Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: "O, But the j.a.p Didn't Do a Thing to Pa!"]

The circus hands separated the Russians and j.a.ps, or at least pulled off the j.a.ps, and the Russians limped to the dressing-room, and their act was cut out. Unless the terms of peace between j.a.pan and Russia include the belligerents in our show, there will be rows every day.

Pa came to the car on crutches that night just before the train pulled out for Philadelphia, and wanted to know where I was during the fight.

He said he rushed right in and grabbed a j.a.p in one hand and a Russian in the other, and b.u.mped their heads together, and threw one of them towards the ring, and the other up among the seats, and he wanted to know if I thought he killed either or both of them.

I hate a boy that will deceive his father, but I told him there was talk about two performers, one a Russian and the other a j.a.p, that were left at the morgue, but I didn't know anything sure about it, and pa said: "I was afraid I should hurt them, but they brought it on themselves by breaking the rules of the show against fighting during a performance,"

and pa rolled over and groaned in his berth, and went to sleep and snored so the freaks wanted to have a nose bag, such as horses eat out of, pulled over pa's face.

The queerest thing that ever happened in the circus business in this country took place at Germantown, Pa. The teamsters went on a strike at Pittsburg, for increase in wages and shorter hours, and for two days the management had a great time.

We had to get drays to haul the stuff from the train to the lot, and then our teamsters got the local draymen to join them, and when we got ready to haul the stuff back to the train n.o.body would do any work, and the walking delegates from the Teamsters' union just took possession of the show, and we were stuck, like an automobile when the gasoline gives out.

We had got to looking at the teamsters as of no particular account when they walked out, but when they wouldn't work, they became the most important part of the show, and after the show was over the managers who had told the striking teamsters to go plumb, found that they had gone plumb, and they had to rush all over Pittsburg and find them, and grant their demands, and get them to go to work.

Pa was sent out to find a bunch of them, and it cost pa over $30 to get them out of a beer garden, and back to the lot, and it was almost daylight before we got our train started for the next town.

Well, at the next town we could see there was something the matter with the animals. They acted as though they had lost all interest in the success of the show, and wouldn't do any of their stunts worth a cent.

The elephants went through their act carelessly, and when they were scolded or prodded with the iron hook, they got mad and wanted to fight, and when they got back from the ring to the animal tent they wouldn't eat the baled hay but threw it all over the tent, and acted riotous.

The kangaroos would not do their boxing act, the horses kicked at their hay, and wouldn't eat their oats, the camels growled at their food, and scared the people who pa.s.sed by where they were tied to stakes, the sacred cattle got their backs up and acted as though they, being pious, couldn't swear, but would like to hire the hyenas to swear for them; the giraffes laid down and curled their necks so they were no attraction to the show, 'cause a giraffe is no curiosity unless he stretches himself away up towards the top of the tent. The zebras rolled in the mud and spoiled their stripes, so people couldn't tell them from common mules; the grizzly bear walked his cage, and kept giving vent to bear language, and the big lion was howling all the time.

The show was a failure at that town, and when we loaded the train the managers held a meeting in our car to decide what in thunder was the matter with the animals. All kinds of theories were advanced, such as poison, malaria from Indiana, and pure cussedness. After they had discussed the matter awhile, pa came in, and they asked him what he thought about it, and that tickled pa, 'cause as foolish as he looks, he helps the show out of lots of bad holes. Pa lit a cigar and put it in one side of his mouth, put his hat up on one side of his head, like he was tough, and looked wise, and said:

"Fellow fakirs, I have been watching the animals all day, and while I do not say they understand enough of the ways of human beings to be posted on labor unions, and all that, I want to tell you they are on a strike, and that grizzly and that lion are the walking delegates that are stirring them up to mischief. They may not know anything about the teamsters' strike, but they know something has happened, and they are displeased at something, and they have lost respect for the employer.

They are on a strike, and the very devil is going to pay to-morrow, unless the cause of the dissatisfaction is discovered, mutual concessions made, and arbitration resorted to.

"Gentlemen, you hear me," said pa, and he sat down on the edge of the arm of the car seat.

They gave pa the laugh, but finally told him to take charge of the strike and settle it quick, but they wanted to know what he thought animals would be dissatisfied about, as long as they got food enough to eat.

Pa said: "I'll tell you. You feed the horses and other hay-eating animals on musty baled hay, bought from contractors that may have had it on hand for five years. How would you like it if you were served with breakfast food that had been stored in a warehouse until it was mildewed? A horse or an elephant has feelings. Give them baled hay, and when they are trying to pick out a mouthful that is not spoiled, you drive along with a load of nice new-mown timothy or alfalfa, and see them make a rush for that load of hay, the way my ten-horse team did the other day for that load of cornstalks. Then the sacred cattle are hot under the collar because of the fellows who use profanity. Can you imagine a sacred cow trying to be good, and set a pious example to the heathen animals, being patient when they have to listen to swearing? You buy meat that is tainted for the lions, who like fresh meat, and the jackal, that only loves bad meat, gets the only sirloin in the lot. Let me run the menagerie to-morrow, and I will have Mr. Lion, the walking delegate, declare this strike off."

Well, they told pa to arbitrate the strike, and the next day he had a couple of loads of timothy hay, such as mother used to make, driven in and unloaded, and the horses, elephants, camels, and things almost set up a cheer for pa. The meat-eating animals were given a picnic of the freshest beef, with a little so decayed that it was only fit to be buried, for the hyenas and jackals, and every animal was happy. They did their turns better than ever, and the sacred cattle almost acted devilish.

Now the animals have declared the strike off, and they want to lick pa's hand. The owners of the show appreciate genius, and they have raised pa's salary and given him full charge of the menagerie.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Circus Strikes the Quaker City--They Go on a Ginger Ale Jag--Pa Breaks Up an Indian War Dance and Comes Near Being Burned Alive--The World's Fair Cannibals Have a Roast Dog Feast.

Ever since we knew the show was billed for Philadelphia for a Sat.u.r.day and that we should have to stay over Sunday in that town, there has been symptoms of a revolt. Everybody connected with the show has a horror of being found dead in Philadelphia. They claim it is too dead for live people, and not very satisfactory to dead people.

A performer who was with the show last year says that n.o.body but the newspaper people who had free tickets attended the performances, and some of them wouldn't go in the tent unless the press agent promised to set up a free lunch, with devilish ginger ale to drink, and that the press people got riotous on ginger ale. A ginger ale jag is terrible.

When a man is full of ginger ale his intestines loop the loop, and tie up in knots, and gripe like cholera infantum, and unless his friends hold him he goes out into the world and wants to kill the women and children, and non-combatants.

Last year our press agents filled up the members of the local press with ginger ale, and when we struck Philadelphia this time the newspapers had sworn out warrants for our show, on the charge of compounding a felony, which I suppose is the legal name for ginger ale. The way the Quakers patronize a show is to put on their gray clothes, and their big white hats and stand on the corners when the parade goes by, and never crack a smile, or act interested, and when the parade has pa.s.sed they go to the circus lot and see the balloon ascension, and stand on wagon wheels and try to look over the side of the tent at the performance, and then they kick because the audience on the back seats cut off their view from the wagon wheels.

Last year our show killed a Quaker, and the community is down on us. The Quaker got in the show because he owned a half inch of ground that its tents were on, and he stood right by the ring, and when the champion female rider was suspended in the air between two bareback horses, he leaned over too far inside the ring, and she kicked his hat clear up to the roof of the tent, and a female trapeze performer up there caught it and sat down on it on the trapeze. The old Quaker had heart disease and fell dead. What the Quakers complained of was that after the Quaker's remains had been removed from the ring, that the show went right on.

They claimed that we ought to have shown proper respect for the dead by closing the show for 30 days, and wearing c.r.a.pe on our arms, but a circus is not built that way.

Ordinarily it may be quiet enough in Philadelphia on Sunday, but pa found that he had more of a run for his money than at any place we have been so far. We have had a tribe of Indians with our wild west department all summer, and pa has not stood very well with the Indians since he was in charge of the show at Fort Wayne, and they all got drunk, and he had them tied up to the poles around the ring until they got sober. They have laid for pa ever since, and it was only a matter of time when they got him. Then at Pittsburg our manager picked up a company of cannibals that had got left over from the St. Louis fair, and who agreed to perform for their board and clothes, and as they don't wear any clothes to speak of, and only eat dog week days, and hope to get a human being to roast on Sunday, it seemed a pretty good bargain.

Well, the Indians got permission to hold a green corn dance in a piece of woods near the circus lot, and the management got them a wagon load of corn, and they had built a fire and were roasting the corn, and dancing, and pa didn't know about it, and just after dark the Quaker who owned the woods complained to pa, who was on watch Sunday night, that his Indians had got off the reservation and were preparing to go on the warpath, and he wanted them to get off his premises. Pa said he would go right over and drive them back to the tents.

I tried to get pa to let the police go and drive them off, but he said he hadn't no time to go and wake up the police, and they wouldn't get around anyway before the middle of the week. So pa took a tent stake and started for the green corn roast. The Indians were taking turns dancing and eating roasted corn, and they had a barrel of beer, and I knew enough about Indians to keep away from them when they mix beer with green corn, for it has about the same effect as committing suicide with carbolic acid.

Pa put his hat on one side of his head and went right into the midst of the Indians, and grabbed a chief called "One Ear at a Time," and hit him with the tent stake, and knocked him down, and said, "Now, you git."

Well, sir, that Indian had no more than struck the fire in a sitting position, and filled the air with the odor of fried buckskin, before the whole tribe jumped on pa, and they kicked him with their moccasins, and were going to murder him, while the chief who acted as the burnt offering got out of the fire, and sat down in the cold mud to cool himself. He held up his hand as a signal of attention, and he called a council of war, while the squaws sat on pa to hold him down.

The council of war sentenced pa to be burned at the stake, and they tied him to a tree and began to pile sticks around him, and pa told me to go to the circus lot and give an alarm, and send the hands to rescue him.

Gee, but didn't I run though, and yell an alarm big enough for a ma.s.sacre. I told the hands, who were sleeping under the seats, or playing cards on the trunks that the Indians were burning pa at the stake, and some of the hands said that would serve him right, and the fellows that were playing cards said they didn't want to break up the game when they were losers, to rescue no baldheaded curmudgeon. I thought pa was a goner, sure, 'cause I could hear the Indians yell, and I thought I could smell flesh burning. Oh, but I was scared for fear they would burn pa alive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Indians Tied Pa to a Tree and Began to Pile Sticks Around Him.]

Just then the man who had charge of our cannibals, who each had a dog that they were looking for a place to roast, came along and I told him about the Indians' corn roast, and he ordered the cannibals to go drive the Indians away from their fire and roast their dogs. Well, it worked like a charm, and the cannibals made a rush for the Indians and drove them away just as they had lighted the fire around pa, and we were not a minute too soon. After the Indians had skedaddled for the woods, and we cut the cords that bound pa, the cannibals went to work and skun the dogs, and began to cook them, and pa looked on, until it made him squirmish, but he was so tickled at being saved from the Indians, that he tried to be a good fellow with the cannibals. I guess it would have been all right, only the cannibals got to drinking the Philadelphia beer, and then it was all off, cause roast dog wasn't good enough for them, and they wanted to roast pa.

First they offered pa dog to eat, but he had swore off on dog, and pa.s.sed on it, and that made the cannibals mad, and they got ready to roast pa, and I guess they would have eaten him half cooked, if it hadn't been for the performers and freaks who had missed their pet dogs, and the circus hands told them the cannibals had just gone to the woods with a mess of dogs to roast for a dog feast.

Well, they were just getting a fire around pa, and he was giving the grand hailing sign of distress, when the performers, headed by the fat woman, whose peeled Mexican dog was lost in the shuffle, came in amongst the cannibals, and pa and the other dogs were rescued, in the darnedest fight I ever saw. The performers just walked right over the cannibals, and mauled them with stakes, and all the dogs that had not been killed were pulled away from the heathen, and saved. The fat woman got her dog all right, and when pa came up from the stake where they were going to burn him, and congratulated her on recovering her dog, she turned on pa and accused him of being the leading cannibal, and that he was the one who put up the whole job to steal the dogs. She jabbed him with a parasol, but pa was innocent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Fat Woman Jabbed Pa with Her Parasol.]

The Indians got back to the tent along towards morning, and the cannibals went back with us, and we had to feed them on wieners, which was the nearest to roast dog we could get for them at that time of night.

Pa seems to get it in the neck in this show, 'cause everything that goes wrong is laid to him, and if anything goes right, somebody else gets the credit, and I think he would resign if it was not for his pride. After the trouble about the Indians and the cannibals the manager called pa up and reprimanded him for indulging the tribes in their wild orgies, and said he couldn't maintain discipline as long as pa mixed up with them and encouraged them in such things.

Pa tried to explain that he was the victim instead of being the cause of the dog roast, but the manager dismissed pa by telling him not to let it occur again. Then to show the inconsistency of the manager, he ordered pa to go on ahead of the show to New York, and advertise that the cannibals in our show would give an exhibition of roasting and eating a human being, and to offer a reward for anybody that would consent to be roasted and eaten in public.

Pa has gone to New York to look for somebody who will take the position of meat for the cannibals, and he is instructed to spare no expense to find such a man. He thinks he may find somebody connected with the Life Insurance scandal, who has lost all desire to live any longer, and who will gladly go into this "mutual" scheme. I don't know.

This circus business is too much for me, 'cause I am losing friends all the time. Even the monkeys have got so they seem to be ashamed to be seen talking to me, and when I pa.s.s the monkey cage they turn their backs on me, as though I did not belong to their set. When a fellow gets so low that monkeys feel above him, and throw out sarcastic remarks when he goes by, it is time to change your luck some way.

CHAPTER XIV.

A Newport Monk Is Added to the Show--The Boy Teaches Him Some "Manly Tricks"--The Tent Blows Down and a Panic Follows--Pa Manages the Animal Act Which Ends in a Novel Manner.

We have added to the show the most remarkable animal that ever was--a baboon that dresses like a man, and eats at a table, using a knife and fork, and a napkin. This baboon has been playing an engagement with the Four Hundred at Newport, dining with the crowned heads at that resort, but the confounded baboon got to be too human, and he fell in love with an heiress, and scared one of the Willie boys that was also in love with her. His friends were afraid that the baboon would cut Willie out entirely, or get jealous and injure Willie, so the manager of the Four Hundred show decided to banish the baboon, and our show sent pa to Newport to buy the baboon and bring him to our show at New York.

We had the darndest time getting him away from Newport. Pa couldn't do any with him, but he took to me, 'cause he thought I was his long-lost brother, and I could do anything with him. We got him in our stateroom on the boat, and took his clothes away from him, 'cause he only wears his clothes when he is being dined and wined, and we chained him in the upper berth. He just raised the very deuce on the way down to New York.