THE CIRCUS.
Mrs. Wopp came down the path walking as briskly as her generous
avoirdupois would permit. She was followed by Ebenezer Wopp whose coat
seemed to cover some abnormal growth as though a watermelon might be
lodged there. It was a bundle of socks for his wife to mend during her
visit to Mrs. Mifsud’s ranch.
On such visits Mrs. Wopp enjoyed herself hugely. Her volubility was
overpowering; as Mrs. Mifsud had been known to remark, “Not even a
comma was there to clutch at to make good ones escape.” The faster her
needle flew the faster raced her tongue. In view of the impending
visit Mrs. Mifsud had surreptitiously stuffed one ear with cotton
batting so that in the event of an extremely sanguinary onslaught, so
to speak, at least one rampart of defence could be instantaneously
thrown up. Ebenezer Wopp unlike his wife was expecting nothing but an
afternoon of self-effacement though prepared to secretly admire to the
full Mrs. Wopp’s sprightly conversation.
Moses and Betty were left to mind house, the admonishings of Mrs. Wopp
being seasoned with picturesque if carelessly applied texts. The
envious might hurl hisses, but Moses and Betty were invulnerable to
all such assaults upon their anticipations of the day’s freedom with
its already planned joys.
“Now Mosey, you be ticket man at the gate an’ I’ll hev the circus all
ready,” cried Betty bounding into the house in the shortest possible
time after the departure of the elderly merrymakers.
She emerged from the house her hair coiled on the top of her head and
decorated with a strip of shining silver from an empty biscuit tin.
Thus had she seen a circus lady dressed on one never-to-be-forgotten
day. Around her small body was draped a yellow silk shawl of Mrs.
Wopps. Her feet were encased in a pair of Ebenezer Wopp’s reddest
socks, bound on by bright green ribbon ripped from her winter hat.
From her fair hair floated a white aigret made of chicken feathers
hastily wired together. Moses needed no aigret as a strand of red hair
stood upright from the crown of his head.
“Here Mosey,” said Betty, “is a tin crown. You can fasten it on with
this wire. See?”
In a moment the obliging boy’s head was surmounted by an empty tomato
can, and under the aegis of “Whacker Brand” he became attendant to the
circus manageress. Thus helmeted he stood and gazed at Betty as though
the hinges of his jaw were loosening.
“Stir yerself Moses or I’ll hev the zoo ready afore yer tickets are
writ.”
Moses began cutting make-believe tickets using the paper and scissors
thrust into his hand by the capable manageress of the show.
Presently he raised his head and was confronted by Job the turkey
wearing a tiny bright pink hat and a green ribbon round his neck. An
antimacassar bearing wide magenta and red crocheted stripes covered
his back causing him to strut with peacock pride.
“Don’t Job look jist like Mariar Mifsud goin’ to meetin’,” gurgled
Betty.
Next appeared Jethro in a high state of hilarity with a harness made
of Moses’ skate-straps and with a tiny doll dressed to represent a
monkey bound to his back.
“Jethro barks with his mouth an’ smiles with his tail,” said Betty.
“His tail’s druv in too far fer to waggle much though,” returned Moses
eyeing the diminutive stump.
As many of the hens and chickens as could be persuaded were ushered
into the yard to add to the numerical strength of the menagerie.
Betty kept her tour de force till the last and astounded Moses by
riding into the yard on the back of a large cow. Molly had been padded
to represent a camel and Betty rode perched insecurely on the hump of
the lordly creature, holding Mrs. Wopp’s treasured red parasol to give
the effect of a canopy.
Molly enjoyed the attentions of Betty and contentedly chewed her cud.
Whenever Betty leaned forward to caress the camel, Molly rolled out
some square inches of tongue and licked the glowing cheek of her
little mistress. An altogether adorable if somewhat familiar camel was
the old black cow.
“Oh, Betty, you got ole man Noer stuck in the shade. His ark never
turned out sich a fine camel as yourn, I bet,” cried Moses gleefully
as he proceeded to sell tickets and to admit an astonishingly large
number of imaginary people into the circus grounds.
“Now who wants to ride the camel? Who wants to ride the swayin’
tossin’ ship of the desert?” Betty turned to her swarming audience;
then to Moses she whispered as though she might be overheard, “You
step forward an’ pay me two bits fer a ride.” Moses put a ticket into
Betty’s hand and, not to be outdone in bravery, mounted the
single-humped camel. Molly forgot her training in the sandy desert and
lurched sadly.
“My feet’s purty well jolted up inter my head,” cried the
uncomfortable rider. But Betty insisted on his getting full value for
his money, and dared him to descend until the round of the arena had
been completed.
“Who wants to drive my trained bear an’ monkey? Only a dime stranger,
only a dime!”
Moses, hot-headed youth, squandered another coin for the thrilling
experience of tearing over the bare earth holding in Jethro by the
reins, and using words of sinister meaning to the unwieldy monster.
The monkey swayed painfully from the back of the excited Jethro.
By this time Betty was getting hoarse and instructed her perspiring
assistant what next to shout and the most fetching modulations of
voice to use. The change in program was bellowed in Moses’ raucous
voice, “An orstrich here, only fifty cents to see a live trained
orstrich!” A huge swallow and he continued, “Brought from Carliforny
and trained by the famousest lady Betty Wopp.” After further
instructions he went on, “This orstrich is named Job Wopp. He kin lay
the largest aig in the world, kin run faster than any horse, could
strike you dead with the hoof of his clawr.” Further whispering on the
part of Betty and the address concluded, “Yet, ladies and gents, he is
as gentle as a spring chicking.”
Everything was going smoothly when suddenly a catastrophe stopped
short the circus, and left Moses greatly distressed. He inwardly
complained that never yet was he “havin’ a good time but some orful
thing happened to put a cloud over the sun.” The hens and chickens
that had been pressed into the ranks of the circus performers were
crowding round a swill-bucket which Moses had left tilted at a
precarious angle on an upturned soap-box. In its zig-zag gyrations
round the yard, the ostrich, to avoid the ubiquitous fowl, ran against
the bucket and the odoriferous contents were splashed over the
yellow-draped circus lady. The contents of the swill-pail trickled
down Betty’s finery and dropped sadly from the pink headgear of the
ostrich.
The audience made an impetuous dash to the scene of the fatality and
as he stooped over the dripping yellow-frocked figure a jolt of even
greater proportions upset the bucket entirely; a deluge of the
unsavory mixture almost knocked off his knightly helmet and trickled
from its rusty edges till he looked like a very rotund and rakish Don
Quixote.
Job’s feathers that to Betty’s eyes had taken on the glory of ostrich
plumes, drooped disconsolately, while Moses denounced in fluent
language the stupidity of the fowl that had caused the unfortunate
episode. He declared loudly that he would like to wring the aggressive
portions of those feathered culprits. The group stood for a moment, a
miniature Vesuvius erupting lava and ashes, while Moses wrung the
offending liquid from Betty’s yellow drape and the magenta
antimacassar. His sense of the ludicrous however overcame his wrath,
“My Eye Betty!” he cried, “I near kerlapse every time I draw up my
curtings on Job.”
Enjoying the spectacle, Henry the pet rooster stood on the rail-fence
crowing lustily in chanticleer derision.
The resourceful Betty was not to be undone by this embarrassing
accident. She used the silk shawl to groom the ostrich and to mop the
disfiguring stains from Moses’ face. The helmet was discarded and the
aigret of red hair rose instantly undaunted, waving a lively
accompaniment to the boy’s continued exertions to follow the pace set
by Betty’s imagination.
“Yer a reglar Mis’ Barnum,” he praised. Whereupon the enterprising
program-maker began to devise new and more wonderful side-shows for
her admirer.
In the matter of the next adventure, Moses’ feet were fast approaching
that degree known as freezing point. But spurred on by the resolute
will of his sister he rose to the occasion of a chariot race, adapted
from “Ben Hur.” They had never forgotten the thrill they had
experienced when one day at Mrs. Mifsud’s house the nephew of that
good lady, with city-bred art, had recited in melodramatic fashion
“Ben Hur’s Chariot Race.”
“You hitch Jethro to yer ole ’xpress waggon, ’n I’ll hitch Job to a
prune-box with spool-wheels,” suggested Betty.
Discarded shoe-laces, rope and trunk-straps came hastily into
requisition. The vociferations of Moses were so severe on his vocal
chords that he found it necessary to visit the pump.
“Gosh! My throat feels like I’d been garglin’ with a bumble bee,” he
exclaimed. Greatly refreshed, he did full justice to the difficult
roles of combined driver and audience. Jethro, delighted with the new
game, tore madly round the yard, barking shrilly and demanding more
speed. But Job, running sadly corner-wise, was destined from the start
for a losing race.
“Never mind Jobie, we want Jethro to win anyway, don’t we?” said
Betty, presenting to the turkey her pocket filled with grain.
“Put a crown of pickled olerves on me,” demanded Moses, “me ’n Jethro
beat.” He stood before his sister mopping his face. The express waggon
with a wheel off was overturned and a frightened. “Cheep, cheep,
cheep” came from beneath it.
“My racer has only one eye anyways,” said Betty defiantly as she
twined a piece of nasturtium vine round the noble brow of the victor.
“What’s next?”
Moses was not easily satisfied. His attitude was always that of one
who has dined on an undersized shrimp while expecting a ten-course
banquet.
“Cleanin’ up’s next, Mose. Take my device an’ shoo away them hens an’
chickings. Mar’ll be home soon.”
“Singe my hair ef I do, let’s hev some more doin’s,” rebelled Moses.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the sound of an
approaching team was heard. Betty eyed ruefully the silk shawl she had
flung on the ground.
“She’ll be orful mad,” prophecied Moses.
“You young Hottentots, wot youse been up to?” All too soon Moses’
prophecy proved true.
Mrs. Wopp’s eyes fell on the stained shawl.
“Nothin’.”
At this mendacious statement Mrs. Wopp turned on her offspring a
withering glance.
“Jevver see sich a useless boy? Been learnin’ spellin’s orl day, I
’xpect.”
Viewing the upturned swill-pail, she suddenly became cynical.
“It’s my doin’s, Mar,” said Betty, “I made it orl up outer my head.”
“She’s a reglar show-lady,” defended Moses. This was hardly a
strategic move from Moses, as he had just asserted they had been doing
nothing.
Mrs. Wopp was an incurable optimist, although the citadel of her
optimism was being assailed. Turning her wrathful gaze from Moses, her
eye lighted on the soiled pink hat and antimacassar still worn by Job.
She burst into a hearty laugh and turned to Betty.
“Yer a limb o’ Satan orl right. The shawl was needin’ dyein’ anyway.
I’ll jist make it green. Yer Par used to say I looked right harnsome
in green, so I’ll s’prise him with a new shawl over my shoulders.” She
turned to the dog. The strenuous exertions of the afternoon had
noticeably reduced his girth.
“This here dorg is clean tuckered out,” she declared, “ef he swallered
a green pea, you’d see it goin’ down orl the way.”
In a few days the sight of his wife wrapped in a shawl the color of an
unripe cucumber had a rejuvenating influence upon Ebenezer Wopp. He
did not say much, being a man of few words, but his sentiments were
inscribed in cramped illegible writing on a slip of paper to be handed
down to posterity.