chinned out this--
“The old days is gone an’ they’s left the circus graft on a weedy sidin’
with no roun’ trips back to the lan’ of promise. Them was the one ring
days an’ in them times there was allus fodder for the hogs. Today it’s
one ring, two rings, three rings and a stage--the biggest tent on earth,
but for the grafter--nothin’, nothin’. Me, what use to turn the shank of
the week with a bigger wad than the principal bareback gets, me makes
today a dirty twenty on percentage an’ sellin’ reserved seats. I’m
ashamed to look the old days in the face. Why say in them days many a
time the proprietor of the Big Show was touchin’ the grafter for cash
when business was bad an’ today so diff’rent, so diff’rent--if I gets
into a poker play on the train an’ the ante’s a nickel I’ve got to reach
twice to find the coin. If I’d had the good sense what’s in Bill McGinnis
head I’d a bought a little road tavern like he did twenty years ago an’
I’d a-had a bank book roostin’ back of the bar. But I thinks there’s
still somethin’ doin’ my end an’ I waits an’ loses--and what do I get--a
couple of treasuries and some change at the pay off durin’ the season
with crackers and cheese for me an’ the old woman in the winter. It’s the
diff’rence ’tween horse radish an’ saw dust an’ its got me slippin’ back.
“I’ll tell you fellers somethin’ ’bout the old days. ’Twas ’bout ’76 an’
we was graftin’ with a one ring outfit. We struck good crops and sunny
weather in the one nighters in the Ohio valley. The farmers had money an’
there was peaches in the orchard for every boy with the troup that had a
bag of tricks. Everybody was standin’ in on the graft an’ we had a fixer
two days ahead so there’d be no call. We was carryin’ a car with the lay
out an’ four tin horns that was science on faro and turnin’ the wheel.
The big game was invited to the car an’ there was allus a set out an’
sumthin’ to drink. The little fish was worked on the lot an’ there was
days, many days when the graft was mor’n the ticket wagon count up, an’
the rake off was loafin’ ’bout par, continuous. Good days them, me boys,
for ev’ry body from the boss of the outfit down to the stake driver.
Money was comin’ easy an’ when there was any protestin’ on the part of
the patrons an’ it got to fists, or gun play we passed along the Hey Rube
an’ there was Gettysburg till mornin’ if they was lookin’ for battle.
“The best burg we hit was a lit’l settlement where we had a two mile
haul up the pike from track to lot. Everything was ripe for graftin’ an’
we was ready for harvest. Seems like a reform committee had to hit down
all the games and the folks was hungry for gamlin’. The posters in No. 1
car piped us off on conditions an’ it was said that them paste spreaders
traveled off with a roll from stud polker in the car after the bills was
on the stands.
“They wuz on the lots waitin’ for us when the boss landed to lay off the
pitch for the round top, we wuz only usin’ one then an’ had no an’mals to
speak of. The fakirs got in the game early an’ transparent cards from gay
Paree was the first bait and bitin’ was good. ’Fore the parade started
all hands was busy on the lot takin’ care of the games an’ say the
farmers had it with ’em in rolls. The foxy boy in the ticket wagon has
all his bad coin ready and the constable with the badge has been fixed
with a ten to see there’s no argument when short change is handed out.
“Oh! we worked systematic them days.
“Well, say, before the band had struck up the grand march for the entree
gold bricks wuz sellin’ like cod fish cakes at a nigger camp meetin’ an’
the boys what was workin’ the shells had to lay off to get the stiffness
out’er their fingers.
“I hates to tell it, I hates to tell it in the days there’s nothing’
doin’.
“You see I was cappin’ for the boss of the show an’ say that day keeps
me busier than a man drivin’ sheep. The outfit was gettin’ thirty-five
per cent. of the graft an’ if the partic’lar grafter who was gettin’ the
coin failed to come up we se’ed that he was prop’ly turned over to the
off’cers of the law an’ we did the prosecutin’ on the groun’ that we was
runnin’ a strictly moral show. Say, while I was watchin’, a farmer with
a bunch of weeds under his chin an’ a face like a quince comes up to me
an’ makes a holler. Somebody had touched him for his wad ’fore he could
get to the games an’ he was dead sore. I se’ed that he was goin’ to make
trouble so I remembers that his wagon is standin’ in the dirt road by the
lot. I gives a stakeman the tip he kicks the off bay in the flanks an’
there’s a runaway. The corn cutter chases after his team an’ forgits that
he ever had a roll.
“An’ say at night down in the car the air was hot. The tin horns was busy
and coin was droppin’ like rotten apples in a mill race. The boys what
was dealin’ the faro had monkeyed with the deck an’ it was far to the bad
for the spenders. ’Bout time to start haulin’ for the cars two burly boys
begins to talk fight an’ it looks like Hey Rube all aroun’. One sticks
his knuckles into me face an’ I says to him sort’er fierce like.
“Say, young fellow, if youse lookin’ for fight I’ll git one of the boys
to stick his teeth in your neck an’ you’ll change your mind.
“There was no gun playin’ but there was a lot of chinnin’ and cussin’ but
we finally gets the tin horns out an’ starts ’em up the road to the first
section. The gang is hot after us an’ there was only one thing saved us.
Jes’ as the crowd was closin’ in I sees the tiger den with the two blacks
pullin’ it comin’ over the hill. I chases forward to the trainer an’ when
the cage gits up close we jes’ shoves them two tin horn dealers in the
den with the tigers an’ saves their lives.”
“Never could make a return date there, could you, Bill?” asked the Boss
Canvasman as he made one of the spotted coach dogs take a jump through
his hands.
“Return date, well I should reckon. Went back there in two months an’
still foun’ ’em ripe. But there was only one way to do it. The Boss had
to paint over all the cars an’ wagons an’ change the name of the show.
The hay boys thought it was a new outfit.”
THE BILL POSTER’S VISIT.
The Bill Poster was a stranger to most every one in the outfit. He
traveled a month ahead of the show on Advertising Car No. 2, and while
he hung around during the run in New York he never got well enough
acquainted to mix in with the ring bank squatters. While the outfit had
great respect for him, and especially for his work, he wasn’t generally
understood, and this did not keep his popularity up to par. He always
seemed solid with the business staff and called the assistant treasurer
by his first name, and these two conditions were known to the sawdust
boys. They always took off their hats to anybody on the staff, and the
man in the ticket wagon was only known at the pay-off. Then, too, he
dressed well and wore a diamond, that is, a real one, and altogether his
financial condition was too good.
But for some reason or other the Bill Poster did happen back on the show
one afternoon. Just after the matinee, when the gang sat down on the
bank for the spiel, he was seen walking across the track, and the boys at
once began to speculate on what brought the paste spreader back to home.
Some of them thought it was for a call-down, and the concert manager
declared that was the cause, for, said he, “I never seen a town billed
so rotten as this un.” But the gasoline man, who was a close observer,
thought different. He knew that there was a little fairy working in the
Fall of Rome ballet that was sweet on the paste boy, and he put the rest
of the crowd wise before the conversation got too far from the shore.
“Cert’nly,” he said. “Didn’t I see the guy in his plaid rags ev’ry night
when he was playin’ the Garden, gittin’ the little lady at the dressin’
room door and blowin’ her off to butter cakes an’ coffee before she
chases to the bridge an’ home.”
The gasoline man was getting real gabby on the love affair, when the Bill
Poster came through the red curtains over the dressing tent entrance
and walked across the ring to where the gang sat in the shadows. He had
a sassy little “Howdy” for everybody and then passed around a box of
Turkish cigarettes. Everybody passed it up, and the Boss Canvasman bit
off a two-by-three chew from his plug and looked sour.
“Slipped back to see the Boss,” said the Bill Poster, as he lighted one
of the Turkish boys with a match he took out of a sterling box that had a
beer ad. on it. “Ain’t no secret; I want a transfer. I’m good an’ tired
of the slow work on No. 2 car, an’ so I gets a day off an’ runs back to
see if the Boss won’t put me with the opposition crew.”
The gang was silent. Nobody had asked for the why, so nobody commented
on it. The fact that he was going to have nerve enough to ask to get in
the opposition crew filled the concert manager with disgust, for he knew
something about bill posting, and also knew that it took a triple-plated
crackerjack to hold a place with this crowd of rush pasters of a
three-ring outfit.
“There’s nothin’ to it,” continued the Bill Poster, “gettin’ into a town
where ev’rything is dead ready, all the boards up, and nothing to do but
paste. I want a little excitement. I allus gets it in the winter, when
I’m billin’ a hall show. Many a time I’ve laid me bundle of lithos under
a doorstep to punch some guy who was tearin’ down my stuff in saloons
where I’d spent up me money, and then hangin’ his stuff in the window. I
tell you the opposition crew is the crowd to have the ginger. When your
car is hangin’ up on a grassy sidin’ an’ you gits a wire that the other
show is routin’ three days ahead of your own bookin’s, it makes you jump.
The boss wires the head of the gang to jump for the town and beat ’em
up. Beat ’em out, but on the level, legitimate--but beat ’em up. Don’t
tear down none of their billin’, but kill it if you have to buy the side
of the Presbyterian meetin’ house to git a showin’ for them nine-colored
twenty-eight sheet stands.”
As far as the gang on the bank was concerned, the Bill Poster was talking
Greek, and he had ’em wingin’. The Concert Manager thought he was “next,”
but his coupling broke before his understanding left the city limits.
Just then the Press Agent of the Big Show happened in and the talk hadn’t
gone three lengths before the Bill Poster and the newspaper man crossed
bayonets. Both were doing the publicity gag, and both had a well set and
riveted idea that each one and not the other was bringing the people into
the tent and giving the show a good gate to send back on the statement to
the high hat boys in the city who were doing the financing.
“Let me tell you something,” said the Press Agent, as serious as if he
was arguing to get a half column write-up on fourteen dollars’ worth of
advertising in the only daily in the town. “Let me tell you. These days
the people who are spending money for amusements reads the papers, and
it’s the paper talk that lands the coin at the window. I know what I’m
talkin’ about. Bill posting is all right, but it’s the newspaper work
that does the real singin’.”
“Come off!” said the Bill Poster. “You’re only pluggin’ your own job. You
don’t mean to tell me that the boss of this outfit would keep all the
printin’ shops in Cincinnatty goin’ night an’ day to git out the wall
stuff if they didn’t think it was some good. An’ say, they wouldn’t be
runnin’ three billin’ cars ahead of this here show if there wasn’t some
come-back to the money they was blowin’. Why, say, what do you think they
are? Your press work is all right, an’ my bill postin’ is all right, an’
you’ve got to have both.”
“Well, maybe you’re right,” said the Press Agent; “I guess they use the
billing to emphasize my work.”
“I don’t know so sure what you means, partner,” said the Bill Poster,
“but the Boss of our car figgers it out this way: He says that the
readin’ in the papers about the big show makes ’em look at the pictures
on the wall. And, says he, the pictures on the wall makes ’em read what
is in the papers. An’, say, he’s been pastin’ since the John Robinson
days.”
“Guess he’s right,” said the Press Agent.
This last statement hit the gang as real good sense, and they half agreed
that the Bill Poster knew something about his business.
“I tell you, boys,” continued the Bill Poster, as he took a seat on the
sawdust pile and lighted another one of the Sultan’s dreams, “in me dull
moments, when we is travelin’ an’ there’s nothin’ to do but layin’ out
paper an’ gittin’ the buckets ready, I figgers it out this way: You can
git ’em with the paper talk all right; but there’s one thing you can do
with good bill postin’ and litho work, an’ it’s this, you can’t make ’em
read the papers, but bless me, you can make ’em see bill postin’. Say,
me an’ the gang I work with in New York have sniped the subway fence so
hard with red-on-yellows that you would think there was nothing else
on Broadway. Did you see ’em? Well, you bet. There was so much color
stickin’ along the ditch that it hurt your eyes when you rode by in
a car. That’s what I claims for proper billin’. You can git it where
they’ve got to see it.
“Say, to prove what I says is right, I’ll tell you a little experience I
has. I was doin’ the litho work for a cheap price house that was playin’
the old favorites with a stock. They puts on ‘The White Squadron.’ The
boss comes to me and says, ‘Look here, Jim, I wants you to do your best
with this piece; its costin’ us a lot of money to get it on, and we wants
to get it back. There’s a diamond stud coming to you if you gets what
I calls a good showin’.’ Say, I would ’a’ done it anyhow for them kind
words, but I says I’ll git that diamond if I puts bills all over the
trees in Central Park an’ goes up in stripes for ten years for doin’ it.
I was thinkin’ all the time some new gag to work, when one mornin’ comin’
down I reads that there’s a yacht race in Harlem river that afternoon.
You know, boys, ‘The White Squadron’ is one of them naval pieces, an’ has
a lot of ships in it. Well, the Sunday before I’d pasted up a lot of one
an’ a half sheet boards with type an’ litho stuff, an’ I has it loaded
in a wagon ready to git out on the street some night and sit the boards
in doorways. But no, says I. Me partner an’ I drives the team out to the
Harlem River bridge. The river is so thick with tugs and launches full of
people to see the boat race that you can hardly find the water. We waits
until the race starts, an’ then we clumps them boards into the river,
carefully like, so they will fall with the picture side up. They hits
the current and starts floatin’ down. They all seems to cling together,
and make a big raft, an’ all you can see is ‘White Squadron.’ Everybody
on the bridge and the boats is a readin’ and laughin’, and we knows it’s
the showin’ of our lives. And say, the boards keeps on driftin’ wid the
current an’ gits so thick that when the guys in the paper boats hits that
part of the river they gits stuck and the race has to be called off.”
“Well,” said the Press Agent, coolly, “did the show do any business?”
“Business!” replies the Bill Poster; “you’d a thought there was a fire in
the neighborhood ev’ry night, the crowd was there so thick fightin’ to
git in. An’ say, the guys what got broke up in the boat race is so stuck
on the joke that they gives a theatre party an’ the papers is full of it.”
“Yes,” said the Press Agent, “and it took the press agent to get that in
the papers.”
“But the bill posters got ’em in the house,” retorted the Bill Poster,
with the air of a man who had knocked the local welterweight over the
ropes.
THE CANDY BUTCHER’S DREAM OF LOVE.
It was generally conceded that the Candy Butcher was the handsomest man
in the outfit. To be sure, the gent who did the sixty-one horse act in
Ring Three was a Charlie boy for good looks, but it was only when he was
in the red coat and working. When he left the dressing tent and went red
light hunting in a one night stand he looked like a canvasman on a visit
home to his people, but he was a hot card when he had the dicer on in
the horse act. It was so different with the Candy Butcher--he was always
dressed up and he never looked like he felt it.
No one ever saw the Candy Butcher wear a coat, but his checked trousers
were always creased whether the big show was playing a one night in
Keokuk or doing a run in the Madison Square Garden over in the hot city.
And he always wore a vest, but it was never buttoned and there was a red
striped shirt with one of those Montana boys screwed in the bosom right
under the dickey dot of a bow. The vest was something to speak about--it
had the band wagon way to the bad on the distribution of colors and
looked like page 89 in a wall paper drummer’s sample book. There was a
shiny chain with an elk’s tooth and a tiger’s claw and in one vest pocket
was a date book with a tooth brush and a blue pencil doing a duet on the
other side of the rainbow. The Candy Butcher always wore pink underwear
and had his sleeves rolls up to his elbows. And you don’t want to forget
the little miniature of “blondy” that he had pinned right over his blood
pump.
And as a matter of detail the Candy Butcher always had this get up the
whole season and no grease spots ever scored--he was just the same
whether it was back of the tub and the peanuts giving the “five tonight
good people” gag, selling concert tickets during the run-offs in the
hippodrome or Sunday afternoon in the ladies’ coach, section three,
telling the big blonde who did the cloud swing in the round top rigging
that of all the girls she was the onliest.
The gang was sitting on a carpet roll under the big top when the Candy
Butcher came across the track and sat down on the ring bank. He was
looking sad, but his pants were creased and the Montana boy was shining
like a frozen hunk of Kennebec water. He rolled himself a cigarette and
the gang being silent he edged in with this bunch of talk:
“I’m bluer this evenin’ than the paste boards they’re passin’ out of the
ticket wagon an’ if it wasn’t for gettin’ the dock at the pay off I’d be
up against some boozery workin’ the syphon like an engine at a tenement
fire. I ain’t got no life in me ’t all an’ I won’t have until we leaves
the east an’ strikes the west country. B’lieve me, me boys, the east is
all right for business, for I can pass out the sour juice at five a throw
right here as well as any where, but it’s myself an’ not the place. It
was too much of a feather bed las’ season an’ I was fool enough not to
remember that I had to wake up. There ain’t no use talkin’, whenever a
guy gets a good dream in this here life some sucker has got to give him
the alarm clock finish an’ he wakes up with a yell.
“Say, I can call the turn on the folks on the blue boards an’ have ’em
all drinkin’ lemon juice and shellin’ peanuts an’ I likes to do it, but
me heart ain’t in the work, this season and that’s no lithograph josh
either. I’ll tell you and some of youse may give me the grin, but it’s
ten to one you’ve had the soft spot yourselves, so I ain’t a-carin’.
Remember the Congress of Nations gag they was workin’ las’ season? Well
right back of me lay out there was a lot of maidens that was doin’ the
gypsy village and fakin’ a lot of beads and fortune tellin’. There was
one little fairy in the outfit that had me dead, an’ I don’t mind tellin’
you that she had me soft from the start. She wasn’t none of these city
pick ups but a nice little gal that talked quiet and minded her own. She
didn’t mix with the rest of the push an’ we got thick the first day the
canvass went up. She tells me her story confidential like an’ I give her
me sympathy, for her people was dead agin her for troopin’. You see she
had been working in a New York hash house, where they had Bible talk on
the wall an’ where they gave a splash of beans and a draw for a dime.
She gets tired an’ a guy what has been eatin’ at the place gives her
a job in a boardin’ house waitin’ on the table. Here she meets the man
what has the Congress get up to put on an’ he tells her gilt edge stories
about the circus business and to cut the talk down she joins out with
the show. Well, say, she was the real thing to me. In two months she had
me stoppin’ the booze an sendin’ money home to the folks, an’ it was a
center shot to get that out of me. She was allus lookin’ for a chance to
do me somethin’ kind an’ one day she did a little turn that I wont forget
long after I’ve past the old man’ home.
“We had struck a rough run of one nighters in Ohio and was looking for
bright things across the river in the West Virginney townships. I had to
do the German Emperor in the parade an’ when we got back to the lot I
begins to get me stand ready for the sale. I’d packed up careful on the
last stand and thought it was sunny for the next. But when I got me chest
open I finds the citric acid jug missing, and the floaters I’d saved to
throw on the top of the tub was gone too. I had a cussin’ spell for a
brief and then I goes on a still hunt for lemons--the real yellow. But
bless me I couldn’t find one in the village an’ there was nothin’ doin’
with the barkeeper what had ’em. Comin’ back I see’s a dago doin’ the
shaker across from the lot. He has ’bout a dozen lemons and I offers him
a good price, but the brown boy wouldn’t sell an’ I was sorer than a
doped lion. I goes into the tent and meets Maggie, that was the name of
me fairy, an’ she was sewin’ silvers on her little coat. She sees me sad
like an’ I unloads me woes. The gal didn’t say much, but she rubs her
hand across me frowner an’ sez, never mind, John, I’ll help ye out, an’
goes ’way. Say, youse may give me the laugh, but durn me if that lass
didn’t come back in ’bout an hour carryin’ a bucket an’ I mos’ had a fit
when I see’s it full of gooseberries? What’s the game? sez I.
“Watch me?” sez Maggie, “an’ I’ll keep you in the business.”
“Durn me, boys, if that little maiden didn’t mash them berries to a pulp,
strain ’em through the Hoochie Coochie gal’s veil and have the tub full
of sour juice in seven minutes. I pours in the water, finds me floaters
and puts them on the ice bank an’ before the gang is passin’ once
’roun’ I’m sellin’ the juice as if lemons was growin’ on locust trees.
Gooseberries too an’ the yaps couldn’t git enough of it. It was better
than any graft ever in the one ring days an’ the little gal had done it
all. Ain’t no use tellin’ you that I gives her a new shirt waist an’ she
gives me a squeeze that makes me top spin like a merry-go-round.
“An’ say I fixed that dago that wouldn’t give up. I tipped off one of the
drivers and when the first pole wagon leaves the lot with the eight grays
a pullin’ it, the leads shies into the shaker stand an’ gives it the
apple cart finish.
“But the little fairy I lost her an’ that’s why I’m sad. It was this
way. The gal what did the twistin’ for the Turks had the fever an’ they
shipped her home. The guy what had the Congress comes to Maggie, gives
her the jersey and the gauzy pants and sez she must do the part. Maggie
kicked an’ said she was engaged for the gypsie village. The guy says “not
at all” and Maggie pulls off the spangles an’ goes home. An’ say I ain’t
been right since, an’ some days I feels like playin’ quits myself.”
The gang looked at the Candy Butcher consolingly, but no one spoke.
“The las’ I hears from her,” she said, “she had gone back to waitin’.”
She’s slingin’ hash in a Brooklyn Caf’, but I loves her just as hard.
THE BOSS CANVASMAN’S YARN.
The Boss Canvasman was always sad. He never talked--he just chewed his
tobacco and worked. Like the Candy Butcher, he never wore a coat, but he
cut the pink underwear the Lemonade Boy flashed when he had his sleeves
rolled up at the tub. Of course, the Boss had a coat, one that had run
through a dozen seasons, but he always kept it strapped down under the
driver’s cushion on the pole wagon. Whenever he did use it, the coat was
doing duty for a pillow when the last section was late pulling out, and
he was sleeping on a gondola with the wall poles for a mat.
The Boss Canvasman’s pants were ancient history, and his vest was always
open. He wore one of those motorman watches, with a shoestring for a
chain. He never looked at the watch except at night, for when it was
daytime he could pull off the hour on the second by the slant of the
shadows across the big “top.” The Boss never wore a collar. On Sunday he
would put a gold button in the shirt band, lean disconsolately against
the tongue of the pole wagon, and feel uncomfortable because he was
dressed up.
There was no coin and jewel flash about the Boss Canvasman. But he did
wear a rusty button in the lapel of his vest--one of those G. A. R.
things. Across his face there was a long red scar, and sometimes when
he had been drinking he talked about the first Ohio Cavalry--Gettysburg
was the answer. He feared nobody nor anything. He had no friends, except
probably the Stock Boss, and there was a tie there, because the two had
done the wagon show long years back before three rings were dreamed of
and farmers were living on their own hog meat and were happy. If he ever
did talk, it was when something went wrong, and then his line of words
were unfit for publication--even in a Chicago weekly.
It looked like a squall just as the matinee was breaking, and the boys
at the cages were hurrying the people along to get the tent clear before
the water fell. The Boss Canvasman was hard at it getting the guys tight
and throwing in cinders around the big poles, where the dirt was soft. He
was taking no chances on a blow. He had been mixed up in several of those
wind things down in Texas, where a cyclone struck the lot, and all that
was left when the sun got back was the ticket wagon and the elephants
that were chained to earth. He knew his game.
After the usual beef stew and the splash of beans had been put away with
a cup of black in the meal tent, the gang gathered about the rink bank
for a little rest. The Sawdust Spreader and the Gasoline Man were talking
scandal, as usual. This time it was the Snake Charmer, who mixed it too
strong with the bottles on the last stand, lost the keys to her snake-box
and two boas and a black boy starved to death before the feeders could
get the rabbits under the fangs.
The gang sat down in silence until the Concert Manager cut in with some
weather talk. It looked stormy, and as it was the last night of the stand
and a long haul to the cars, everybody was feeling a little sore. With a
storm coming up, the tent to watch, and then the haul and an eight-hour
jump with a hustle for the march in spangles down the highway the next
morning. It had everybody grouchy and thinking about hall shows with a
roof and a stove.
“Youse is doing a lot of guff about a rain,” cut in the Side Show
Spieler, as he polished up his shiny brim on the corner of the leaping
tick, “but youse kin stay inside when its droppin’, but for me--the open
and still the same old gab for the dimes.”
The Boss Canvasman came up along the ring bank, and without noticing the
crowd on the sawdust began to jamb down the cinders around the net-pole
with the heel of his boot. From the distance came a low rumble of
thunder. The gang looked at each other. Everybody in the outfit feared a
storm; not so much for the storm itself, but for the effect it had on the
Boss Canvasman. He never talked, but when the basses under the hills were
growling and the lightning was doing a fancy jig against the blue, he let
loose a vocabulary that would put a canalboat captain to the blush of
shame and send a sea-soaked old jib reefer to flight as a down and out
cusser beyond appeal, cards torn up, tables turned over and police at the
door. He used the same two-em words, but the way they hit the air would
have made holes in a battleship.
The broadcloth boys, who came over in the sailing ships and scared the
Indians into religion by telling them how warm it was in perdition,
couldn’t touch the Boss Canvasman for a scare when he got on the same
topic. He had a way of saying “hell!” that made you want to turn in a
fire alarm just for personal comfort.
Presently he came across to the gang, and to the surprise of all the
rink-bank squatters loosened up.
“Talkin’ ’bout workin’ in the rain, is you?” he said, with a sneer, and
a cross-hook glance at the Side Show Spieler. “You’ve got no kick. Say,
you’ll have your head on some Mamie’s shoulder in the last day coach, up
an’ away, while me an’ my gang is still workin’ on this lot gittin’ this
round top on the wagon without streakin’ her wid mud.”
There was not a reply, for the boys knew he was right. The Side Show
Spieler hung around a bit, and, with a typhoid smile, remarked that he
guessed he’d bow hisself out, and more than that, he did.
“Speakin’ about storms,” said the Boss Canvasman, as he tied a long,
running knot in the guy that held the triple bars, “I guess you fellows
’ceptin’ some of the old boys, dunno what it is for a rain an’ a blow. I
dun bin circusin’ it for forty year, and, say, I’ve met some blows an’
lightnin’ that no sailor chap ain’t hit, I don’t care how often he’s bin
’round the Horn.”
You couldn’t have looked into the face of that old fellow without
believing every word. He was burned brown by every clime, creased and
seamed by every frost, and parched and dryed by every wind, and his hands
for knots and gnarls had an old oak twice around the track and then past
the judges and turf writers, all off and back to the street cars.
“Say, I’m going to tell you fellers sumthin’,” said the Boss, as he sat
down and began twisting together a piece of rope that was getting to look
like a lion’s tail. The gang was startled, for in the memory of none
there never lodged the fact that the Boss Canvasman had been seen to sit
down as long as the pole was standing. But he did, and what’s more, he
reeled off a yarn.
“Jes, ’fore the war broke out,” he said, “I had enlisted in the First
Ohio, I was workin’ down the Valley of Virginia wid a little wagon show
doin’ the same kind of work I’se doin’ now, ’cept it was nothin’ but play
to this. Funny, too, for six months afore I was down that same valley wid
the cavalry cuttin’ into them rebs, an’ I don’t mind telling you they was
a cuttin’ us, too, wid Mosby in the woods an’ ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, God
knows where.
“Well, we had been doin’ a day an’ a night stand in one of the little
towns, an’ had a fourteen mile haul down the pike for the next. We was
hopin’ for a moon, not so much to strike by, but for the drive, for
the people hadn’t got the roads to right, an’ they was still full of
artillery ruts an’ wagon train wrecks. But we pulled off the show, an’
before the last bareback was on I has the menagerie canvas on the wagons,
all stakes up and the dens down the road, with the boys leadin’ the
elephants and the two camels over the hills. It had been squally like,
all night, but I had the round top tightened up so hard that youse could
have walked the ropes an’ there was no danger.
“But jes’ as Dutch Andy was playin’ his last piece there was a bust
of wind an’ a flash of lightnin’, an’ she began to come down in solid
sheets. We gets the people out and gets to work on the tent wall. This
peels off in a jiffy, an’ the rain lets up. Then down wid the big top an’
on the wagon. But sumthin’ catches in the riggin’ on the main pole, an’ I
sees I has to send me helper up on a climb to get her clear. Everything
was gone but the pole wagon and a few side show things, an’ the ’bus we
bosses rode in, with four grays pullin’ it. Afore I sends my helper, Jim,
a fine boy, what had been a sailor, up the pole, I send four men out to
hold her up by hangin’ on the long rope to the far stake. Jim skins up to
the top an’ gits her loose, but before he kin git down the gang holdin’
the long guy loses their holt, an’ the pole falls.
“Well, we picks up Jim, an’ he is pretty bad. Ribs in, an’ a lot of cuts.
We tried ev’ry house aroun’, but no doctor, though there was one good old
lady who gave us some arnicy and strips of bandage she said she’d kept
to use on her husband when he got shot up in the Saturday night fights
’bout the tavern. So we piles poor Jim into the ’bus, and drives off
easy, while we walks along quiet like an’ sore. Poor Jim, he jes’ groans
an’ talks ’bout doin’ his best, an’ I keeps givin’ him liquor to make him
forget it.
“But it was all over for Jim, an’ we jes pullin’ out of a clump of woods
down by a river when we sees he’s dead. There was no use carryin’ his
body long, an’ he didn’t have no people to ship it to, so we decided to
give him a decent burial. Two of the stakemen digs the place, an’ we lays
poor Jim away under a willow tree. Jes’ then one of the boys speaks up
an’ sez:
“‘Say, boys, it don’t seem right to plant Jim without sayin’ sumthin’.’
“But there wasn’t a mother’s son in the crowd knew what to say, though
they is all on to what the fellow means. We waits awhile an’ I sez:
“‘Well, there might be a little singin’.’
“An’ I wishes that I had the principal clown there, for he was good on
sad songs, ’specially if he’d been boozin’ a little.
“‘Might git the band,’ sez one of the boys.
“‘But the band is way ahead.’ We is all studyin’ like, when over the
hills comes the whistling wagon.
“‘Here is the calliope,’ sez one of the stakemen.
“So we stops it, and ‘Reddy’ Cavenaugh, who played the whistles, besides
doublin’ for Peter the Great in the street parade, sez he has enough
steam on to play a little. We backs the calliope around, an’ three of the
boys holds the hosses. Then Reddy played soft like, jes’ as soft as he
could, on the whistles, an’ we all lifts our hats.”
“What did he play?” asked the Candy Butcher, as he wiped away a tear with
his red cuff.
“Well,” said the Boss Canvasman, “he only knowed two tunes, ‘When Johnny
Comes Marchin’ Home’ and ‘The Blue Danube,’ but we planted Jim to both.”
THE SIDE SHOW SPIELER SPEAKS.
The Side Show Spieler was a tall dark man with a sad face. He was clean
shaven, wore his hair slightly long and looked like William Jennings
Bryan, after the vote was in and counted and the telegraph operators had
gone home. He had a deep baritone voice and a vocabulary that was always
It. The Spieler carried more education than any man on the pay-roll and
it was said that he was the only man in the outfit that could read the
Latin names on the animal cages. It was generally supposed that he was
one of the better days’ boys, but he never told the story of his past
life to any of the gang.
It had started to rain just after the afternoon performance, and as it
was the night to strike and haul, the six squatters on the ring bank
were silent and sore. The Spieler came in from the menagerie and joined
the layout. He never sat down, so he stood for a while in front of the
others. No one spoke and he let a little conversation hit the air.
“What’s the matter with you fellows? Sore ’cause it is raining! Don’t see
why, you all are under cover. I’ve got to stand out there in front of the
tent and talk for dimes.”
“Yes,” said the Boss Canvasman, “and I’ve got this tent to roll up an’
load.
“Well be happy, be happy,” said the Spieler. Then after a pause. “Say,
you fellows can help me out a little. The Boss gives me a talk last
night, and says while the spiel for the little show is all right and good
he wants a new one for the big stands we strikes next week. I’ve been
digging up the old talk I used to tear off on the Midway at the Chicago
Show and I’ve about studied her out, if youse don’t care I’ll just unroll
here an’ see if its the proper josh.”
There was no objection, so the Spieler mounts one of the red painted
stools, the object holders stand on for the little lady to jump the
banners. Then he serves his spiel:
“And now good people if you will kindly give me your attention for a few
moments I will explain to you the great congress of freaks, oddities of
mother nature and strange and curious collection of wonders shown in the
tent. Remember you have plenty of time, the Big Show does not commence
for fully harf an hour. Surely you will not leave the lot until you
have seen all--all good people--all provided for you in this monster
entertainment, this caravan of canvas covered world sought wonders. Come
a little closer. Please. Thank you. First, let me call your attention to
a remarkable group of reindeer. We have not one--three--five--or six of
these specimens of the animal kingdom, but a whole herd of them--a herd
of them--a herd of reindeer from the land of the midnight sun, where
there is but one night, one day--reindeers, my friends, from the icy
mountains of far away Norway the greatest group ever exhibited in any
colossal enterprise that has ever been organized by mortal man.
“Next you will find the ostrich farm. This strange bird that furnishes
plumage for me ladies’ bonnet, and that comes from the sunny sands of
Africa. And remember the cool of the evening is the best time to see the
ostriches, for it is then you may notice their marked pe-cu-li-ar-i-ties.
Listen, good people, reindeer and ostriches--reindeer from the frozen
north--ostriches from torrid Africa--specimens from each zone, the most
astounding representation of nature’s wonderland ever shown. Reindeer and
ostriches--as the poet says:
“From Greenland’s icy mountains
From Afric’s coral strand
Where them crystal waters
Run down the heathen land.
“And all for a dime, ten cents, will you hesitate? but wait, good people,
that is not all. The wonder of wonders is yet to come--Bobo--he eats ’em
alive, he eats ’em alive. You must see Bobo. This strange and curious
specimen of humanity who exists upon poisonous reptiles, captured in the
jungles of the Tasmanian blue gum tree and brought to civilized America,
he still lives on snakes--Bobo, the snake eater--Bobo, he eats ’em alive,
he eats ’em alive.
“One moment, good people, one moment--this is not all. Listen--Wild
Rose--the half girl and half dog. This remarkable freak of nature that
has puzzled the scientists of two continents. Queen Mary, the largest
fat woman ever shown under canvas or in hall of curios, the marvelous
Samson, the giant of today, who bears upon his breast great rocks to be
broken with a sledge, and last but not least--Professor Corello and his
troupe of performing roaches, the only attempt ever made to develop the
hitherto unknown powers of these insects. The greatest, most interesting
and educating avalanche of remarkable freaks and strange and curious
people ever shown. And all for a dime, two nickels, good people--a dime,
but a dime. The performance is about to begin--one dime--the sight
of an invested fortune, the greatest stroke of genius of the modern
showman--yours for a dime.”
The Spieler took a long breath and then looked at his audience.
“How’s that,” he asked, “how’s that for a furnace talk?”
“It’s all right, Cap,” said the Concert Manager; “it’ll bring ’em.”
“Say,” said the Boss Canvasman, “how do you keep that voice of yours
shoutin’ all the time?”
“Boozin’, boozin’ up,” said the Spieler, “boozin’ up.”
THE BAND MASTER’S SOLO
The leader of the Big Show’s band wasn’t much on technique, but if
there were any notes coming to an E-flat cornet that he had overlooked
something was wrong with the whole theory of music.
The way he could blow melody out of that piece of polished brass was
something that the rest of the outfit never understood. He was a little
fellow with a very small moustache that ran largely to waxed ends. He
always wore a blue uniform and a cap, and he looked like a messenger boy.
The twenty-eight “star soloists” that he directed possessed more wind
than a Western cyclone and an Eastern typhoon blown into one, for twice a
day they played from one-thirty until the last race in the hippodrome was
off, and this was no five finger exercise.