Side Show Studies Part 3

Brandu's white teeth glistened as he smiled at the Proprietor and pointed first to his own eyes and then to those of the serpent. He brought the head of the cobra close to his face, his expression became fixed and stern and the pupils of his widely opened eyes, which had been dilated until the iris was but a narrow rim, contracted to the size of pin heads. The cobra gazed at him fixedly and the tense body slowly uncoiled from his arm and hung limp and motionless, and Brandu laid it on the floor as lifeless and inert as a piece of rope. One of his a.s.sistants handed him a gla.s.s containing a couple of raw eggs and, handling it as carelessly as if it were a harmless garter snake, he picked up the cobra and forced a tube of polished bamboo between its jaws. When he had poured the eggs through the tube he withdrew it and carefully replaced the snake in the basket, still apparently lifeless; but bending over he blew sharply into its face and the cobra was instantly reanimated into five feet of viciousness. Its head reared up above the edge, the spectacled hood distended in anger, but Brandu quickly clapped on the cover and the snake feeding was finished for two weeks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"You're a blame fine figure of a fat man."_]

"That is a great performance of Brandu's," said the Press Agent, "but it profits us nothing because the best part of it cannot be shown to the public. I never see a snake fed without thinking of something which happened when I was running a side show with the Greatest Show on Earth.

"You know that the dime museum business was run to death while the craze lasted in this country, and freaks got so common that you couldn't throw a stone in the streets of any large city without hitting one of 'em.

When the fickle public tired of giving up its dimes to see 'em, a guy named Merritt and myself had a choice collection on hand, and we went on the road with the big show for the summer, thinking perhaps our business would pick up in the fall. Our two great attractions were the biggest boa-constrictor in captivity, which we called 'Jointless Jake,' and the heaviest fat man in the world. That snake was about two hundred feet long, and while the fat man wasn't much on length, he held the record for belt measurement. Nine hundred and twenty-seven pounds he weighed, as we demonstrated on our own scales at every performance. Their feed bill was quite an item, as the snake took a half-dozen sheep every two weeks and the fat man, who was billed as 'Signor Adipose Avoirdupois'--Merritt invented that--needed about a side of beef every day.

"Freaks are a jealous lot and as hard to manage as rival prima donnas, and these two monstrosities came to hate each other like poison. They were in different lines, but you may have noticed that the side show 'professor' uses up most of the superlatives in the English language when he gives his lecture, and each of 'em seemed afraid that the other would get some of his share of the dictionary. Adipose used to look at Jake's coiled body as if he would like to sit on it and flatten it out, and the snake would return the glance with a naughty little twinkle in its eye, as if he was estimating how much it would have to stretch its skin to accommodate A. A. in its interior, until it made Merritt anxious about 'em.

"'That blame fat fool will waste away and spoil his shape, if he don't stop worrying,' he says, and he cuts a lot of his talk out of the description of the snake and uses the words on Adipose. Maybe you think snakes are stupid, but they aren't, and the boa got the hump and refused to uncoil himself to show his length unless he got his full share of the spiel. It cheered Avoirdupois up, though, and when we moved to the next town he stood around to gloat over Jake when he was being moved from the traveling box to the exhibition cage. The snake hadn't been fed for ten days and he was good and lively as well as being out of temper, so when he caught sight of the Signor he scattered the boys with one flip of his tail and went for him.

"I've heard of bear hugs, but I never saw such a squeezing as that boa gave poor Adipose. It was a long way around him, but the snake made about a dozen wraps and all we could see of the fat man was a pair of feet sticking out at one end of the coil and his face, which looked like a purple harvest moon, projecting from the other. Jake reaches out and gets hold of a tent peg with his tail, which gives him a purchase, and then he tightens up for fair and Adipose lets out a holler you could hear a mile.

"Of course, we got busy with crowbars and jackscrews and tried to pry Jake off, but there was nothing doing and the harder we pried the closer he cinched up on Adipose. Merritt usually had a suggestion to make, so I looked at him and he was lost in thought, but in a minute he brightens up and calls for a rope.

"'We can't pry the blame snake away from the man,' says he, as he tied the rope around the Signor's feet, 'so we'll try to pull the man away from the snake.' All hands fell to and pulled to beat four of a kind, but Jake just tightened up a bit and grinned and Adipose let out another holler.

"'You need a traction engine on that rope,' says I when they gave it up as a bad job, and Merritt, who was looking a little discouraged, gave a whoop.

"'Bring an elephant,' he yelled, and when one of the boys started off on a run for the menagerie, he called after him to 'make that order two elephants.' The Hathis came lumbering over, and Merritt tied the rope around the shoulders of one and put another rope around Jake's neck and the shoulders of the other elephant.

"'Now pull, blame you!' says he, heading 'em in different directions and giving one of 'em a kick, and they put their shoulders against the ropes. It was a mighty interesting performance to every one but Adipose, who didn't seem to enjoy it at all, judging from the yells he let out.

Jake was having the time of his life, and the harder the elephants pulled the tighter he squeezed the Signor, and when he felt that they were getting the better of him he made a supreme effort which kinked up every muscle in his body. But there was no holding on against those brutes, and pretty soon the fat man commenced to slip out from the coils, feet first. It was a queer thing to watch and his legs stretched so that I thought his knees would never come into sight. His legs had been about the size of barrels when the snake grabbed him, but between the stretching and the squeezing they were now three times as long and about as large as broomsticks. He weighed as much as ever when the elephants finally got him out, but the flesh was distributed differently and instead of being six feet tall and twelve feet around, he was twelve feet long and built in proportion. The snake was up against it, too, for he had cramped himself so with that last squeeze that he couldn't straighten out the kinks, and he kept in the same shape as when he was wrapped around the Signor. We tried to straighten him out, but it was no use; he just stayed coiled up like a spring and the boys rolled him around as if he were a barrel.

"Merritt had kept cheerful as long as there was anything to be done, but tears came to his eyes when he looked at Adipose. The Signor was standing up, gazing at his feet, which he hadn't seen before in twenty years, and Merritt looked up at him and freed his mind.

"'You're a blame fine figure of a fat man, aren't you, now?' says he.

'Just on account of your confounded professional jealousy we lose our two star attractions, for that blamed snake is so kinked up that he isn't good for anything except to cut up into barrel hoops.'

"The Signor was ashamed of himself and hadn't a word to say, so he just kept quiet and tried to get used to his new shape and taking a bird's-eye view of things. Merritt and I were feeling pretty blue when along comes Tody Hamilton, the circus press agent, and as soon as he saw what had happened he made a run for a trolley car.

"'Don't let 'em get away!' he yelled back over his shoulder. 'This is the biggest scoop on record and I'm off for the printing-office.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Jake was having the time of his life, and the harder the elephants pulled the tighter he squeezed the Signor."_]

"'It'll make a good newspaper story, all right; but where do we come in on it?' says Merritt, looking mournfully at Adipose.

"Well, a couple of hours later I had to go into the city to order some new togs for the Signor, who looked as if he were dressed in a particularly baggy bathing suit since he had been stretched out, and the first thing I saw was a procession of sandwich men marching down the street. The ink wasn't dry on the posters, but Tody had been busy, and there in flaming red letters was the announcement--

JUST ARRIVED AT THE BIG SHOW!

DON'T MISS SEEING THEM!!!

LENGTHY LOUIS, THE TALLEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE!!!

CIRCULAR SAM, THE MOST GIGANTIC HOOP SNAKE EVER CAPTURED!!!

THE LIONESS SKIRT DANCE AND THE INCONSIDERATE PYTHON

THE LIONESS SKIRT DANCE AND THE INCONSIDERATE PYTHON

The conventional skirt dance has long ceased to be a novelty on the vaudeville stage, but as it is performed by "La Belle Selica" in the Arena at Dreamland it holds the interest of that most exacting audience--a crowd of Coney Island pleasure seekers. It is not because Selica is pre-eminent among dancers, but on account of the unusual and dangerous stage setting; for she performs in the large exhibition cage, surrounded by a half dozen lionesses, each animal seated on a separate pedestal. Any one of the huge beasts could crush the dancer with a single blow of a ma.s.sive paw, and the great jaws which snap viciously at her tiny feet as she kicks them before their faces are sufficiently powerful to crush the s.h.i.+n-bone of an ox.

She is apparently without fear of them, for she dances gracefully from one to the other, flicking them across their faces with the light switch which she carries for her only protection, and kicking over their heads and into their very mouths, always missing the answering snap of the jaws by the fraction of an inch, and acknowledging it with a smile as she whirls away to repeat the performance before another pedestal. The lionesses see the performance many times in the course of a season, but they never lose interest in it and they do not remove their eyes from Selica from the time she enters the cage until she drives them out before her. So long as she is on her feet and agile enough to escape the swift stroke of a paw or the snapping jaws, she is safe; for a lioness would not jump at her from a pedestal; but there is always the chance of a slip or a false step and then----!!!

It happened once, and caused a suspension of Selica's performance for two months during the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, for Grace, the largest lioness, was on her before she could recover herself; and it required the efforts of Bostock and all of his trainers to beat back the beasts who were maddened by the sight and smell of blood and to rescue the unconscious woman from the cage. They have never forgotten that moment of rebellion which was so nearly successful, and they are ever watchful for another opportunity to avenge the many cuts of the training whip which they received in the course of their schooling. But Selica is also watchful, and although Grace had latterly done nothing particularly out of the way, the wonderful sixth sense which experienced trainers always acquire warned her that the animal should be regarded with suspicion. The beast had become nervous; a little more sullen than usual when ordered to leave her den for the exhibition cage, and a trifle slow and rebellious when told to jump up on her allotted pedestal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Now, if you'll kindly give me your attention."_]

Constant a.s.sociation with the wild animals begets carelessness but Selica, with the scars of Grace's sharp claws still visible on her back and shoulders, was quick to notice the change and especially careful, before opening the door from the den to the runway, to look through the observation hole and make sure that the lioness was not crouched for a spring. Grace had been particularly sullen in the afternoon and she was growling ominously when Selica went to get her for the evening performance, but when the woman saw the three little furry b.a.l.l.s which were huddled in a corner of the den she understood and forgave all. The cubs were no larger than St. Bernard puppies, but Grace apparently considered them worth fighting for; and Selica's dance was given that night with only five lionesses in the cage, and the Proprietor told the Stranger the reason for the empty pedestal.

"Wait until after the performance and I will take them out of the cage and show them to you," he said; and the Stranger, remembering a tradition to the effect that robbing a lioness of her cubs is a dangerous feat, looked forward with a great deal of interest to the after-piece.

"We can't trust the rearing of the cubs to Grace," said the Proprietor, as he stood in front of her cage after the audience had been dismissed.

"The close proximity of the other animals in the Arena and the curiosity of the thousands of people who come here every day would make her so crazy that she would destroy them, so I must get them a foster mother. I have sent to New York for a b.i.t.c.h with pups, and in a couple of days I will show you a happy family." The cubs were in the center of the cage and Grace stood over them, snarling and looking with blazing eyes at the group in front of it; but Selica's voice from the runway and a rattling of the door at the back distracted her attention, and as she sprang at the door the Proprietor darted a hand between the bars and seized one of the cubs, drawing it safely out a half second before the enraged mother landed against the bars with a force which made them rattle.

The poor beast was almost frantic, but the same maneuver was twice repeated, and in spite of her fierce attacks on doors and bars the Proprietor, who had acquired through his lifetime a.s.sociation with the great cats as much of their quickness of movement as it is given to mere man to learn, removed the three cubs without receiving a scratch.

Poor helpless little creatures they were, and it was difficult to realize that they would soon grow into beasts as powerful as the ferocious Baltimore, the terror of trainers, who was answering Grace's lamentations with roars which fairly shook the building, from his cage on the other side of the Arena.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Looked like the pennant of a man-o'-war."_]

"That animal was bred in captivity, born and raised in our menagerie in England," said the Proprietor after he had placed the cubs in charge of one of the keepers. "I suppose that's what makes him such a bad beggar to handle. Give me the jungle-bred lion to train, every time, for after the manhandling and discomfort of his capture and transportation to the coast by the natives, he appreciates the care and humanity of a civilized trainer. These cubs which are raised in captivity are always played with and teased by the employees and visitors, and their first knowledge of their strength comes to them accidentally when they hurt a man without meaning to do it; but they soon learn to connect cause and effect, and then it is time to watch out for 'em. A jungle-bred lion is pretty much c.o.c.k o' the walk until he is snared or trapped, and in his first experience with men he is vanquished and realizes how useless is his great strength against the nets and ropes which entangle him. The cub born in captivity is familiar with men from the first, and plays with them like a kitten until one day he is out of sorts or is accidentally hurt in a frolic and the swift cut of his razor-like claws makes his playmate or tormentor drop him and leave him in peace. That makes it hard for the trainer when he takes him in hand, for although the cub may be subdued, he remembers that he was once victorious and watches his chance. Jack Bonavita, the greatest trainer who ever went into a lion's cage, would have two good arms to-day if Baltimore had been born in the Nubian desert instead of in Manchester."

They stood in front of Baltimore's cage for a moment, admiring the swelling muscles of the great beast as he sprang from side to side, shaking his s.h.a.ggy mane and roaring defiance at the world, and then turned to go to the white-topped table in front of the Arena. In the doorway they met the Press Agent, looking anything but cheerful and muttering maledictions on the heads of all city editors. The Proprietor told him of the new arrivals in the Arena, and suggested sending the announcement of the birth to the papers.

"A fat chance I'd stand of having it printed," he grumbled. "Here I've worked half the season and never given 'em a story that wasn't pretty nearly true, and to-day when I take them that account of Morelli and the jaguar they turn me down and holler 'fake.' Let me take one of those cubs and stripe it over with a little black paint, and to-morrow morning every newspaper in New York will have a photographer down here to take pictures of 'the only hybrid lion-tiger cub ever born,' and all of the s.p.a.ce jerkers will be b.u.t.tonholing me for a three column, front page story."

The arrival of the waiter with soothing beverages soon brought back the customary smile to his genial face and the Proprietor's suggestion that perhaps he had embroidered some of the stories just a trifle, aroused only a good-natured protest.

"The worst thing about the press agent's profession is that he has to risk his eternal salvation by making up plausible lies to satisfy the newspapers when he could give 'em better stories which are actually true if they would take 'em on his say so," he said, as he wiped the froth from his mustache. "I remember once when a guy named Merritt and myself were running a snake show in New York that we couldn't pay the rent because the papers wouldn't give us any publicity, although we had the finest collection of wrigglers that was ever gotten together. We were running it on the dead level, nary a fake about it, and Merritt's lecture was highly instructive and interesting and more than half true; but we saw that we couldn't win out at the game unless we crooked it. We were running so far behind that the only thing which saved us from a dispossess was the fact that they couldn't get a constable who would carry the snakes out to the sidewalk; but Merritt was a resourceful cuss and I felt confident that he would figure out some scheme to win out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Kicking over their heads and into their very mouths."_]

"'Jim,' says he, 'it's necessary for us to give 'em a sensation. We've tried to run this game as a purely moral and instructive entertainment, but we need the money and I reckon we've got to spring a cold deck on 'em. I guess you've got to stand for being attacked by an untamable, man-eating python.'

"'You can count me out on that,' says I. 'Every paper in the city would write me up as a victim of the demon Rum.' Merritt looked discouraged for a minute, but his face suddenly lighted up and I knew he had found a way.

"'Jim,' says he, 'if we only take half of our usual allowance of fire-water to-night we will have enough cash to buy some paint. Now there's that big white python; the only specimen ever captured, the "pythonatus fluidum lactalis giganticus,"' says he. That was one trouble with Merritt; he'd get so stuck on the language which he manufactured that he couldn't leave it out, even in our business consultations, and it used up a lot of time. 'That python is the straight goods,' says he, 'but he doesn't catch their eyes, so I'll paint the blame snake red, white and blue and christen him the "anacondus flagelum americanibus e pluribus unum," and give the reporters something to work on,' says he.

'That'll work up the snakologists and set 'em writing in the papers to prove that there isn't any such thing; but we've got the answer to that, for we can show 'em one at twenty-five cents per.'