The Bad Boy and His Pa Drive a Roman Chariot--They Win the Race, but
Meet With Difficulties--The Bearded Lady to the Rescue--A Farmer's
Cart Breaks Up the Circus Procession.
Ohio was a hoodoo for the circus business, and Kentucky got the whole
bunch ready for a long stay at Dwight, Ill., but the agent routed us
into Pennsylvania, and pa has had nothing but a series of disasters
since striking the state.
Pa gave notice that when we got to his old home, at Scranton, where he
lived when he was a boy, he wanted to sort of run things, so his old
neighbors would see that he had got up in the world since he left the
old town. So the manager gave pa about 400 free tickets to distribute
among his friends, and arranged for pa to show off as the leading
citizen in the show. He was offered a chance to take the place of the
clown, the ring master or anybody whose duty he thought he could
perform. Pa selected the place of driver of the Roman chariot with four
horses abreast, in place of the Irish Roman who was accustomed to drive
the chariot in the race with the female charioteer, a muscular girl who
used to clerk in a livery stable at Chicago.
The chariot race is a fake, because it is arranged for the girl to win,
so the audience will go wild and cheer her, so she has to come bowing
all around the ring. The way the job is put up is for the two chariots
to start, and go around twice. On the first turn the man driver is
ahead, and takes the pole, and on the second turn the girl's ahead, and
she takes the pole, and on the third turn the man is ahead, and they
begin to whip the horses, who seem crazy, and on the last stretch the
man holds his team back a little, and the girl passes him and comes out
a trifle ahead, and the crowd goes wild.
Well, the master of ceremonies coached pa about the business, and told
him what to do. They knew he could drive four horses, because he said he
was an old stage driver, and when he got in the chariot with the Roman
suit on gleaming with gold, and the brass helmet, and the cloth of gold
gauntlets, and stood up like a senator, gee, I was proud of him, and
when he and the female drove out of the dressing-room and halted by the
door for the announcer to announce the great Ben Hur chariot race, I got
into the chariot behind pa, and told him he must win the race, or the
people of Scranton would mob him. For they knew these races were usually
fixed beforehand, but since he was to drive one of the teams, all his
friends were betting on him, and if he pulled the team and let that
livery stable lady win the race, they would accuse him of giving free
tickets to get them in the show and skin them out of their money.
Pa said to me: "This race is going to be on the square, and you watch my
smoke. Do you think I would let that red-headed dish washer beat me? Not
on your life."
The play is to have a little boy kiss the male driver good-by, and a
little girl kiss the female driver good-by, as though they were taking
their lives in their hands. I had climbed up to pa and put my arms
around his neck, and kissed him, and a girl kissed the female, when the
gong sounded, and both four-horse teams made a jump, before I could get
out of the chariot, so I got right in front of pa and peeked over the
dashboard of the chariot, and, gee, but didn't we fairly whizz by the
poles, and the audience looked like a panorama.
Pa got the pole and kept it, and we went around three times, and found
the female chariot ahead of us, cause pa had gone around twice to her
once. She turned out a little right by the band-stand, and pa run his
team right inside her chariot and caught her wheel, and when he yelled
to his team, her cart, team, and all were thrown right into the band,
which scattered over the backs of the seats. The horses were all mixed
up with the instruments, and the female driver was thrown into the air
and came down in a sitting position right into the bass drum. She went
right through the sheepskin, so her head and hands and feet were all of
her that remained outside the drum.
[Illustration: Her Cart, Team and All Were Thrown Right Against the
Band.]
She yelled for help and the circus hands rolled the drum, with her in
it, into the dressing-room, where they had to cut the sides of the drum
with an ax, to get her out, while others caught her horses and pulled
the chariot out of the band, and the music stopped; but pa went on
forever.
He went around six times yelling like an Indian at a green corn dance,
and when he thought it was time to let up, because he had missed the
other chariot, he pulled so hard he broke the lines on the two inside
horses and then it was a runaway for sure, and the audience stood up on
the seats and yelled, and women fainted.
Finally the circus hands grabbed some hurdles, and threw them across the
track, near the main entrance, and when we came around the last time,
two of the horses jumped the hurdles all right, but two fumbled and fell
down, and there was a crash, and I didn't know anything until I felt
cold water on my face that tasted sour, and colored my shirt red, and I
found the lemonade butcher was bringing me to by pouring a tray of
lemonade over me.
When my eyes opened, I saw a sight that I shall never forget. It seems
that when the horses fell down, the chariot and the other two horses and
pa and I had landed all in a heap right on top of the lemonade and
peanut concession, and carried it up onto a row of seats near the main
entrance from the menagerie. The elephants that were to come on next
were in the door waiting for their signal, and they were scared at the
crash, and they came in bellowing, the keepers having lost all control
of them. The audience was stampeding, and the circus men were trying to
straighten things out.
Pa struck on his head against a wagon wheel and his brass helmet was
driven down over his face, so when he yelled to be pulled out of the
helmet his voice sounded like a coon song, coming from a phonograph. It
was the closest call from death pa ever had, 'cause they had to cut the
helmet with a can opener to let pa out, like you open a can of lobsters.
When they got the helmet opened so pa could come out, he looked just
like a boiled lobster, and when the chief owner of the circus came up on
a run, and asked if pa was dead, pa said: "Not much, Mary Ann; did I
win?" and the manager said it was a pity they ever opened that helmet
and let pa out. The man told pa he won in a walk, but the chief of
police of Scranton was going to arrest pa for exceeding the speed limit.
[Illustration: Pa Struck on His Head Against a Wagon Wheel.]
They took pa to the dressing-room on a piece of board, and when the
woman driver saw him, she got an ax, and wanted to cleave him from head
to foot, but the bearded woman stepped in front of her and said: "Not on
your life," and she shielded pa from death with her manly form, which pa
says he shall never forget. Pa's old friends in Scranton gave him a
banquet that night, but pa couldn't eat anything, cause the rim of the
brass helmet cut a gash in his Adam's apple.
After the chariot race the managers concluded they wouldn't let pa have
any position of importance again very soon, and I made up my mind you
wouldn't ever catch me in any game that pa was in; but in the circus
business you can never tell what is going to happen from one day to
another.
On the train on the way to Wilkes Barre there was a hot box on one of
the sleepers, and the car was side-tracked all night.
When we arrived at the town about 40 wagon drivers that were in the car
did not show up, and they had to press everybody that could drive a team
into the service to haul the stuff to the lot, and pa drove four horses
so well with a load of tent poles that the manager complimented pa, and
that gave pa the big head. When the parade was all ready to start
through town, and the drivers had not arrived, the manager asked pa if
he thought he could drive the ten gray horses on the band wagon, to lead
the procession, and pa said driving ten horses was his best hold, and he
got up on the driver's seat, and called me to get up with him, and I
hate a boy that will disobey a parent, so I climbed up and began to
jolly the band about the chariot race, and I told them pa wouldn't do a
thing to them this time.
The manager of the show always rides ahead of the parade, with the chief
of police of the town, and the band horses follow him, so it is easy
enough to drive ten horses, cause all you have to do it to hold on to
the 20 lines, and look savage at the crowd on the sidewalks, and the
horses go right along, and the people think the driver is a wonder. So
when the manager started in his buggy pa pulled up on all the lines he
could hold on to, which filled his lap, and made him look like a harness
maker, and he yelled: "Ye-up," and the procession moved, and the ten
teams pa was driving went along all right, and pa looked as though he
owned the show and the town.
We got downtown, to a wide street, and there was a fire alarm ahead, or
something, and the procession stopped, and the manager and chief of
police disappeared, and there was a wagon load of green corn stalks
right beside the lead team, which a farmer was taking to a silo, but he
had stopped his team to see the parade. The three teams of pa's leaders,
six horses, began to eat the corn stalks, and the camels, that were
behind us, worked along up by the band wagon and began to eat, and the
farmer got scared to see his corn stalks disappearing, so he drove off
on a side street, and started for the silo, and by ginger, pa's team
turned onto the side street and followed the wagon of corn stalks, and
pa couldn't hold them, and the band played, "In the Good Old Summer
Time, There Will Be a Hot Time in the Old Town."
The camels kept up with the farmer's wagon, too, and the whole parade
followed the band. The farmer started his horses into a run, and the
team of ten horses that was driving pa started to galloping, and I
looked back, and the elephants were beginning to gallop, and all the
cages were coming whooping, and it was a picnic. The band stopped
playing, and the players were scared, and as we were crossing a little
bridge over a small stream, on the edge of town, I turned around to the
band and told them to jump for their lives, and they all made a jump for
the stream, and the air was full of uniforms and instruments, and they
landed in the stream all right.
We went on up a hill, and were in the country, and the farmer turned
into a farmyard, and the band wagon followed, and the farmer jumped off
the corn stalk wagon and rushed for the house, and pa's ten-horse team
surrounded the wagon, and every horse was eating corn stalks, and the
team was all mixed up. The camels and the elephants crowded in for the
nice green lunch, and the farmer's wife came out with her apron waving,
and said "Shoo," but none of the animals shooed worth a cent, and pa
pulled on the lines, and yelled, while the rest of the parade came into
the farm and lined up. The drivers yelled at pa to know where in thunder
he was going, and pa said: "Damfino."
Just then the manager and chief of police came up, and the way they
talked to pa was awful. Pa couldn't explain how it was that he took the
parade out in the country, and you never saw such a time.
By this time the regular drivers had arrived on a special, from where we
left them with a hot box, and they took possession of the teams, and we
got back to the circus lot in time for the afternoon performance. I
don't know what they are doing to pa, but they had him in the manager's
tent all the afternoon with some doctors, who seem to be examining him
for insanity.
Everybody about the show thinks pa has hoodooed the aggregation, but pa
says such things are always happening, and it is wrong to blame him.
The farmer got paid for his corn stalks, and it is to be charged up to
pa.