The Bad Boy Visits the Circus in Winter Quarters--He Meets the
Circus Performers--Dad Rides a Horse and Gets Tossed in a
Blanket--The Bad Boy Goes "Kangarooing"--Pa's Clothes Cause
Excitement Among the Animals--A Monkey Steals His Watch.
April 15.--We are now at the winter quarters of the show, in a little
town, on a farm just outside, where the tent is put up and the animals
are being cared for in barns, and the performers are limbering up their
joints, wearing overcoats to turn flip-flaps, and everybody has a cold,
and looks blue, and all are anxious for warm weather.
Pa created a sensation when we arrived by his stunning clothes, his jet
black chin whiskers and his watch chain over his checkered vest, and
when the proprietors introduced pa to the performers and hands, as an
old stockholder in the show, who would act as assistant manager during
the season and pa smiled on them with a frown on his forehead, and said
he hoped his relations with them would be pleasant, one of the old
canvasmen remarked to a girl who rides two horses at once with the
horses strapped together, so they can't get too far apart and cause her
to break in two, said that old goat with the silk hat would last just
about four weeks, and that he reminded the canvasman of a big dog which
barked at people as though he would eat them, and at the same time
wagged his tail, so people would not think he was so confounded
dangerous.
The principal proprietor of the circus told pa to make himself at home
around the tent, and not be offended at any pleasantry on the part of
the attaches of the show, for they were full of fun, and he went off to
attend to some business and left pa with the gang. They were practicing
riding bare-backed horses around the ring, with a rope hitched in a belt
around the waist of the rider and an arm swinging around from the center
pole, so if they fell off the horse the rope would prevent the rider
from falling to the ground, a practice that the best riders adopt early
in the season, the same as new beginners, 'cause they are all stiffened
up by being out of practice. One man rode around a few times, and pa got
up close to the ring and was making some comments such as: "Why, any
condemned fool could ride a horse that way," when the circus gang as
quick as you could say scat, fastened a belt around pa's stomach, that
had a ring in it, and before he knew it they had hitched a snap in the
ring, and pa was hauled up as high as the horse, and his feet rested on
the horse's back, and the horse started on a gallop.
Well, say, pa was never so surprised in his life, but he dug his heels
into the horse's back, and tried to look pleasant, and the horse went
half way around the ring, and just as pa was getting confidence some one
hit the horse on the ham with a piece of board, and the horse went out
from under pa and he began to fall over backwards, and I thought his
circus career would end right there, when the man who had hold of the
rope pulled up, and pa was suspended in the air by the ring in the belt,
back up, and stomach hanging down like a pillow, his watch dangling
about a foot down towards the ring, and the horse came around the ring
again and as he went under pa, pa tried to get his feet on the horse's
back, but he couldn't make it work, and pa said, as cross as could be:
"Lookahere, you fellers, you let me down, or I will discharge every
mother's son of you."
[Illustration: Pa Was Suspended in the Air.]
But they didn't seem to be scared, for one man caught the horse and let
it out of the ring, and the man who handled the rope tied it to the
center pole by a half hitch, and the fellows all went into the dressing
room to play cinch on the trunks, leaving pa hanging there. Just then
the boss canvasman came along and he said: "Hello, old man, what you
doing up there?" And pa said some of the pirates in the show had
kidnaped him, and seemed to be holding him up for a ransom, and he said
he would give ten dollars if some one would let him down.
The boss canvasman said he could fix it for ten, all right, and he blew
a whistle, and the gang came back, and the boss said: "Bring a blanket
and help this gentleman down;" so they brought a big piece of canvas,
with handles all around it, and about a dozen fellows held it, and the
rope man let pa down on the canvas, and unhitched the ring, and when pa
was in the canvas he laughed and said: "Thanks, gentlemen, I guess I am
mot much of a horseback rider," and then the fellows pulled on the
handles of the canvas, and by gosh, pa shot up into the air half-way to
the top of the tent, and when he came down they caught him in the canvas
and tossed him up a whole lot of times until pa said: "O, let up, and
make it $20." Just then the proprietor who had introduced pa to the men
came in and saw what was going on, and he said: "Here, you heathen, you
quit this hazing right here," and they let pa down on the floor of the
ring, and he got up and pulled his pants down, that had got up above his
knees, and shook himself and took out his roll, and peeled off a $20
bill and gave it to the canvasman, and he shook hands with them all, and
said he liked a joke as well as anybody, and for them to spend the money
to have a good time, and they all laughed and patted pa on the back, and
said he was a dead game sport, and would be an honor to the profession,
and that now that he has taken the first degree as a circus man he could
call on them for any sacrifice, or any work, and he would find that they
would be Johnny on the spot.
Then he went out to the dining tent and took dinner with the crowd and
had a jolly time. There was a woman trapeze performer on one side of pa
at dinner, and she began to kick at once about the meals, and when the
waiter brought a piece of meat to us all--a great big piece, that looked
like corned beef, she said: "For heaven's sake, ain't that elephant that
died all been eaten up yet?" and then she told pa that they had been fed
on that deceased elephant, until they all felt like they had trunks
growing out of their heads, and pa poked the meat with his fork, and
thought it was elephant, and he lost his appetite, and everybody
laughed. I eat some of it and if it was elephant it was all right.
Well, when dinner was about over, all filled their glasses to drink to
the health of pa, the old stockholder and new manager, and pa got up and
bowed, and made a little speech, and when he sat down one of the circus
girls was in his chair, and he sat in her lap, and the crowd all yelled,
except a Spanish bull-fighter who seemed to be the husband of the woman
pa sat on, and he wanted pa's blood, but the old circus manager took him
away to save pa from trouble, and he glared back at pa, and I think he
will stab pa with a dirk knife.
We got out of the dining tent, and went to the barn, where the animals
are kept all winter, and pa wanted me to become familiar with the habits
of the beasts, 'cause they were to be in pa's charge, with the keepers
of the different kinds of animals to report to pa. Nobody need tell me
that animals have no human instincts, and do not know how to take a
joke. We are apt to think that wild animals in captivity are worrying
over being confined in cages, and gazed at and commented on by curious
visitors, and that they dream of the free life they lived in the
jungles, and sigh to go back where they were, captured, and prowl around
for food, but you can't fool me. Animals that formerly had to go around
in the woods, hungry half the time and occasionally gorging themselves
on a dead animal and sleeping out in the rain in all kinds of weather,
know when they have struck a good thing in a menagerie, with clean straw
to sleep in, and when they are hungry all they have to do is to sound
their bugle and they have pre-digested beefsteak and breakfast food
brought to them on a silver platter, and if the food is not to their
liking they set up a kick like a star boarder at a boarding house. Their
condition in the show, in its changed condition from that of their
native haunts, is like taking a hobo off the trucks of a freight train
and taking him to the dining car of the limited, and letting him eat to
a finish. People talk about animals escaping from captivity, and going
back to the jungles and humane societies shed tears over the poor,
sad-eyed captives, sighing for their homes, but you turn them loose at
South Bend, and run your circus train to New Albany without them and
they would follow the train and overtake it before the evening
performance the next day, and you would find them trying to break into
their cages again, and they would have to be fed.
When pa and I went into the barn where the cages were, to take an
account of stock, and get acquainted with our animals, they acted just
like the circus men did when they saw pa's clothes. The animals were
about half asleep when we went in, but a big lion bent one eye on pa,
and then he rose up and shook himself and gave a roar and a cough that
sounded like he had the worst case of pneumonia, and he snorted a couple
of times, as though he was saying to the other animals: "Here's
something that will kill you dead, and I want you all to have a piece of
it, raw," and he brayed some more, and all the animals joined in the
chorus, the big tiger lying down on his stomach and waving his tail, and
snarling and showing his teeth like a cat that has located a mouse hole,
and the tiger seemed to say: "O, I saw it first, and it's mine."
The hyena set up a laugh like a man who is not tickled, but feels that
it is up to him to laugh at a funny story that he can't see the point of
at a banquet where Chauncey Depew tells one of his crippled jokes, and
pa was getting nervous. A big grizzly bear was walking delegate in his
cage, and he looked at pa as much as to say: "Hello, Teddy, I was not at
home when you called in Colorado, but you get in this cage, and I will
make you think the Spanish war was a Sunday school picnic beside what
you will get from your uncle Ephraim," and a bob cat jumped up into the
top of his cage and snarled and showed his teeth, and seemed to say:
"Bring on your whole pack of dogs and I will eat them alive."
Pa threw out his chest in front of a monkey cage, and a monkey snatched
his watch, and then all the animals began to laugh at pa just like a lot
of bad boys in school when visitors make a call. Pa went around to visit
all the animals, officially, while I got interested in a female
kangaroo, with a couple of babies, not more than three weeks old, and I
noticed the mother kangaroo made the old man kangaroo, her husband,
stand around and he acted just like some men I have seen who were afraid
to say their souls were their own in the presence of their wives.
The female kangaroo is surely a wonder, and seems to be built on plans
and specifications different from any other animal, cause she has got a
fur-lined pouch on her stomach, just like a vest, that she carries her
young in. When the babies are frightened they make a hurry-up move
towards ma, the pouch opens, and they jump in out of sight, like a
gopher going into its hole, and the mother looks around as innocent as
can be, as much as to say: "You can search me. I don't know, honestly,
where those kids have gone, but they were around here not more than a
minute ago." And when the fright is over the two heads peep out of the
top of the pouch, and the old man grunts, as much as to say: "O, come on
out, there is no danger, and let your ma have a little rest, 'cause she
is nervous," and then the babies come out and run around the cage, and
sit up on their hind feet and look wise. That kangaroo pouch is a
success, and I wonder why nature did not provide pouches for all animals
to carry their young in. I think Pullman must have got his ideas for the
upper and lower berths of a sleeping car by seeing a kangaroo pouch. I
am going to study the kangaroo and make friends with the old man
kangaroo, 'cause he looks as though he had troubles of his own.
Pa showed up without any coat, while I was kangarooing, and there was a
rip in his pants, and I asked him what was the trouble, and he said he
got too near the cage of a leopard that seemed to be asleep, and the
traitor reached out his paw and gathered in the tail of pa's coat, and
just snatched it off his back as though it was made of paper.
[Illustration: A Leopard Reached Out His Paw and Gathered In the Tail of
Pa's Coat.]
Pa is a little discouraged about his experience in the circus the first
day, but he says it will be great when we get the run of the business.
He says every day will have its excitement. Tomorrow they are going to
extract a tooth from the boa-constrictor, and pa and I are going to help
hold him, while the animal dentist pulls the tooth, and then we scrub
the rhinoceros, and oil the hippopotamus, and get everything ready to
start out on the road, and I can't write any more in my diary until
after we fix the snake. Gee, but he is as long as a clothesline.