Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus Part 12

Before we got to town a wind came up so strong that we had to walk edgewise to go against it, and finally we met the tent coming out to meet us, 'cause a cyclone had taken it bodily and was blowing it all over the prairie. And when we got to town the animals in the cages, that can't eat gra.s.s, were having an indignation meeting, and howling awful.

Pa was the first man to get back to the lot, and he asked me what I thought he better do, and I told him he better get in the porcupine cage, 'cause he looked, with the cactus thorns sticking out of him, like the father of all porcupines. He said I thought I was smart, and he asked me if I was hurt any, and I told him all I could find was a stone bruise on my spine where I struck a prairie dog house.

Well, we got the animals into a livery barn, and it took us almost the whole week to have the tent hauled back and sewed together, and we had to pay the cowboys and Indians more than the animals were worth to bring them back, and let them into the show free. The managers had a meeting and resolved to get out of the Indian Territory and into Kansas just as quick as possible.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Pa Is Sent to a Hospital to Recuperate--The Bad Boy Discourages Other Boys from Running Away with the Circus--He Makes Them Water the Camels, Curry the Hyenas and Put Insect Powder on the Buffaloes.

This is the first time since we started out with the circus in the spring that pa and I have not been two "Johnnies on the spot," ready for anything that the managers told us to do. Oklahoma, though, and the Indian Territory, have been too much for pa, and they sent him on to Kansas City to recuperate in a hospital for a week, while the show does Kansas to a finish, and makes a triumphal entry into Missouri.

I wonder how the show will get along without us for a week, 'cause they sentenced me to go along with pa, so I could be handy to hold his hands when the doctors are pulling cactus needles out of his hide. I guess pa was willing enough to jump Kansas in the night from what he told us once.

He said when he was a young man he and a railroad brakeman got busted at Topeka, and they had an order book printed, and went all over Kansas taking orders for Osier willows, which they warranted to grow so high in two years they would make fences for the farms that no animals or blizzards could get over or through, and make shade for the houses and the whole farm. It was the year when the Osier willow craze was on and every farmer on the plains wanted to transform his prairie into a forest. Pa says the farmers fought with each other to sign orders, and some paid in advance, so as to get the willow cuttings in a hurry. Well, pa and the railroad man canva.s.sed Kansas, and sold more than forty thousand millions of Osier willow cuttings, and put in the whole winter.

In the spring, when it was time to deliver the goods, they went into the river bottoms and cut a whole lot of "p.u.s.s.y willow" cuttings, delivered them to the farmers and got their money, and went away. When the p.u.s.s.y willow cuttings died in their tracks, or grew up just plain p.u.s.s.y willows that never got high enough to hide a jack rabbit, the farmers of Kansas loaded their guns and waited for pa and the brakeman to come back to Kansas, but they never went back.

The brakeman became president of a great railroad, but when he has to go across the continent in his special car, he dodges Kansas, and goes across by the northern or southern route. Pa has so far dodged the farmers, but money wouldn't have hired him to stay with the circus and meet those farmers that they sold the willow gold bricks to. And yet, when I bunco anybody around the show, pa takes me one side and tells me that honesty is the best policy, and to never lie, 'cause my character as a man will depend on the start I make as a boy. He don't want me to go through life regretting the past, and being afraid of the cars for fear some act of my younger days will become known and queer me. I guess pa knows how it is hisself.

Well, if there is one thing I am proud of, it is that I have always been good. When I grow up to be a man, prosperous in business, and belonging to a church, and married, and have children growing up around me, I can put on an innocent face and a bold front, and point to my past with pride, if I should go to live among strangers, where n.o.body took the papers, and the people were not on to me. Pa says as long as your conscience is clear, and your pores open, life is one glad, sweet song.

Well, I don't know, but if pa's conscience is clear, he must have strained it the way they do rain water, to get the wigglers out, or else he has used an egg to settle his conscience, the way they settle coffee. If his pores are open, he has opened them in the old way, with a corkscrew. But, with all I have had to contend with in the way of a frightful example from pa, I am not so worse.

How many boys of my age, do you suppose, could put in a season with a circus and have all the facilities I have had to go wrong, and come out as well as I have? The way the freaks just doted on me would have turned the heads of most boys, but when I found out that all of them, from the fat woman and the bearded woman, to the trapeze performers, ate onions three times a day, I said: "Nay, nay, Hennery will camp with the animals, whose smell is natural, and not acquired."

Say, do you know I have saved hundred of boys this summer from ruin, 'cause in every town there are lots of boys who want to run away from home and go off with a circus, and 'cause I belonged to the show they all came to me, and pa appointed me to discourage the boys, and drive them away from the show. I know in Virginia all the boys wanted to run away, and but for me the state wouldn't have boys enough to grow up and shoot the negroes. But when I found boys who wanted to skip away from home, I would give them a job, and they would have slept in the straw with the horses, and eaten at the second table after the negroes had been fed, if they could only shake their comfortable homes and loving friends and join a traveling circus.

Well, I always gave such boys a job watering the camels, and after they had carried water from daylight till dark, and had seen it disappear down a camel, and the camels grumbling because they didn't bring water faster, the boys would ask me how long it look to fill up a camel, anyway. I would tell them that if they kept right at work, the camels ought to be filled up full along in the fall. The boys would reluctantly resign. Our camels have been the making of hundreds of boys by their tank-like capacity to hold water. One boy at Richmond, Va., got it on me by getting a section of fire hose and hitching it to a hydrant, and letting the water run into a trough at the camel stand in the menagerie, and before I knew it the camels had filled up until they were swelled four times as big as they ought to be. Then they laid down, and couldn't march in the grand entree, and pa sent for a plumber to have the camels fixed with faucets. That boy was a genius, and we kept him and put him into the lemonade privilege. You can fill a camel with a hydrant all right, but if you bring the water in pails he will beat the game.

I remember one boy at Wilmington, Del., who insisted on going along with the show, 'cause his mother made him work after school, and my heart was touched, 'cause I know how a boy hates to work after school, so I gave him a job sprinkling insect powder on the buffaloes, that were scratching themselves against the tent poles so much that I felt they had something alive concealed about their persons. That boy started in with his can of insect powder on a buffalo calf, and then he filled the cow's hair full of the powder, and when he started on the bull, the bull took a sniff of the powder on the cow, and got it up his nose, and he held his head up kind of scared like, and turned his upper lip wrong-side out, and began to paw the ground. Then he made a charge on that boy, and tossed him through the tent, and I looked through the hole, and saw the boy scratching gravel towards town. If he is not running yet, he is probably doing ch.o.r.es for his mother both before and after school.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Bull Tossed the Boy Through the Tent.]

I have discouraged most of the boys who wanted to run away and go with the show, by giving them a curry comb and brush and telling them they could have a permanent job currying off the hyenas. Most boys would look sort of dubious about it, but would think it was up to them to be game, and they would take the curry comb and brush all right. I would take them to the cage, and tell them to just talk soothing to the hyenas through the bars, and when the hyenas began to get tame and act as though it would give them pleasure to be curried off, and laid down and rolled over, and purred like a cat that wanted to be scratched, and acted as though they would eat out of one's hand, the boys might call me, and I would have the cage opened and they could go in and curry them off.

Well, it would kill you dead to see a fool boy side up to a hyena cage and try to hypnotize a hyena by kind words and a pious example, saying soothing words like: "Soo, boss," or "O, come off now, and be a good fellow," and see the hyena snarl and show his teeth like an anarchist that a multi-millionaire might try to tame so he would take a roll of money out of his hand without biting the hand. I have had boys stand in front of a hyena cage with a curry-comb and brush all day, trying to get on good terms with the hyenas, and occasionally the hyenas would forget to snarl and the boy would think the animals were beginning to weaken, and the boy would work up closer to the cage, and say: "Pretty p.u.s.s.y,"

and hold out his hand and say: "Good fellow." Then the whole cageful of hyenas would make a rush for him, howling, snapping and scratching, with their bristles up, and the boy would fall backwards over a sacred cow.

About this time I would come along and ask the boy if he had got the hyenas curried, 'cause if he had, I wanted him to curry the grave robbers--the jackals. Then the boy would reluctantly give up his tools, and say if I wanted the hyenas and jackals curried off I could do it myself. I would tell them they would never do for the circus business, 'cause faint heart never won fair hyena. Then they would go home and sell their mother's copper boiler to get money to pay their way in the show. Gee, but I have saved lots of boys from a circus fate.

Pa has an awful time in the hospital, 'cause twice a day the doctors strip him and pull a mess of cactus thorns out of him, and he yells and don't talk very pious. The doctor told me I must try and think of something to divert pa's mind from his suffering.

So I got some telegraph blanks and envelopes, and I have written messages from the show managers, twice a day. The morning message would tell about the business of the day before, and how they missed pa. Then I would add something like this: "The farmers around Olathe are all inquiring for you," or "The farmers around Topeka wish you were here, 'cause they want to give you a reception," or "About 200 farmers at Parsons think we ought to let them in free, on account of being old friends of yours." The last one broke pa all up. The message said: "Many farmers from Atchison are going to come with us to Kansas City to confer with you on an old matter of business." Pa jumped like a box car off the track, and wanted the doctors to send him to a hospital at St. Louis, and he told the doctors the reason, but they cheered him up by saying that if any mob came to the hospital after him, they would hide him in the pickling vat, and make the mob believe he was dead. That is the way it stands now. But pa is not so darn happy as I have seen him, though I try to do all I can to keep his mind off his trouble. I tell him as long as his conscience is clear, he is all right, but he says: "But, Hennery, that's the trouble; it ain't clear. Well, let us have peace, at any price."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pa Jumped Like a Box Car.]

CHAPTER XXV.

Pa Breaks in the Zebras and Drives a Six-in-Hand Team in the Parade--The Freaks Have a Narrow Escape from Drowning.

Pa is stuck on the zebras. I do not know what there is about a zebra unless it is the wail paper effects of his exterior decoration that should make a man leave all the other animals and cleave unto the zebra, but pa has been putting in his leisure time all summer breaking the zebras to harness, and driving them single and double in the ring Sundays.

Everybody about the show knew pa was going to spring some surprise on us. I have tried to reason pa out of his unnatural infatuation for zebras, but you might as well talk to a rich old man who gets stuck on a chorus girl, and gives her all his money, and has to go and live at the poor house.

A zebra always looks to me like a joke that nature has played. Who, but nature, would ever think of laying out a plan for a zebra, and painting it in stripes, like a barber's pole, and yet we must admit that few human artists could paint a million zebras and get the stripes on as perfect as nature does with her eyes shut. The mule and the zebra are distant relatives, 'cause lots of mules have a few stripes on their legs, but the zebra is the eldest son who is aristocratic and inherits the stuff, while the mule is the younger son who never gets a look in for the money, but has to work for a living. So it is no wonder to me that the mule kicks. The zebra is the dude of the family, and the mule looks up to him, when he ought to kick his slats in, and rub out his stripes with a mule shoe eraser.

While pa was in the hospital at Kansas City he formed a plan to paralyze the town by driving six zebras to a tally-ho coach, in the parade, and the reporters interviewed pa, and the papers were full of it, and the people were wild with excitement, and everybody wanted to see a six-in-hand zebra team, driven by Alkali Ike, one of the greatest western stage drivers that was ever held up by road agents. Pa was to be Alkali Ike. The show struck Kansas City Sunday morning, and the management was scared at what pa had advertised to do, and they all wanted to call off the zebra stunt, but pa said if they cut it out the people would mob the show, so all day Sunday we hooked up the six zebras, and the hands led them around the tent with a mule with a bell on ridden in the lead. They seemed to go pretty well, but I could see pa's finish when he got out on the streets with that crazy team. Pa wanted all the freaks to ride on the tally-ho, and he had invited nine newspaper fellows to ride with him. Pa thought the zebra team would follow the bell mule ahead, like a 20-mule borax team would.

Well, Monday morning the parade started, and along about the middle of the parade, just ahead of the calliope, was pa and his six zebra team, his freaks and reporters, and pa handled the ribbons like a pirate. The fat woman sat on the driver's seat with pa, for ballast, and the rest of the freaks were sandwiched in between the reporters. We went along all right for half a mile, the circus hands walking beside the zebras, to kill them if they tried to jump over a house, while I rode the bell mule. If I had been planning the zebra business, I would have picked out a level town to try it on, but Kansas City is all hills and ravines, and going up hill the zebras' tally-ho had to be pushed by a couple of elephants, 'cause the zebras wouldn't pull the load, and going down hill we had to lock the wheels, and slide down.

When we got on the main street, where the crowd filled both sides, almost up to the team, and the people began to cheer, the zebras began to waltz and kick, and try to jump over each other, but the hands got them untangled, and we worried along, though pa was pale, and looked like a man smoking a cigar while sitting on an open powder keg. The fat woman grabbed pa every little while, and screamed that she wanted to get off and walk, but pa told her to hush up and try to be a man.

Well, as we were going down hill, by a park, near the Midland hotel, that confounded calliope had got right up behind the tally-ho, and the organist cut her loose, with the tune: "A Life on the Ocean Wave." Every zebra jumped into the air, the brake footpiece escaped pa's foot, and the tally-ho run on to the heels of the wheel zebras, and it was all off. There never was such a runaway since the days of Ben Hur. Pa had presence of mind enough to make the fat lady get down off the seat, and he put his feet on her to hold her down, the crowd yelled, and our zebras run into the cage ahead, containing the behemoth of Holy Writ, and knocked off a hind wheel, and every wagon ahead was either tipped over or disabled. The people fairly went wild, thinking the runaway was a part of the show. The giant fainted from fright, 'cause he always was a coward; the bearded woman threw her arms around a reporter, and scratched his face with her whiskers, while the Circa.s.sian girl got her white wig caught In the branch of a tree and lost it, and she was as bald as an ostrich egg. Pa took out the whip and larruped the zebras, to put some new stripes on them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: There Never Was Such a Runaway Since the Days of Ben-Hur.]

When we pa.s.sed the camels they thought they were in the race, and they buckled in to keep up, and the chariot horses got the best of the drivers and they joined in. My mule kept up all right, and we went down the hill on to the level ground that runs to the Missouri river. When we got to the river the zebras turned short and tipped the tally-ho over into the water and the whole bunch on the coach was floundering in the muddy water; but there happened to be a sandbar under the water, so n.o.body was drowned, though we had to bail out the fat woman, she swallowed so much of the muddy river. The giant was senseless and two reporters got astride of him, thinking it was a rail, and drifted ash.o.r.e, while pa laid on his back and floated like a duck, and when we got him out we found he had a life-preserver under his coat, and he said he put it on because he had a hunch that those zebras would make for running water if they ever got beyond control. Well, the crowd followed down to the river, and everybody was rescued, and the rest of the parade went over the route, and in the afternoon the tent was so full there were thousands standing up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Zebras Turned Short and Tipped the Tally-ho Over Into the Water.]

When pa came into the main tent with the zebras, in the grand parade around the ring, the crowd gave him three cheers, which probably caused the management to refrain from discharging him on the spot. Pa is like a cat, 'cause he always falls on his feet all right and he thinks the zebra tally-ho in the parade was the feature that caused the crowd to visit the show; but he says he will never drive zebras again, on account of the excitement.

The fat woman talks of having pa arrested for breaking one of her ribs when he held her down with his feet; but pa says his feet did not sink into her more than a foot or so, and he couldn't have hit a rib, nohow.

Well, I'm glad to be back in the show, 'cause there is more going on than there was in the hospital, where I put in a week while the doctors were pulling the cactus pin feathers out of pa that grew out on him in Indian Territory. Gee, but if I had to leave the circus business and go back to school, I know I should die of lonesomeness.

I got a chance to talk with pa at supper, and asked him if he was really crazy, as the hands say he is, and how he liked zebras, anyway, and he said: "Hennery, zebras are just people, they stampede just like politicians and bankers, and business men generally, and never know enough to let well enough alone. The mule is the only draft animal that always pulls straight and gets there right side up."

If I was going to run a circus for easy money, and a picnic, I wouldn't have any menagerie connected with it, 'cause the animals make more trouble than all the rest of the show. They are just like a lot of children in a reform school, they don't want to work, and they are just looking for a chance to fight when your back is turned, or to escape.

They don't know where they would go if they did escape, but they don't want anybody over them, to teach them morals, though when meal time comes the reform school boys and the menagerie animals eat like tramps, because the food is so good, and then kick because it isn't better. If your performers in the circus proper do not suit you can discharge them, and if they are sick you can leave them in a hospital, and go on with the show, and forget about them until they show up in a week or two, pale as ghosts, and weak as cats, and demand back salary; but your animal has to be taken along and petted, and when you give him medicine to save his life, he will try to bite your hand off.

And yet you can't help getting stuck on the animals, and a man gets stuck on the kind of animal that is most like him. The grizzly old granger, who never b.u.t.tons the collar of his s.h.i.+rt, and whose Adam's apple looks like a hen's head, will stay by the camels, hours at a time, the pious church man feels at home among the sacred cattle, the strong-arm holdup man will linger by the grizzly bear, the prize-fighter will haunt the lions' den, the garroter will gaze lovingly at the tigers, the sneak thief seems to love the hyenas, and the big game hunters watch the deer and elk. Some of us who have brains love the monkeys, they are so human.

CHAPTER XXVI.

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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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.