The Rings Are So Muddy the Performers Have to Wear Rubber Boots--The
Freaks Present Pa with a Big Heart of Roses--The Show Closes and the
Bad Boy Starts West with His Pa in Search of Attractions for the
Coming Season.
Well, Missouri is the state to teach a circus humility, and we have
taken the thirty-third degree in the last ten days. It has rained nine
days and a half out of a possible ten days, and the mud is something we
never dreamed of before. The wagons have been mired in the mud on the
way from the train to the lot every day in the streets of cities big
enough to have street cars and electric lights. The cities have one or
two main streets paved, but the rest of the streets are just virgin
soil, and you have got to swim to get to the paved streets. When you
start away for the lot, it is like Washington crossing the Delaware.
And yet the people come from miles around to see the show, and everybody
rides a web-footed mule, that can wallow in the mud. They hitch the
mules to fences outside the tent, and while the performance is going on
the mules bray in concert and drown the band.
Pa has been wild ever since we struck Missouri, and no wonder, 'cause
everybody seems to lay everything in the way of weather on him. Every
place we show the lot is one sea of mud, and when we get the rings made
they seem like a chain of lakes, and in galloping around the rings the
horses splash mud and water clear to the reserved seats. The riders of
the horses have to come out in rubber hunting boots and when they get on
the horses we have to pull their boots off and hold them until the act
is over, then the riders sit on the horses and pull the boots on and get
down in the mud of the ring and bow to the audience.
The woman riders are the worst to wear rubber boots, 'cause they fall
down in the mud and spoil their dresses and kick scandalous, The trapeze
performers have to be carried out of the dressing room on stretchers,
and hoisted up to the net, 'cause they can't do stunts up on the trapeze
with wet feet, and we have worked ourselves to death getting things in
shape.
The confounded elephants just glory in the mud, and the minute they get
in the ring they all lay down and roll in the mud and water, so when
they are ready to do their act they look like walking mud pies. The
freaks are awful to handle, the giant being the only one that can wade
through and look pleasant, and the fat woman would make you weary, she
has to be carried back and forth to the platform by half a force of
hands. Pa has had shawl straps and coffin handles fastened to her
clothes, so there will be something to grab hold of to move her around.
I don't think that another year we will have any fat woman, 'cause pa
says it costs more to get this 500-pound female from one place to
another than all the rest of the show. He thinks that people who visit
the show don't care much about a fat woman anyway, but just guy her and
ask her what kind of breakfast food she lives on. He thinks if we had
three reasonably fat women that weighed about 200 pounds apiece, it
would give better satisfaction and they would be easier to handle; but
when she heard what pa said and felt that she was going to be shook next
year she began to cry, and it was like turning on water in a bathtub. Pa
had to pet her and then the bearded woman got jealous.
At Jefferson City there came a cold wave and everything was froze stiff,
and you could skate in the rings, and the management decided to get to
St. Louis and send the show to winter quarters, and organize for next
season. So we have had a time closing up for the season, and sending the
animals to the barns on our farm up north, and discharging and paying
off the performers and bidding everybody good-by. We have bought
presents for everybody, and it has been a picnic.
Pa had a big heart, with roses all around it, made of a horse collar,
covered with flowers, which came from the freaks, and the performers
remembered him with presents, and pa gave everybody something, and
everybody got together in the main tent and made speeches.
The manager thanked everybody and promised that next year we would have
the greatest show on earth. He said the management had decided that what
we lacked this year was a wild west show, as the people everywhere
seemed to dote on busting broncos, and roping cattle, and chasing
buffaloes and seeing Indians and rough riders chase up and down the
arena. He felt that in justice to our rough-riding president, it was
proper to have a wild west show that would make things hum next year. He
said he took pleasure in informing the people of the show that pa had
been commissioned to go out west at once and secure the Indians and
cowboys, horses that buck and bounce off the riders, cattle that would
stand it to be lassoed and thrown down for the amusement of the public,
buffaloes that would bellow and act like old times on the plains, stage
coaches and robbers, and he promised that next year they would have no
cause to be ashamed of the show. He said pa was authorized to spare no
expense to round up a wild west show second to none. The performers and
hands cheered the manager, and then they yelled for pa for a speech.
Pa got up on the tub that the elephants stand on, and said that it was
true what the manager said about a wild west show, and that he was proud
of the confidence reposed in him. He should be glad to take an
expedition and go out into the far west and beard the wild west Indian
in his tepee and engage Indians by the hundred to come with us next
year. He would pierce the wilderness of the west in search of the
wildest red men and would hunt the cowboy in his lair and secure those
who could make the most trouble for cattle and horses and shoot up an
audience if necessary to keep the peace, and he would buy buffaloes
enough so every performer could ride one if he wanted to. He said while
we had this year had some attempts at a wild west department in our
show, it was only a tame imitation of what we would have next year, and
he wanted them all to pray for him, that he might come out of the wild
far west without being killed. He said he should take Hennery along with
him as a mascot, and if the worst came he could trade me to an Indian
tribe for ponies, or leave me as a hostage with some tribe until he
returned the Indians at the close of next season. Pa closed his remarks
by hoping that nothing had occurred during the past season that would
cause anybody to have it in for him, 'cause he had tried to be impartial
in his cussedness, and while he felt that he had been considered an
interloper in the profession at first, he had found that everybody
looked upon him later in the season as the main guy in the show, and
that all had felt at liberty to give it to him in the neck on every
proper occasion and he felt that he had taken his medicine like a
thoroughbred.
[Illustration: I Will Search for the Wildest of Red Men.]
They gave three cheers for pa, and then they brought in the blankets and
tossed everybody up until they lost everything out of their pockets and
yelled that they had enough, and they wound up by tossing pa up in the
blanket until he could see stars. They were going to give the fat woman
a hoist, when the boss canvasman gave the signal to take down the tents,
and all was in a hubbub for about 15 minutes.
[Illustration: They Tossed Pa Up in the Blanket.]
When everything was down and everybody went to the train, after joining
hands around the middle ring and singing "Old Lang Sine," pa and I and
the managers went to a hotel to organize our expedition to the far west
in search of talent for a wild west show that shall be the greatest ever
put under canvas. After all had gone away, and only pa and I and the
managers were left, it seemed, as we thought over the incidents of the
past season, as though there had been an earthquake and the whole show
had been blotted out of existence.
Pa choked up and was going to cry, and I got my throat full of something
so I could not speak, and the managers began to wipe their eyes, and pa
saved the day by saying: "Oh, what's the use, let's order up some
highballs," and when they came, with a red lemonade for me, pa said:
"Well, here's to the people that crowd around the ticket wagon and fight
to get the first ticket when the window is open, and go away after the
show and say it is the greatest show ever."
"Hey Rube!" said the manager, and we drank standing, and pa went out and
bought tickets for Cheyenne, and some beads, to give to the Indians we
shall visit in the west.
End of Project Gutenberg's Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus, by George W. Peck