Few people pity the circus people when they are in hard luck. So long as
they can amuse and entertain they are applauded, but when they fail to do
this, people turn from them as they would from a bundle of old clothes,
forgetting that heartaches and sorrows and disappointments sink as deep
into their hearts as they do into the hearts of the unsuccessful people
in any other calling or profession. Dyke Dingleman had been a successful
clown and funny man for ten years. The audience had fairly whooped and
yelled at some of his funny sayings and antics, and the managers paid his
salary cheerfully and praised him for his successful work. But one night
in a large city he failed to win a smile from the large audience. He went
through his stunts in such a stiff and listless way that nobody could
see any fun in him or his bad attempts at humor. After the show was out
the senior proprietor of the show scolded him for his poor playing and
threatened to discharge him if it ever occurred again. He said nothing,
but pulled a telegram from his pocket and handed it to the proprietor. It
read: “Bessie is dying—can’t you come home?—Edith.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had trouble, Dyke? Forgive me for what I have
said to you. Go home to your wife and dying child at once. Billings can
take your place until you join us again.”
Dyke didn’t seem like his old self after Bessie died. He joined the show
at Lima, Ohio, but he was no good as a clown. All the fun had gone out
of his soul, and the audience hissed him. The people did not understand.
He had to give up the situation and take the part of assistant, and wear
a red coat. Carrying mats and other fixtures into the ring was very
humiliating, and the wages were very low for such work. He couldn’t
support his wife on the salary, and she went home to her folks and
refused to write to him. She thought there was a chance to please his
other women, or for booze.
One day the man who gave the outside entertainment was ill, and the
proprietor wanted a substitute. Dyke used to perform on the tight rope,
and he thought here was a chance to please his employer. He felt that
he could do the clown stunts again, if he had another trial. Sorrow had
sweetened his bitter life, and he thought he knew better what genuine
humor should be than ever before. He would perform the old stunts on the
high rope in a more ridiculous manner than any man dared. It was all
pantomime, and he need not use his broken voice at all.
And the audience did enjoy the performance. They never saw such a daring,
desperate man before. He was playing for reputation and his wife’s love
and sympathy. The last jump on the rope was higher and wilder and more
daring than any before. When he landed on the rope something gave away,
the rope slipped through the pulley so rapidly that Dyke couldn’t grasp
any of the stays in his fall. He landed with one leg on a stake and the
bone was snapped above the knee. His poor shoulder was also dislocated
and his head bruised. The roustabouts picked him up and carried him into
the tent, and the crowd jammed closer to see his blood on the ground. A
few women had screamed when they saw him fall, and several men groaned,
but he was only a showman, and they all went away and soon forgot him.
The afternoon performance was just as good, and the clowns were just
as funny, as though poor Dyke Dingleman did not lie unconscious at
the hospital. In the morning the circus left town, but not before the
proprietors of the circus had made arrangements at the hospital for the
care of the injured actor.
Two weeks after the accident Dyke told his nurse all about his
misfortunes and about his wife leaving him. He said he had nothing to
live for and might as well die. The nurse was a romantic soul and set
about to win Dyke’s wife back to him. She wrote a long letter, telling
her husband’s story of hard luck just as he had told it to her, and
begged her to come at once to his bed and give him love and hope and
sympathy, so that he would have something to live for.
There never was a happier set of hospital nurses than there was in that
particular hospital when Dyke’s wife came to his bed and threw her loving
arms around his wasted body and asked him to forgive her for leaving him
when his heart was heavy with sorrow from grieving over Bessie’s death.
And then she embraced the nurse who had told Dyke’s story so beautifully
and pathetically, and the doctor assured them all that the patient was
going to recover rapidly now. He could see signs of health and love of
life coming back to the haggard face of the hard-luck showman.
The story was written up by the same romantic nurse and sent to a paper,
and the whole town was in sympathy with Dyke Dingleman and his wife. Next
day when another big circus came to town the nurse wrote the manager,
inclosing Dyke’s story, and advised a benefit exhibition. The city turned
out and Dyke’s share of the net profits was $300.