A ROMANCE OF THE RING.
There is a great deal of romance in the life of a circus performer; and
as the theatrical world is often penetrated in search of subjects rich
in fiction, so, too, romancers enter the circus ring to find a hero or
heroine for an o'er-true tale. In a Western paper I found the following
pretty and touching story, which had evidently been copied from some
other paper without credit, and which, as it deals with circus life,
and particularly that feature of it we have just left--equestrianism--I
believe it will be found interesting, and in reproducing it regret that
I am unacquainted with the source whence it came, as the publication in
which it originally appeared certainly deserves mention:--
The North American Consolidated Circus was to show in Shadowville.
Shadowville was named after a legend of a haunted shadow that envelopes
the town after sunset; and long before the canvas flaps were drawn back
and the highly gilded ticket-wagon, with the "electric ticket seller"
was ready to change greenbacks for the red-backed "open sesame," the
ground and two streets leading to the lot were crowded with an anxious,
expectant, peanut-munching, chewing-gum-masticating collection. The
large posters and handbills announced in highly colored style the
arrival of "Miss Nannie Florenstein, the most wonderful bareback rider
in the known world!" while the little "gutter snipes" simply begged
the people to "wait for Miss Nannie Florenstein."
The "doors are thrown open," and in less than twenty minutes the
immense canvas is rising and falling with the concentrated respirations
of five thousand people. Such a crowd! Charles Dickens, Anthony
Trollope, or Bret Harte would have been in ecstacies at the curious
collection of faces, costumes, and vernacular, not to mention the
expressions of genuine enthusiasm or surprise at the entries into the
ring of even the sawdust rakers.
The band has ended its attempt at one of Strauss's waltzes, and the
master of ceremonies, Mr. Lunt, walks consequentially into the ring,
bowing to the vast concourse, who applaud at--they scarce know what.
"This way, Mr. Oliphant."
"Aye, aye, sir! 'Ere hi ham. Ah, sir! this bevy of smiling faces is
refreshing even to the sawdust. [Applause.] What shall we have now,
sir?" asks the jester (?) as he throws his hat in the air and catches
it on--the ground.
"Mr. Tom Karl."
"Not the tender singer, sir?"
"You mean tenor singer! No! The pad rider, sir."
"It's all the same, Mr. Lunt; but time's flying. Ah! here is Karl! Now,
then, Mr. Karl, that's the way I used to ride--(aside) in my mind."
And so it goes. One act after another, each one showing agility,
daring, and skill; while the old jester and ring master entertain the
crowd and rest the performers.
"Miss Nannie Florenstein, ladies and gentlemen, will now have the honor
of appearing before you in her wonderful bareback act--riding a wild,
untamed horse without either bridle, saddle or surcingle. An act never
before accomplished--although often attempted--by any lady in the
world! Miss Nannie Florenstein!"
A lithe, pretty little lady, with an anxious, careworn face, stepped
into the ring, and, acknowledging the applause of the audience, vaulted
lightly on the back of her black horse, and quicker than a flash of
lightning was off. Around and around the forty-two-foot circle she
goes, pirouetting, posturing, and doing a really graceful and wonderful
act.
She is what all the papers had claimed she would be. There is a
spirit of reckless daring flashing from her dark eyes as she jumps
"the banners," and even the old and stoical ring master watches her
anxiously as she attempts one act more daring than the rest--that
of standing on her tip-toes on the horse's hindquarters and slowly
pirouetting as the animal continues his mad career.
Suddenly she reels. She has lost her balance. Over she goes. Her head
has struck the ring board. A shriek of a thousand anxious voices rends
the air, and all is confusion.
She is bleeding, bleeding profusely from a cut in her forehead. A
hundred hands are ready to convey her to the dressing-tent.
A rough-hewn specimen of a man suddenly appears in their midst. Where
he came from or what moved him no one knows.
"Stand back! stand back, I say, and give the gal air! Do ye hear?"
Instinctively every one obeys him.
"Yere's a doctor. Doctor, this gal I know. 'Tend ter her, an' look ter
me for the perkisites."
A quiet, confident-looking gentleman, Dr. Adams, is already by her
side, stopping the flow of blood, and under his directions she is
conveyed to her dressing-tent, the miner, tall, athletic, and with
immense, sunburned beard, following anxiously in the rear.
The performance has been renewed and the crowd are forgetting the
accident, when the miner appears in the ring dragging after him a
performer, Monsieur La Forge, as he is called, "the strongest man in
the world," who resists with all his might the iron muscles that are
clinched like a vice on his collar.
A trapeze act is being performed, but all eyes are on the miner and
his victim, not one of the performers having interfered, as they all
dislike and fear La Forge for his bullying, bragadocio character.
"Leddies and gintlemin, this yere coyote am ther cause on that yere
young gal er falling. I knows 'em both. He wanted ter kill her. Yes,
yer did, ye skunk! He stole her when she war a chile from my sister. I
knowed him; I knowed her. He hearn I was coming ter-day and he sed that
he'd kill her. Lay down, yer he-bar! Lay down, I say.
"I was standing close on ter this ring when I seed him fire sumthing at
her. She turned her putty eyes to see what it wur and over she went.
Mister performers, ye'll 'scuse me fur interruptin' yer performances,
but I thought I'd let these yere know who this skunk is. Now, then,
Meester Ler Forgey, alias John Rafferty, what have yer got to say to my
statement?"
"Hang him! Hang him! Strangle him!" broke in the crowd as they left
their seats and rushed for the ring.
"Back! Back! Yer shan't hang him! Do yer hear? Ther fust man that
raises a finger to throttle him, I'll pile in that yere saw dust! Do
yer hear?"
His revolver levelled at the angry, grumbling crowd held them back.
They all knew him. All knew old Ned Struthers, the most daring and best
shot on the frontier; a man whom the redskins feared more than a whole
army of trained United States soldiers; a remnant of a race of men who
could settle the Indian question quicker, better, and with less expense
than a whole army of Indian whiskey-selling agents; a man who they knew
was dangerous and vindictive when aroused. So all kept their distance.
"Now, thin, yer goll-darned skunk, git up off yer knees! Git!"
"The doctor says Miss Florenstein is dying!" the ring master, pale and
breathless, announced as he ran into the ring.
"Dying, did yer say, Mister? Oh, yer mean rattlesnake! Pray she may
live--pray! Ef she dies, I'll hang yer scalp on her coffin! Do you
hear?"
Poor Rafferty, by the intervention of the sheriff, who had a free pass
to the show, and was present, was released from Ned Struthers's hold
and taken away to the lock-up while Ned hurried to the bedside of his
sister's child, Miss Nannie Florenstein.
She tossed and moaned upon her improvised bed of straw, an
anguish-stricken few around her; for she was loved by the company. Her
lustreless eyes would open appealingly, and looking with tear-bedimmed
expression at some familiar face near her, try to smile them a
recognition--a sad, painful recognition.
The doctor knelt beside her with one hand on her pulse and one on her
bandaged forehead, and as he noticed the weary, faint pulsation, would
shake his head, prophetic of her death.
The flaps of her tent are raised, and old Ned Struthers, hat in hand,
looks in, asking in a mute way permission to enter. The doctor sees him
and beckons him to her side.
Nannie hears his footstep as it crushes the straw beneath his weight,
and, slowly opening her eyes, looks at him in an indifferent,
inquisitive way. Suddenly they brighten; she closes them as if to
think--in a minute opens them with a glad smile of affectionate
recognition lighting up her handsome, pale face, raises her weak hand,
beckons him to her, and as he takes her little fingers into his brawny
palm she pulls him gently to her and whispers something in his ear. She
cannot speak loud.
Old Ned cannot keep back the tears as they slowly run down his bronzed
cheek and are lost in the shadow of his beard. He has now knelt beside
her and answers her whispered question.
"Yes, little un! I'm yer uncle--yer loving uncle! Get well, little un,
and I'll take care on yer." He could say no more.
She, poor little bruised body, turns to him a grateful smile of
affection, and again drawing him to her, kisses his wrinkled old
forehead, while the group who are silent witnesses of the scene turn
away their heads in silent sorrow.
"Say, Doctor, can't we move her to sum more kumfortable quarters?--to
ther hotel? Her aunty lives some twenty miles from yere, and I'll send
for her."
Again Nannie opened her eyes, looking anxiously at the doctor, but
a shadow darkened the tent opening and a young, handsome-faced man
enters; instantly her eyes meet his, and she beckons him to her, and
drawing him down to her side, whispers a few words in his ear. His face
brightens, and turning to Ned--who is curiously watching this last
scene--puts out a hard, muscular hand as he says:--
"Mr. Struthers, Nannie tells me you are her uncle. I am engaged to be
married to Nan."
Old Ned eyed him curiously and doubtingly as he replies:--
"Wal, sir! what Nan tells yer is gospel truth. I'm her uncle; but
about the other part of the bizness I ain't so sartin"--but seeing
Nan's troubled face appealingly turned to him, he continues: "But was
she right? Nan oughter be married. Ef she was she wouldn't be yere, a
jumping on bar horses' backs, he showing her--I mean, sir, she oughter
be at hum, and I'd do thar barback ridin' for ther crowd--thet is, our
leetle crowd, ter hum; but 'scuse me, we must move Nan--what's yer
bizness, sir?"
"I'm in the same business as Nan; we were brought up together, trained
together, and next week we were to be married."
"Together, I serpose?" laughingly answered Ned, as he saw Nan brighten
and smile at her intended's words.
Nan was carefully removed to a hotel, the proprietor of the circus
defraying all the necessary expenses of a large room and extra
attendance. Old Ned was about to start for his sister's, Nan's aunt,
to attend her, as the doctor had taken a more hopeful view of her
recovery if properly nursed, when he, entering the bar-room of the
hotel, preparatory to starting, was suddenly made aware that he was the
target of at least a dozen eyes, all staring with a perplexed gaze at
him. First he thought it might be something in his dress, but this he
quickly ascertained was not so; then he surveyed his face in the mirror
opposite. At last he got angry.
"What are ye all staring at? Do I owe enny on yer ennything, eh?" He
was defiant now.
"No, Mr. Struthers, you don't owe anybody here anything that I am aware
of! We have congregated here to congratulate you. We have heard you had
recovered your niece and your mine, and we come, as fellow-townsmen, to
congratulate you." It was the town justice who spoke.
"My neese, pardner, I've diskivered, but ther mine I wanter sell out
to-morrow, and----"
"Mr. Struthers, here's a telegram for you." A messenger boy handed him
a telegram.
"Read that fir me, jidge, will yer?" And he handed the telegram to the
justice of the peace.
"Mr. Struthers, it is an offer from Col. Allston, of San Francisco. He
says: 'I will give you three hundred thousand dollars and one quarter
share for your Red Gulch mine. Answer. Pay in cash.' That's all, sir,
only the news has been on the street for half an hour!"
"Wal, I declare that's prime news! Let's take a drink, boys. Squire,
you jist answer that tillygram, will yer? Tell Kurnel Allston I'll take
the offer, and he may send the cash yere. Say, boys, thet's gud news,
but I must tell my neese!"
"Mr. Struthers, before you go will you tell us about your niece?"
"Sartlingly! Yer see boys, abeout fifteen years agone my sister died
an' left har leetle one--Nannie was her name--left her with a widder
woman in 'Fresco. I war away in Nevady; hed only been gone three
months. The young un war only nine y'ars old, an' when I got thet news
I war struck dumb. Yer see, my sister hed heart disease. I started with
my pack mule fir 'Fresco, but whin I 'rived thar the young un and the
widder war gone. I hearn she hed gone to Brazzel with her husband, a
man named Rafferty, a sirkus performer, so I waited. Abeout thet time I
was takin sick with small-pox, and whin I got well I could not get no
news on thet young un, so I gave up thar trial. Abeout one month ago I
war at Red Gulch Canyon, er staking off my 'find,' whin Jim Parkins,
my ole pard, wrote me from San Yosea thet my leetle un war with this
yere sirkus, and thet her name was Nannie Florenstein. So I got on
thar trail, found this yere Rafferty hed her as his'n--or raether his
darter--got $200 a week fir her an' gave her nuthing, so I lit on him
yere to-day, drapped on him foul, and ther war wolf meat in the air.
But he crawled, an' now I'm going ter send him ter prison. I think he
can do more good breakin' stuns than performing on cannons--eh?"
The crowd--it was a crowd by the time he had finished--gave the old man
three rousing cheers and he escaped from them, hastening to Nannie's
room to find her wonderfully improved and able to sit up.
* * * * *
The circus left Shadowville without "Miss Nannie Florenstein," and
to-day she has returned from a village church a blooming bride, "Frank
Grace, the celebrated bareback rider," being her happy husband.
Old Ned occupies a seat in their carriage.
"Uncle, you have made me a happy woman and Frank a happy man."
"Yas, leetle un, I serpose so. It is better than bar'-back riding,
ain't it?"
"Yes, uncle. But how can I thank you for all the wealth you have
showered on me, and for the home you have bought us?" again asked Nan,
as she kissed his happy face.
"Wall, leetle un, I don't kinder want eny thanks, only plese don't--I
mean ef yer hev eny children, leetle un, don't trust 'em ter eny
widders ter sell 'em out ter sirkus people fur bar'-back ridin'."
"You may be certain of that Uncle Struthers," answered Frank, as he
kissed his bride.
"Wall, I hope so. Enyhow, if yer do, see they doesn't fall from thar
horse's back into a rich uncle's pocket--eh, you little pet!" And the
carriage stopped in front of their new home, happy, bright and cheerful.
[Illustration: A HUMAN PYRAMID.]