GEORGY, THE GIANT
Victor Collins had not yet arrived at an age when a circus loses its
power to thrill the heart with joy. Each gilded chariot, each gaudy
menagerie wagon or gorgeous trapping still awoke within his breast a
responsive chord.
“They’re driving in stakes, Brandon,” he exclaimed. “See--there’s a
wagon--a four-horser, and lots of others back. We’re just in time to
watch ’em put up the tent.”
Over on the lot an odor of rank weeds and grasses filled the air.
It was all very black and forbidding, unpleasantly suggestive of
treacherous pitfalls or deep, stagnant pools of water, save where the
rays of flaring light streamed through the gloom.
Heavy wagons drawn by four horses rumbled their way across the bumpy,
uneven field, occasionally becoming stuck in the yielding turf,
whereupon the yells of drivers and cracking of whips came sharply to
their ears.
“Working like the dickens, aren’t they?” remarked Victor. “Let’s skip
around a bit.”
The two, steering a course around various obstructions, made their way
toward the busy scene. Soon they caught a glimpse of a faint grayish
mass of canvas spread out over the ground, while towering aloft like
the masts of a ship were a number of poles.
“That’s the big top, or main tent,” said Dave.
“Heads up there--look out!”
Above the sound of the jolting and creaking of a big red wagon and
crisp jingle of harness came the deep-throated warning. The leaders of
a four-horse team swerved sharply around.
“Over here, you for the flying squadron,” some one hailed from the
distance.
“Flying squadron! What in thunder is that?” cried Victor, wonderingly.
“The commissary department,” answered Dave. “In all well-regulated
shows that is attended to first. Guess this wagon is full of stuff
they’ll need in a hurry for the mess tent.”
A straggling procession, mainly of boys, soon began to arrive; the
lonely, dismal lot was fast becoming transformed into a scene of great
bustle and activity. More torches were flaring, and the echoing thuds
of the sledges increased in force and number. A bright glare from a
calcium light soon streamed over the field.
A force of workers with pick and shovel were leveling the ground, while
still others spread thick layers of straw over tracts where recent
rains had formed puddles of considerable size.
Presently a murmuring chorus from the crowds of excited children burst
into a loud hubbub of joyous shouts.
“Oh, look!” laughed Victor, attracted by the commotion.
Some distance ahead, amid the wagons, a huge form was looming up, now
dim and scarcely seen in the gloom, then brought sharply into relief by
the flaring lights.
“Hurray, here’s the elephant, as I live,” shouted Victor. “Gee,
Brandon--what was that? Didn’t you hear something?”
The boys were threading a dark, gloomy passage between two great
wagons, now horseless, their tarpaulin-covered tops seeming to tower to
a great height above them. A strange sound, suggestive of a deep sigh,
had cut into Victor’s sentence, and when it came a second time the two
looked about them with interest.
They saw several bales of hay, showing dimly against the field, another
deserted wagon, and an indistinct figure.
“Hello!” exclaimed Victor.
As he spoke the form began to rise, and, to their utter astonishment,
continued to rise until it stood high above the bales, and so high that
both uttered an exclamation.
“Great Scott!” breathed Victor. “Why--why----”
“Say, who are you?”
A shrill childish treble came from the towering figure, which
immediately began to move around the barricade of bales toward them.
The boys watched him with breathless interest.
“Say, who are you?”
They craned their necks to look up at the face that gazed into theirs,
but the obscurity was so great that neither could determine the age,
the character, or the appearance of the singularly tall being whose
voice resembled that of a fourteen-year-old boy.
“I say--what’s the matter? Who are you, anyway?”
The third inquiry came in petulant, piping tones.
“If we could find a step-ladder,” began Victor, struggling
unsuccessfully to repress his mirth, “it----”
“That’s always the way. I’m the most miserable chap in the whole world.”
Victor lighted a match, and, shielding the fluttering flame in the
hollow of his hand, deliberately directed the rays into the face of the
giant. They saw a small, well-shaped and extremely boyish head crowned
with dark brown hair.
“Well, now, I hope you are satisfied.” The shrill treble held a note of
resignation.
“Goodness gracious! How old are you?” demanded Victor.
“Fifteen. And I’m the most miserable chap in the----”
“Why--what’s the matter?” inquired Dave.
“You’d better ask me what isn’t the matter,” answered the young giant,
with a long, deep sigh. “Come on--sit down. I do so want to talk to
somebody before Peter Whiffin gets here.”
“Peter Whiffin! Who’s he?”
“General manager of Ollie Spudger’s Great Combined Peerless Circus
and Menagerie. He doesn’t allow me to talk to people. You see”--the
giant, leading the way, paused until he had settled himself on a bale
of hay, where, after a great deal of difficulty, he managed to dispose
of his long legs in a comfortable fashion--“well, it’s this way,” he
went on, dolefully: “Peter Whiffin doesn’t believe in giving anything
for nothing. I belong to the show--see? People must pay to look at the
giant; so I’m smuggled around in the dark. It’s awful. Mustn’t talk
to strangers; mustn’t do this, or that. An’ when anybody does see me
outside the tents I’m followed an’ stared at, an’ made fun of. Oh, but
I’m so sick of it! An’, do you know----”
The young giant’s wailing notes ceased, and he peered eagerly around.
“Well?” questioned Dave.
“I’m still growing.”
“Goodness gracious!”
“Yes; it’s a fact--an’ most seven feet now.” The giant seemed almost on
the verge of blubbering. Then, with an effort, he controlled his voice.
“But say, who are you?”
“One member of the Rambler Club, and one near-member,” grinned Victor.
“There it goes again--always the same; every one has to guy me. Oh, I’m
the most miserable chap in the whole----”
“Avast there, my hearty!” laughed Dave. “I’ll explain.” And he did,
while the giant listened with rapt attention.
“Oh, if I could only do something like that, too,” he murmured, when
Dave had concluded. “What a dandy lot of fun you fellows are going to
have. But it’s no use!”
“Hey, Georgy--oh, Georgy! Where in thunder are you?”
“There’s Peter Whiffin.” The giant raised his voice. “Over here, Mr.
Whiffin.”
The circus manager, scarcely seen in the gloom, and coming from
the direction of the lights, increased his pace, scrambling around
obstructions, and giving vent to his displeasure at the weeds and
inequality of the ground by emphatic exclamations.
“Well, what’s all this?”
Peter Whiffin had a querulous voice and a manner which went singularly
well with it. He was a small man, and Victor’s method of throwing
light on the subject by means of a match immediately disclosed sharp
features, a pair of shifting gray eyes, a face lined with hollows and
wrinkles, and a yellow moustache which drooped despondently at the
corners.
“Well, blow me--if you ain’t ’bout the coolest I ever see!” exclaimed
Peter Whiffin, when the fluttering flame had vanished. “You’ve got your
nerve with you, hey?”
“Always carry plenty of it in stock,” said Victor, calmly.
“See here, Georgy, didn’t I tell you not to gab with every stranger
that comes along?”
“I have to talk to some one, Mr. Whiffin; I’m so miserable.”
“Well, well! Says he is miserable! Did you ever hear the like o’ it!”
The manager’s tones bespoke the deepest disgust. “Why, ain’t he makin’
more money in a week than most people in a month? Well, well!”
Mr. Peter Whiffin’s emotions seemed to rise to such a point as to
almost choke his utterances. He strode to and fro for a moment, then
exclaimed:
“I’ve a good mind to fetch you one right in the ribs. It’s
ingratitood--it’s worse. An’ his pap a-gittin’ paid every week as
reg’lar as the clock ticks! I’ll plunk you for that, I will.”
“But I don’t want to get plunked,” wailed the giant, with a catch in
his voice.
“Well, then, don’t git off no more sich nonsense. Miserable, indeed!
That ’ud be somethink for your pap to hear ’bout, eh? Ain’t there no
thanks in that nature o’ yourn?”
“What have I to be thankful for, Mr. Whiffin? If I was only like these
boys here I’d give anything in the world.”
Peter Whiffin snorted with indignation. He did more. Seizing the giant
roughly by the arm, he commanded him to move, and move fast, under
penalty of receiving an assorted number of hooks, straight lefts,
and right uppercuts, and accompanied his remarks with an exhibition
of these same blows, all coming perilously near the person of the
complaining giant.
“If this here chatter ain’t a bit more’n the limit,” he growled. “An’
me not knowin’ what I’m a-goin’ to do for a barker to-morrow!”
“What’s the matter with Jack Gray?” asked George, forgetting his
troubles for an instant.
“He’s went an’ took sich a cold that his voice sounds like a frog
croakin’; that’s what’s the matter. If I ain’t in a mess for a spieler
my name ain’t Whiffin. I can’t do it meself; an’ there ain’t nobody
worth shucks in the hull shootin’ match.”
The voice of the unhappy manager gradually grew faint in the distance,
then, presently, became lost altogether amidst the medley of noises
that arose on all sides.
“Say, Brandon, think of that poor little giant standing for all of
Peter Whiffin’s fresh talk,” said Victor, disgustedly. “Why, if he’d
just start falling----”
“And if Peter got caught beneath him it would make a mighty sad story,”
grinned Dave.
The two walked out beyond the grim shadows of the wagons, directing
their course toward the light and activity beyond. Already the canvas
of the “big top” was looming high in the air, a dim, shapeless patch of
ghostly white. The rumble of vehicles had given place to the clink and
rattle of harness, as teams were unhitched and driven across the lots.
A crowd of shouting children surrounded three elephants, while others
flocked around closed cages, uttering comments which revealed their
curiosity regarding the strange and savage inmates. Boys carrying
buckets of water passed and repassed, straining their little arms to
an alarming extent, but feeling sure that they were having the time of
their lives.
Dave and his companion soon found themselves in the thick of the fray
watching a pair of sturdy horses hitched to the end of a long rope
which led to a block and tackle.
Crack! The driver’s whip echoed sharply. Away they went. The center
of the big top was drawn slowly up to its highest point on the middle
pole, and, within a short time, the limp canvas began to straighten
and assume the form of a circus tent.
“Jolly well done, that,” commented Dave. “Spudger’s Great Combined
Peerless Circus and Menagerie looks like a winner to me. And the mess
tent is all up, too.”
They moved off toward it, each occasionally halted by piles of rubbish.
Twice Victor put his foot into an unseen hole, then cracked his shin
against a piece of board.
“Makes a pleasant variety, doesn’t it?” said Dave, as he heard his
companion’s howl of disapproval.
“Pleasant?” snapped Victor. “It’s a wonder something hasn’t risen up
off the ground and broken my legs. Are we about to fall into the town
ash-pit, or what?”
“We may escape such a fate as that.”
Victor laughed.
“Well, Brandon,” he said, “if it hadn’t been for your encouragement to
the paper industry my ankle wouldn’t be aching like the dickens.”
“Or we shouldn’t have seen the circus, either,” returned Dave, “which
shows that some good has come from my poems, after all.”
At the mess tent they found preparations for feeding the workers going
on briskly. But their attention became speedily attracted toward
several tents in which the horses were being stabled.
“Makes me think of Wyoming and old broncho days,” went on Dave, softly.
“Guess I won’t do any more riding, though, for a mighty long time.”
“Oh, fade away with such boasting,” said Victor. “Nothing could make me
believe that you ever rode a broncho.”
“Why, I----”
Dave didn’t get far with his protest.
“Fade!” roared Victor. And the stout boy concluded to abide by the
command.
It was not until half an hour later that the two turned away from the
noise and chaotic confusion in which Spudger’s Great Combined Peerless
Circus and Menagerie was still involved.
“I shouldn’t mind seeing the show,” remarked Victor, “but at ten
o’clock sharp to-morrow morning Uncle Ralph’s yacht pulls out.”
“And our motor car will leave about two P. M.,” said Dave. “So,
unless something happens mighty soon, the adventures of the Rambler
Club in this part of the country will add only a few dozen pages to my
history.”