Joe Strong on the Trapeze Part 4

"I'll give them an answer in a few hours. I think I'll go out and walk around town a bit. I can think better that way."

"Go ahead, Joe, and don't let me influence you. I want to help you, and I'll do all I can for you. You know I owe much to you. Just remember that you have the option on my show, such as it is, and if you don't take my offer I won't feel at all offended. Do as you think right."

"Thank you," said Joe, feelingly.

There was not much of interest to see in the town where they had come, expecting to give a performance, but Joe did not really care for sights just then. He had some hard thinking to do and he wanted to do it carefully. Hardly conscious of where he was walking, he strolled on, and presently found himself near the outskirts of the town, in a section that was more country than town. A little stream flowed through a green meadow, the banks bordered by trees.

"It looks just like Bedford," mused Joe. "I'm going to take a rest there."

He sat down in the shade of a willow tree and in an instant there came back to him the memory of that day, some months ago, when he had come upon his chums sitting under the same sort of tree and discussing one of the professor's tricks which they had witnessed the night before.

"Then there was the fireworks explosion. I rescued the professor--ran away from home--was chased by the constables--hopped into the freight car--the deacon's house was robbed and set on fire and---- Say! what a lot has happened in a short time," mused Joe. "And now comes this offer from the circus. I wonder if I'd better take it or keep on with the professor's show. Of course it would be easier to do this, as I'm more familiar with it."

Just then there recurred to Joe something he had often heard Deacon Blackford say.

"The easiest way isn't always the best."

The deacon was not, by any means, the kindest or wisest of men, and certainly he had been cruel at times to Joe. But he was a st.u.r.dy character, though often obstinate and mistaken, and he had a fund of homely philosophy.

Joe, working one day in the deacon's feed and grain store, had proposed doing something in a way that would, he thought, save him work.

"That's the easiest way," he had argued.

"Well, the easiest way isn't always the best," the deacon had retorted.

Joe remembered that now. It would be easier to keep on with the professor's show, for the work was all planned out for him, and he had but to fulfil certain engagements. Then, too, he was getting to be expert in the tricks.

"But I want to get on in life," reasoned Joe. "Forty dollars a week is more than I'm getting now, nor will I stick at that point in the circus. It will be hard work, but I can stand it."

He had almost made up his mind. He decided he would go back and acquaint the professor with his decision.

As Joe was pa.s.sing a sort of hotel in a poor section of the town he almost ran into, or, rather, was himself almost run into by a man who emerged from the place quickly but unsteadily.

Joe was about to pa.s.s on with a muttered apology, though he did not feel the collision to be his fault, when the man angrily demanded:

"What's the matter with you, anyhow? Why don't you look where you're going?"

"I tried to," said Joe, mildly enough. "Hope I didn't hurt you."

"Well, you banged me hard enough!"

The man seemed a little more mollified now. Joe was at once struck by something familiar in his voice and his looks. He took a second glance and in an instant he recognized the man as one of the circus trapeze performers he had seen the day he went to the big tent, or "main top,"

of Sampson Brothers' Circus to watch the professionals at their practice. The man was one of the troupe known as the "Lascalla Brothers," though the relations.h.i.+p was a.s.sumed, rather than real.

Joe gave a start of astonishment as he sensed the recognition. He was also surprised at the great change in the man. When Joe had first seen him, a few months before, the performer had been a straight, lithe specimen of manhood, intent, at the moment when Joe met him, on seeing that his trapeze ropes were securely fastened.

Now the man looked and acted like a tramp. He was dirty and ragged, and his face bore evidences of dissipation. He leered at Joe, and then something in our hero's face seemed to hold his attention.

"What are you looking at me that way for, young fellow?" he demanded.

"Do you know me?"

"No, not exactly," was the answer. "But I've seen you."

"Well, you're not the only one," was the retort. "A good many thousand people have seen me on the circus trapeze. And I'd be there to-day, doing my act, if it hadn't been for that mean Jim Tracy. He fired me, Jim did--said he was going to get some one for the act who could stay sober. Huh? I'm sober enough for anybody, and I took only a little drink because I was sick. Even at that I can beat anybody on the high bar. But he sacked me. Never mind! I'll get even with him, and if he puts anybody in my place--well, that fellow'd better look out, that's all!"

The man seemed turning ugly, and Joe was glad the fellow had not connected him with the youth who had paid a brief visit to the trapeze tent that day, months before.

"I wonder if it's to take his place that Jim Tracy wants me?" mused Joe, as he turned aside. "I guess Jim put up with this fellow as long as he could. Poor chap! He was a good acrobat, too--one of the best in the country." Joe knew the Lascalla Brothers by reputation.

"If I take his place----" Joe was doing some quick thinking. "Oh, well, I've got to take chances," he told himself. "After all, we may never meet."

Joe had fully made up his mind. Before going back to the professor he stopped at the telegraph office and sent this message to Jim Tracy.

"Will join circus in two days."

CHAPTER V

OFF TO THE CIRCUS

"Well?" questioned Professor Rosello, as Joe came back to the hotel.

"Is it my show or----"

"The circus," answered Joe, and he did not smile. He was rather serious about it, for in spite of what his friend had said Joe could but feel that the magician might be disappointed over the choice. But Professor Rosello was a broad-minded man, as well as a fair and generous one.

"Joe, I'm sure you did just the right thing!" he exclaimed, as he shook hands with the boy wizard, or rather with the former boy wizard, for the lad was about to give up that life. Yet Joe knew that he would not altogether give it up. He would always retain his knowledge and ability in the art of mystifying.

"Yes, I thought it all over," said Joe, "and I concluded that I could do better on the trapeze than at sleight-of-hand. You see, if I want to be a successful circus performer I have to begin soon. The older I get the less active I'll be, and some tricks take years to polish off so one can do them easily."

"I understand," the professor said. "I think you did the right thing for yourself."

"Of course if I could be any help to you I wouldn't leave you this way," Joe went on earnestly. "I wouldn't desert in a time of trouble."

"Oh, it isn't exactly trouble," replied the magician. "I really need a rest, and you're not taking my offer won't mean any money loss to me, though, personally, I shall feel sorry at losing you. But I want you to do the best possible thing for yourself. Don't consider me at all.

In fact you don't have to. I am going to take a rest. I need it.

I've been in this business nearly thirty years now, and time is beginning to tell.

"I think there is more of a future for you in the circus than there would be in magic. Not that you have exhausted the possibilities of magic by any means, but changes are taking place in the public. The moving pictures are drawing away from us the audiences we might otherwise attract. Then, too, there has been so much written and exposed concerning our tricks, that it is very hard to get up an effective illusion. Even the children can now guess how many of the tricks are done.

"It may be that I shall give up altogether. At, any rate I will lease my show out for a time. I'm I going to take a rest. And now about your plans. What are you going to do?"

"I don't exactly know," was the hesitating answer. "I have telegraphed to Mr. Tracy that I would join his circus in two days. I think I'll need that much time to get ready."

"Yes. We can settle up our business arrangements in that time, Joe.

As I said, I'll be very sorry to lose you, but it is all for the best.

We may see each other occasionally. Shall you tell the deacon of the change?"

"I think not. He and I don't get along very well, and he hasn't much real interest in me, now that he feels I am following in the footsteps of my father. And if he knew that I was taking up the profession my mother felt called to, he would have even less regard for me. I'll not write to him at all."