Watch Yourself Go By Part 15

When the grounds were reached a large man with a very red nose announced from the top of a wagon the program of the day:

First, Mlle. Carlotta De Berg would ascend a slender wire from the ground to the apex of the grand pavilion. After this thrilling free exhibition the Grand Annex containing one thousand animate and inanimate wonders would throw open its doors. As this was a new name for the side-show, Cousin Charley and Alfred began to get their money ready.

(Alfred carried his own money this show day).

But when the front of the tent was reached and the same old gaudily painted pictures swayed in the breeze, both boys involuntarily halted as they realized the Grand Annex was that deadfall known as the side show.

Cousin Charley swore he "seen the same feller standing in the door of the tent that swindled him and so many others at the last show." Cousin Charley said: "He dodged back when he seen me."

In the verdancy of his suckerdom, Charley imagined the fakir who had done him had preserved as keen a recollection of the transaction as himself. He learned afterwards that there is a sucker born every minute and the crop of fakirs is nearly as great.

A tall, black-haired man, with rather a heavy face, black velvet vest, stood at the door. A long gold watch chain was around his neck and running across the velvet vest it made the chain appear the most conspicuous thing about the man. Of course he wore other articles of clothing but the above description stands out in Alfred's mind to the exclusion of his other apparel unless it be the flat-top hat and the white bow tie. The hat and tie gave the wearer a sort of clerical appearance. He had the appearance of a respectable gambler, such as were on river steamers in those days.

And this was Tony Bailles, the actor-athlete of Alfred's dreams and talks. Alfred was simply bewildered. His hero stood aloft pacing to and fro on an elevated platform, describing the wonders of the great moral exhibition especially for ladies and children.

Alfred argued to Charley that this was Tony's home and his oratory would appeal more strongly to the people than a stranger's and he was only of the side show for the day. He disliked to have the hero of his dreams discredited so prematurely and he still hoped to see his idol in spangled tights in the big show performing all kinds of wonderful feats.

But the big show was an animal show, pure and simple, not an actor, not a clown, not a rider, not a horse, not even a ring. Two ponies and a little cart introduced in the show could not dispel the gloom that had settled over the disappointed gathering in the big tent.

The only excitement of the day was when Bill Gaskill, Mart Claybaugh, Ab Linn, and two or three Was.h.i.+ngton County men engaged in a fight. When Tony Bailles rushed in to quell the disturbance and did not kick one or more of the combatants under the chin, the boy's admiration gradually turned to disgust and he was ready to leave the tent although all were admonished that the most astounding and greatest treat in natural history was about to be brought to their notice. The mammoth of mammoths, the behemoth of Holy Writ was about to be exhibited, the only one in captivity, something to tell your children and your children's children of. The hippopotamus was brought from his cage and waddled into the roped enclosure in the center of the tent. Bob Ellingham, the lecturer, talked long and learnedly on the habits and capture of the animal. The name hippopotamus was mentioned at least twenty times in the lecture as a dramatic climax. Ellingham rubbed a piece of white paper over the animal's back. Standing on a stool above the heads of the mult.i.tude he held the once spotless sheet of paper in his left hand, pointing his right forefinger at the paper, now discolored with the matter that oozed from the animal's body, he dramatically exclaimed: "He is truly the behemoth of Holy Writ. See, he sweateth blood!"

As he stood motionless, still holding the paper aloft, Old man Hare, Lacy's father, who had stood a most interested listener during the lecture, looked up into the lecturer's face and, in a querulous tone asked: "What fer animal did ye say it was?"

"A guinea pig, you dam old fool," flashed back Ellingham, as he stepped off the stool, while the crowd yelled, "Bully for Hare."

The old fellow felt greatly grieved although the shouts of approval from the crowd partially appeased him. How he talked back to the show man made him quite a hero among the country folks for a long time afterwards.

It is safe to a.s.sert that a more disappointed audience never left an exhibition than filed out of the big tent. Even the ministers, and they were all admitted free, were not satisfied. Bob Playford did not gather up the boys on the lot and pay their way in.

As the audience filed out the man with the big red nose stood on top of the wagon and invited everybody into the tent where Christy's Original Minstrels were about to offer the good people of Brownsville the same choice and amusing performance they had won fame with in the princ.i.p.al theatres in New York City. Songs, glees, choruses, banjo solos, pathetic ballads, side-splitting farces, the whole concluding with a grand walk around by the entire company.

Bob Playford and Dan French made all manner of fun of the big man with the red nose. Playford laughingly shouted: "Pay no attention to him, he don't belong to the show, he lives out in the country. He's a neighbor of old man Hare's."

Cousin Charley and Alfred were won by the man's eloquence or the tw.a.n.ging of the stringed musical instruments that could be heard in the tent. They were soon inside. A platform on a wagon served as a stage, and a curtain with a cabin and woods as a background hung at the rear of the stage. The entire company of seven persons attired in s.h.i.+rts and trousers made of bed-ticking material, were seated in a semi-circle on the improvised stage.

This was Alfred's first sight of a minstrel first part. "Gentlemen, be seated." The opening chorus was not half over before Alfred was laughing as heartily as ever boy laughed. The antics of the fellow with the tambourine who hit the singer sitting next to him on the head with it in time with the pattering of the sheepskin on his knees, hands and head, the a.s.sumed anger of the singer as he again hit him a resounding thwack, the finish, where the man with the bones and tambo worked all over the small stage and seemed in danger of upsetting it with their antics, had the crowd wild with their enthusiasm.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The songs, the jokes, the final farce, "Handy Andy," pleased Alfred so greatly that he remained for the next performance as did Lin and her beau, Cousin Charley and several of Alfred's friends. He bought a song book containing only the words. He caught several of the airs and sang them all the way home.

It was difficult to convince Alfred that the performers were white men blacked up. At supper Van Amberg's Great Moral Menagerie received a lambasting that boded no good for its future in Brownsville. Lin said:

"It was jes a show for Baptusts and sich and they was all thar. Huh, they let the preachers in free gratis, an' they ought to let everybody in fer nuthin' caus it warn't wuth nuthin'. Durned ef I walk to the grounds to see seven shows like it. The n.i.g.g.e.rs in the side show beat the big show all holler."

Alfred declared that outside of the animals _his_ show was better than Van Amberg's. Lin added: "Yes, ef Joe Sanford's wall-paper suit wus out of it."

The supper was not over ere Lin and Alfred were in the parlor with the melodeon endeavoring to sing the songs of the minstrels. They had the book and hot were the arguments as to whether they had the tune right or not.

Lin, Cousin Charley, Alfred, Billy Woods, and Bill Hyatt decided to go back to the minstrels at night. Alfred sang the songs under his breath.

He drank in every word of the jokes and the farce he committed to memory.

When they reached home the melodeon was started up again, and its strains swelled out on the night air until the father closed the rehearsal abruptly by ordering all to bed.

The seed had been sown; even the chaff had taken root. The clown illusion still clung to Alfred but the minstrel idea seemed nearer realization. Did ever a party of amateurs decide to a.s.sault the public that they did not use a minstrel performance as their weapon?

Despite the protests of the parents, the old melodeon, notwithstanding its age and other infirmities, was worked overtime. Alfred sang and resang the songs they had learned or deceived themselves into believing they had learned at the minstrels.

Billy Woods had a good ear for tunes. As Lin put it, Billy caught more of the tunes than any of the others. Billy became a nightly visitor.

Billy's flute and the melodeon did not harmonize as the melodeon had only three notes left in it. Lin just waited when a note was missing until the next measure and then "ketched up" as she expressed it.

Amity Getty was another addition to the little band. He was really a good performer on the guitar. Alfred's especial favorite in the minstrels was the fellow who handled the tambourine. The mother said there was not a pie pan in the house they could bake in, Alfred had them so battered and dented thumping them on his knees, head and elbows.

"I declare, I believe the boy is going crazy; I don't know what we will do with him," often said the mother.

Cousin Charley was of an inventive turn of mind. He had become greatly interested in the nightly singing and fas.h.i.+oned a tambourine out of an old cheese box by cutting it down. Dennis Isler put tin jingles in it and put on a sheepskin head.

The instrument in Alfred's hands became a terror to the household. He was banished to the commons where, surrounded by the children of the neighborhood, he did his practicing to the delight and danger of his audience as he persisted in finis.h.i.+ng his antics by thumping one of the audience on the head with his instrument of torture, which generally sent the recipient of his thwack home, holding his head and crying. This usually brought a complaint from the victim's parents and Alfred's visits to the cellar accompanied by his father became so frequent that a boy with less ardor would surely have lost interest in his instrument.

Alfred repeatedly advised Lin that they never could be minstrels if they did not have bones. He selected Billy Storey to perform on these necessary adjuncts to the minstrels. When Lin brought home from John Allison's meat shop a rib roast, the mother, astonished at the size of it, said: "My goodness, Lin, that roast is big enough for any tavern in town."

The fact was Lin had not closely studied the bone player's instruments.

She was of the opinion it required eight bones instead of four, hence the magnitude of the roast.

The little band made the big front room the mecca for pilgrims nightly.

The mother was nearly frantic; after every concert of the embryotic minstrels she solemnly admonished Lin and Alfred that that would be the last.

Lin in turn would accuse Alfred of being the cause of all the din and racket. "Ef it hadn't been fer Cousin Charley makin' Alfurd thet infernal head drum (Lin could never say tambourine), Mary would never sed a word as she jus loves music es well es eny body else."

Lin a.s.serted that "the durn jingling contraption, jes spiled the hull thing and ye don't make good music with it nohow." Lin's deductions could not be controverted. Alfred did not make good music with his tambourine but it is a fact that he succeeded in drowning a great deal of bad.

It was a night never to be forgotten; one of those nights that will linger long in fondest remembrance by any who have enjoyed them. It was the night of one of those old time parties, one of those healthful, pleasure giving affairs, an old fas.h.i.+oned family party. Relatives, near and distant, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces, cousins and friends, came by invitation to the old home.

Games and recitations, blind-man's buff, b.u.t.ton, b.u.t.ton, who's got the b.u.t.ton, Uncle Joe, blindfolded, pursuing the prettiest girl at the frolic, brought roars of laughter from everyone but Aunt Betsy. Lin, sitting on a crock endeavoring to pa.s.s a linen thread through the eye of a cambric needle; Uncle Jack, blindfolded trying to pin the tail on the proper place on the paper donkey stuck against the wall. When he stuck the pin in the keyhole of the parlor door the laughter shook the sash in the windows.

The young folks formed in a circle holding hands, slowly revolving around a bashful young man standing in the center of the circle. As they circled they sang that old ditty so dear to the youth of those days:

"King William was King George's son, And from a royal race he sprung; And on his breast he wore a star, That marked his bravery in the war.

Go choose your East, go choose your West, Go choose the one that you love best."

Here the young man tagged the girl of his choice. Of course, the girl broke from the circle and ran but was easily captured. She was led to the center of the circle which again revolved and the song continued:

"Down on this carpet you must kneel, Just as the gra.s.s grows in the field; Salute your bride and kiss her sweet, And you may rise unto your feet."

When the bashful young man received a thumping thwack from the girl of his choice in return for the kiss he planted on her rosy cheek, the laughter was renewed tenfold.

All this may look cold in print to the young folks of today but it made the hot blood of the boys and girls of those good old days flow faster than the patter of their feet to the tune of the songs they sang.

Sis Minks sang "Barbara Allen" with such telling effect that the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude became "as subdued as a Quaker meetin'" as Lin described it.

Sis was an old maid and lived in the country; her dog had followed her to the party. The standing of every family in those parts was rated by the number of dogs they possessed. Sis's people had stood high for many years but their canine possessions had decreased. When questioned by a neighbor as to the number of dogs in his possession, the father of Sis ruefully replied: "Wall, I hev a house dog, a c.o.o.n dog, a fox dog an' a 'feist'--it just seems like I can't git a start in dogs again." It was the house dog that had followed Sis.