As many a boy has come into the circus business in much the same manner
that I entered it (at the age of fourteen years), this start in show
life may be of some interest because typical of the way in which young
lads drift into this wandering existence. Doing chores about my
father's tavern in a little southern Indiana town brought me in contact
with such travelers as visited our quiet community. Listening to their
talk and stories naturally inspired me with a desire to see something
of the big and wonderful world outside our village. As this was
impossible at the time, I did what seemed the next best thing so far as
getting in touch with the world was concerned. When only twelve years
old I took the position of "devil" in the country newspaper office, and
for years worked at the printer's case, helped "run off" the paper on
the old Franklin press and did almost every disagreeable task that
could be put on the shoulders of a boy.
This seemed quite exciting at the start, but it finally grew
monotonous, and the boyish longing for travel and adventure came back
to me with redoubled force. As my mother had died when I was very
young, and father had married again, surrounding himself with a second
family, my home ties, though pleasant enough, were not what they might
have been had my own mother lived. The printer in the little newspaper
office who was dignified by the title of foreman had seemed to take
quite a fancy to me, and we became rather close companions. One day
when the spirit of restlessness and adventure was strong upon me I
confided to him that I was tired of our slow old town and suggested
that we pack our few belongings in bundles and start out for some place
which would offer us a bigger chance to get on. This proposal, with the
beautiful summer weather, started the slumbering tendency to wander
that lurks in the heart of every true printer.
Placing a few necessaries in two bundles, we quietly left the village
in regulation tramp-printer style. At length we reached Terre Haute,
where I was offered employment in a newspaper office. I realized that I
knew very little of the printing craft, and that it would take many
years of hard, up-hill work to make me a master of the art.
Consequently I determined to find some other line of employment more
exciting than that of "sticking type." The first thing we heard was
that a circus was showing in the town. This caught my fancy, and I told
my companion that I was going to join the circus and see something of
the world. He was disgusted at this proposal, and very plainly warned
me that if I took such a course I would make a worthless loafer of
myself. But my circus blood was up, and I put my resolve into immediate
action, little dreaming that I was taking the first step in a career
that was to become a part of the history of the show business in
America.
The show which I joined was one of the largest then in existence,
having more than a hundred horses, ten fine Ceylon elephants, a
gorgeously carved and painted "Car of Juggernaut," and many other
"attractions" which seemed marvelous in my boyish eyes. Not the least
of these in point of attractiveness and popularity was General "Tom"
Thumb, who was petted and feasted wherever he went. But Nellis, the man
without arms who could paint pictures and shoot pennies from the
fingers of the manager, claimed a large share of my silent admiration.