We was jogging along one afternoon not fur from a good-sized town at the
top of Ohio, right on the lake, when we run acrost some remainders of
a busted circus riding in a stake and chain wagon. They was two
fellers--both jugglers, acrobats, and tumblers--and a balloon. The
circus had busted without paying them nothing but promises fur months
and months, and they had took the team and wagon and balloon by
attachment, they said. They was carting her from the little burg the
show busted in to that good-sized town on the lake. They would sell the
team and wagon there and get money enough to put an advertisement in
the Billboard, which is like a Bible to them showmen, that they had a
balloon to sell and was at liberty.
One of them was the slimmest, lightest-footed, quickest feller you ever
seen, with a big nose and dark complected, and his name was Tobias. The
other was heavier and blonde complected. His name was Dobbs, he said,
and they was the Blanchet Brothers. Doctor Kirby and them got real well
acquainted in about three minutes. We drove on ahead and got into the
town first.
The doctor says that balloon is jest wasted on them fellers. They can't
go up in her, not knowing that trade, but still they ought to be some
way fur them to make a little stake out of it before it was sold.
The next evening we run acrost them fellers on the street, and they was
feeling purty blue. They hadn't been able to sell that team and wagon,
which it was eating its meals reg'lar in a livery stable, and they had
been doing stunts in the street that day and passing around the hat, but
not getting enough fur to pay expenses.
"Where's the balloon?" asts the doctor. And I seen he was sicking his
intellects onto the job of making her pay.
"In the livery stable with the wagon," they tells him.
He says he is going to figger out a way to help them boys. They is like
all circus performers, he says--they jest knows their own acts, and
talks about 'em all the time, and studies up ways to make 'em better,
and has got no more idea of business outside of that than a rabbit. We
all went to the livery stable and overhauled that balloon. It was an
awful job, too. But they wasn't a rip in her, and the parachute was jest
as good as new.
"There's no reason why we can't give a show of our own," says Doctor
Kirby, "with you boys and Danny and me and that balloon. What we want
is a lot with a high board fence around it, like a baseball grounds,
and the chance to tap a gas main." He says he'll be willing to take a
chancet on it, even paying the gas company real money to fill her up.
What the Doctor didn't know about starting shows wasn't worth knowing.
He had even went in for the real drama in his younger days now and then.
"One of my theatrical productions came very near succeeding, too," he
says.
It was a play he says, in which the hero falls in love with a pair of
Siamese twins and commits suicide because he can't make a choice between
them.
"We played it as comedy in the big towns and tragedy in the little
ones," he says. "But like a fool I booked it for two weeks of
middle-sized towns and it broke us."
The next day he finds a lot that will do jest fine. It has been used fur
a school playgrounds, but the school has been moved and the old building
is to be tore down. He hired the place cheap. And he goes and talks the
gas company into giving him credit to fill that balloon. Which I kept
wondering what was the use of filling her, fur none of the four of
us had ever went up in one. And when I seen the handbills he had had
printed I wondered all the more. They read as follers:
Kirby's Komedy Kompany and Open Air Circus
Presenting a Peerless Personnel of Artistic Attractions
Greatest in the Galaxy of Gaiety, is
Hartley L. Kirby
Monologuist and minstrel, dancer and vaudevillian in his terpsichorean
travesties, buoyant burlesques, inimitable imitations, screaming
impersonations, refined comedy sketches and popular song hits of the
day.
The Blanchet Brothers
Daring, Dazzling, Danger-Loving, Death-Defying Demons
Joyous jugglers, acrobatic artists, constrictorial contortionists,
exquisite equilibrists, in their marvellous, mysterious, unparalleled
performances.
Umslopogus The Patagonian Chieftain
The lowest type of human intellect
This formerly ferocious fiend has so far succumbed to the softer wiles
of civilization that he is no longer a cannibal, and it is now safe to
put him on exhibition. But to prevent accidents he is heavily manacled,
and the public is warned not to come too near.
Balloon! Balloon!! Balloon!!!
The management also presents the balloon of
Prof. Alonzo Ackerman The Famous Aeronaut
in which he has made his
Wonderful Ascension and Parachute Drop
many times, reaching remarkable altitudes
Balloon! Balloon!! Balloon!!!
Saturday, 3 P. M. Old Vandegrift School Lot
Admission 50 Cents
Well, fur a writer he certainly laid over Looey, Doctor Kirby did--more
cheerful-like, you might say. I seen right off I was to be the
Patagonian Chieftain. I was getting more and more of an actor right
along--first an Injun, then a wild Borneo, and now a Patagonian.
"But who is this Alonzo Ackerman?" I asts him.
"Celebrated balloonist," says he, "and the man that invented parachutes.
They eat out of his hand."
"Where is he?" asts I.
"How should I know?" he says.
"How is he going up, then?" I asts.
The doctor chuckles and says it is a good bill, a better bill than he
thought; that it is getting in its work already. He says to me to read
it careful and see if it says Alonzo Ackerman is going up. Well, it
don't. But any one would of thought so the first look. I reckon that
bill was some of a liar herself, not lying outright, but jest hinting a
lie. They is a lot of mean, stingy-souled kind of people wouldn't never
lie to help a friend, but Doctor Kirby wasn't one of 'em.
"But," I says, "when that crowd finds out Alonzo ain't going up they
will be purty mad."
"Oh," says he, "I don't think so. The American public are a good-natured
set of chuckle-heads, mostly. If they get sore I'll talk 'em out of it."
If he had any faults at all--and mind you, I ain't saying Doctor Kirby
had any--the one he had hardest was the belief he could talk any crowd
into any notion, or out of it, either. And he loved to do it jest fur
the fun of it. He'd rather have the feeling he was doing that than the
money any day. He was powerful vain about that gab of his'n, Doctor
Kirby was.
The four of us took around about five thousand bills. The doctor says
they is nothing like giving yourself a chancet. And Saturday morning we
got the balloon filled up so she showed handsome, tugging away there at
her ropes. But we had a dern mean time with that balloon, too.
The doctor says if we have good luck there may be as many as three, four
hundred people.
But Jerusalem! They was two, three times that many. By the time the
show started I reckon they was nigh a thousand there. The doctor and
the Blanchet Brothers was tickled. When they quit coming fast the doctor
left the gate and made a little speech, telling all about the wonderful
show, and the great expense it was to get it together, and all that.
They was a rope stretched between the crowd and us. Back of that was the
Blanchet Brothers' wagon and our wagon, and our little tent. I was jest
inside the tent with chains on. Back of everything else was the balloon.
Well, the doctor he done a lot of songs and things as advertised. Then
the Blanchet Brothers done some of their acts. They was really fine
acts, too. Then come some more of Doctor Kirby's refined comedy, as
advertised. Next, more Blanchet. Then a lecture about me by the doctor.
All in all it takes up about an hour and a half. Then the doctor makes
a mighty nice little talk, and wishes them all good afternoon, thanking
them fur their kind intentions and liberal patronage, one and all.
"But when will the balloon go up?" asts half a dozen at oncet.
"The balloon?" asts Doctor Kirby, surprised.
"Balloon! Balloon!" yells a kid. And the hull crowd took it up and
yelled: "Balloon! Balloon! Balloon!" And they crowded up closte to that
rope.
Doctor Kirby has been getting off the wagon, but he gets back on her,
and stretches his arms wide, and motions of 'em all to come close.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, "please to gather near--up here,
good people--and listen! Listen to what I have to say--harken to the
utterings of my voice! There has been a misunderstanding here! There has
been a misconstruction! There has been, ladies and gentlemen, a woeful
lack of comprehension here!"
It looked to me like they was beginning to understand more than he meant
them to. I was wondering how it would all come out, but he never lost
his nerve.
"Listen," he says, very earnest, "listen to me. Somehow the idea seems
to have gone forth that there would be a balloon ascension here this
afternoon. How, I do not know, for what we advertised, ladies and
gentlemen, was that the balloon used by Prof. Alonzo Ackerman, the
illustrious aeronaut, would be UPON EXHIBITION. And there she is, ladies
and gentlemen, there she is, for every eye to see and gladden with the
sight of--right before you, ladies and gentlemen--the balloon of Alonzo
Ackerman, the wonderful voyager of the air, exactly as represented.
During their long career Kirby and Company have never deceived the
public. Others may, but Kirby and Company are like Caesar's wife--Kirby
and Company are above suspicion. It is the province of Kirby's Komedy
Kompany, ladies and gentlemen, to spread the glad tidings of innocent
amusement throughout the length and breadth of this fair land of ours.
And there she is before you, the balloon as advertised, the gallant ship
of the air in which the illustrious Ackerman made so many voyages before
he sailed at last into the Great Beyond! You can see her, ladies and
gentlemen, straining at her cords, anxious to mount into the heavens
and be gone! It is an education in itself, ladies and gentlemen, a moral
education, and well worth coming miles to see. Think of it--think of
it--the Ackerman balloon--and then think that the illustrious Ackerman
himself--he was my personal friend, ladies and gentlemen, and a true
friend sticketh closer than a brother--the illustrious Ackerman is dead.
The balloon, ladies and gentlemen, is there, but Ackerman is gone to his
reward. Look at that balloon, ladies and gentlemen, and tell me if you
can, why should the spirit of mortals be proud? For the man that rode
her like a master and tamed her like she was a dove lies cold and dead
in a western graveyard, ladies and gentlemen, and she is here, a useless
and an idle vanity without the mind that made her go!"
Well, he went on and he told a funny story about Alonzo, which I don't
believe they ever was no Alonzo Ackerman, and a lot of 'em laughed;
and he told a pitiful story, and they got sollum agin, and then another
funny story. Well, he had 'em listening, and purty soon most of the
crowd is feeling in a good humour toward him, and one feller yells out:
"Go it--you're a hull show yourself!" And some joshes him, but they
don't seem to be no trouble in the air. When they all look to be in a
good humour he holds up a bill and asts how many has them. Many has. He
says that is well, and then he starts to telling another story. But
in the middle of the story that hull dern crowd is took with a fit of
laughing. They has looked at the bill closet, and seen they is sold, and
is taking it good-natured. And still shouting and laughing most of them
begins to start along off. And I thought all chancet of trouble was over
with. But it wasn't.
Fur they is always a natcheral born kicker everywhere, and they was one
here, too.
He was a lean feller with a sticking out jaw, and one of his eyes was in
a kind of a black pocket, and he was jest natcherally laying it off to
about a dozen fellers that was in a little knot around him.
The doctor sees the main part of the crowd going and climbs down off'n
the wagon. As he does so that hull bunch of about a dozen moves in under
the rope, and some more that was going out seen it, and stopped and come
back.
"Perfessor," says the man with the patch over his eye to Doctor Kirby,
"you say this man Ackerman is dead?"
"Yes," says the doctor, eying him over, "he's dead."
"How did he die?" asts the feller.
"He died hard, I understand," says the doctor, careless-like.
"Fell out of his balloon?"
"Yes."
"This aeronaut trade is a dangerous trade, I hear," says the feller with
the patch on his eye.
"They say so," says Doctor Kirby, easy-like.
"Was you ever an aeronaut yourself?" asts the feller.
"No," says the doctor.
"Never been up in a balloon?"
"No."
"Well, you're going up in one this afternoon!"
"What do you mean?" asts Doctor Kirby.
"We've come out to see a balloon ascension--and we're going to see it,
too."
And with that the hull crowd made a rush at the doctor.
Well, I been in fights before that, and I been in fights since then. But
I never been in no harder one. The doctor and the two Blanchet brothers
and me managed to get backed up agin the fence in a row when the rush
come. I guess I done my share, and I guess the Blanchet brothers done
theirn, too. But they was too many of 'em for us--too dern many. It
wouldn't of ended as quick as it did if Doctor Kirby hadn't gone clean
crazy. His back was to the fence, and he cleaned out everything in front
of him, and then he give a wild roar jest like a bull and rushed that
hull gang--twenty men, they was--with his head down. He caught two
fellers, one in each hand, and he cracked their heads together, and he
caught two more, and done the same. But he orter never took his back
away from that fence. The hull gang closed in on him, and down he went
at the bottom of a pile. I was awful busy myself, but I seen that pile
moving and churning. Then I made a big mistake myself. I kicked a feller
in the stomach, and another feller caught my leg, and down I went. Fur
a half a minute I never knowed nothing. And when I come to I was all
mashed about the face, and two fellers was sitting on me.
The crowd was tying Doctor Kirby to that parachute. They straddled
legs over the parachute bar, and tied his feet below it. He was still
fighting, but they was too many fur him. They left his arms untied, but
they held 'em, and then--
Then they cut her loose. She went up like she was shot from a gun, and
as she did Doctor Kirby took a grip on a feller's arm that hadn't let
loose quick enough and lifted him plumb off'n the ground. He slewed
around on the trapeze bar with the feller's weight, and slipped head
downward. And as he slipped he give that feller a swing and let loose
of him, and then ketched himself by the crook of one knee. The feller
turned over twicet in the air and landed in a little crumpled-up pile on
the ground, and never made a sound.
The fellers that had holt of me forgot me and stood up, and I stood up
too, and looked. The balloon was rising fast. Doctor Kirby was trying to
pull himself up to the trapeze bar, twisting and squirming and having
a hard time of it, and shooting higher every second. I reckoned he
couldn't fall complete, fur where his feet was tied would likely hold
even if his knee come straight--but he would die mebby with his head
filling up with blood. But finally he made a squirm and raised himself a
lot and grabbed the rope at one side of the bar. And then he reached and
got the rope on the other side, and set straddle of her. And jest as he
done that the wind ketched the balloon good and hard, and she turned out
toward Lake Erie. It was too late fur him to pull the rope that sets the
parachute loose then, and drop onto the land.
I rushed out of that schoolhouse yard and down the street toward the
lake front, and run, stumbling along and looking up. She was getting
smaller every minute. And with my head in the air looking up I was
running plumb to the edge of the water before I knowed it.
She was away out over the lake now, and awful high, and going fast
before the wind, and the doctor was only a speck. And as I stared at
that speck away up in the sky I thought this was a mean world to live
in. Fur there was the only real friend I ever had, and no way fur me to
help him. He had learnt me to read, and bought me good clothes, and made
me know they was things in the world worth travelling around to see, and
made me feel like I was something more than jest Old Hank Walters's dog.
And I guessed he would be drownded and I would never see him agin now.
And all of a sudden something busted loose inside of me, and I sunk
down there at the edge of the water, sick at my stomach, and weak and
shivering.