Back Home Part 13

We-ell, I s'pose I'd have to rescue a girl. It seems they always do that. But it would be nicer, I think, to rescue some real rich man. He'd say: "My n.o.ble preserver! How can I sufficiently reward you?" and take out his pocketbook. And wouldn't say: "Take back your proffered gold,"

and make like I was pus.h.i.+ng it away, "take back your proffered gold. I but did my duty." And then wouldn't forget all about it. And one day, after I'd forgotten all about, it, the man would die, and will me a million dollars, or a thousand, I don't know. Enough to make me rich.

And say! Wouldn't the animals get excited when they saw the show was afire? They'd just roar and roar, and upset the cages, and maybe they'd get loose. O-o-o-Oh! How about that? If there was a lion come at me I'd climb a tree. What would you do? Ah, your pa's shot-gun nothing! Why, you crazy, that would only infuriate him the more. What you want to do is to take an express rifle, like Doo Challoo did, and aim right for his heart. An express rifle is what you send off and get, and they s.h.i.+p it to you by express.

So you see what a fellow misses by having to go to the show in the afternoon, like the girls and the a-b-abs. The boys from across the tracks get to go at night. They have all the fun. When they go they don't have to poke along, and poke along, and keep hold of hands so as not to get lost.... Aw, hurry up, can't you? Don't you hear the band playing? It'll be all over before we get there.

But finally the lots are reached, and there are the tents, with all kinds of flags snapping from the centerpoles and the guy-ropes. And there are the sideshows. Alas! You never thought of the sideshows when you asked if you could go. And now it's too late. It must be fine in the side-shows. I never got to go to one. I didn't have the money. But if the big, painted banners, bulging in and out, as the wind plays with them, are anything to go by, it must be something grand to see the Fat Lady, and the Circa.s.sian Beauty, whose frizzled head will just about fit a bushel basket, and the Armless Wonder. They say he can take a pair of scissors with his toes and cut your picture out of paper just elegant.

Oh, and something else you miss by going in the afternoon. At night you can sneak around at the back, and when n.o.body is looking you can just lift up the canvas and go right in for nothing.... Why, what's wrong about that? Ah, you're too particular.... And if the canvasman catches you, you can commence to cry and say you had only forty cents, and wanted to see the circus so bad, and he'll take it and let you in, and you can have ten cents, don't you see, to spend for lemonade, red lemonade, you understand; and peanuts, the littlest bags, and the "on-riest" peanuts that ever were.

As far as I can see, the animal part of the show is just the same as it always was. The people that take you to the show always pretend to be interested in them, but it's my belief they stop and look only to tease you. Away, 'way back in ancient times, there used to be a man that took the folks around and told them what was in each cage, and where it came from, and how much it cost, and what useful purpose it served in the wise economy of nature, and all about it. That was before my time. But I can recollect something they had that they don't have any more. I can remember when Mr. Barnum first brought his show to our town. It didn't take much teasing to get to go to that, because in those days Mr. Barnum was a "biger man than old Grant." "The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself" was on everybody's marble-topped centertable, just the same as "The History of the Great Rebellion." You show some elderly person from out of town the church across the street from the Astor House, and say: "That's St. Paul's Chapel. General Montgomery's monument is in the chancel window. George Was.h.i.+ngton went to meeting there the day he was inaugurated president," and your friend will say: "M-hm." But you tell him that right across Broadway is where Barnum's Museum used to be, and he'll brighten right up and remember all about how Barnum strung a flag across to St. Paul's steeple and what a fuss the vestry of Trinity Parish made. That's something he knows about, that's part of the history of our country.

Well, when Mr. Barnum first came to our town, all around one tent were vans full of the very identical Moral Waxworks that we had read about, and had given up all hopes of ever seeing because New York was so far away. There was the Dying Zouave. Oh, that was a beauty! The Advance Courier said that "the crimson torrent of his heart's blood spouted in rhythmic jets as the tide of life ebbed silently away;" but I guess by the time they got to our town they must have run all out of pokeberry juice, for the "crimson torrent" didn't spout at all. But his bosom heaved every so often, and he rolled up his eyes something grand! I liked it, but my mother said it was horrid. That's the way with women.

They don't like anything that anybody else does. There's no pleasing 'em. And she thought the Drunkard's Family was "kind o' low." It wasn't either. It was fine, and taught a great moral lesson. I told her so, but she said it was low, just the same. She thought the Temperance Family was nice, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as the Drunkard's Family.

Why, let me tell you. The Drunkard's Wife was in a ragged calico dress, and her eye was all black and blue, where he had hit her the week before. And the Drunkard had hold of a black quart bottle, and his nose was all red, and he wore a plug hat that was even rustier and more caved in than Elder Drown's, if such a thing were possible. And there was--But I can't begin to tell you of all the fine things Mr. Barnum had that year, but never had again.

Another thing Mr. Barnum had that year that never appeared again. It may be that after that time the Funny Old Clown did crack a joke, but I never heard him. The one that Mr. Barnum had got off the most comical thing you ever heard. I'll never forget it the longest day I live.

Laugh? Why, I nearly took a conniption over it. It seems the clown got to crying about something.... Now what was it made him cry? Let me see now.... Ain't it queer I can't remember that? Fudge! Well, never mind now. It will come to me in a minute.

I feel kind of sorry for the poor little young ones that grow up and never know what a clown is like. Oh, yes, they have them to-day, after a fas.h.i.+on. They stub their toes and fall down the same as ever, but there is a whole mob of them and you can't take the interest in them that you could in "the one, the only, the inimitable" clown there used to be, a character of such importance that he got his name on the bills. He was a mighty man in those days. The ring-master was a kind of stuck-up fellow, very important in his own estimation, but he didn't have a spark of humor. Not a spark. And he'd be swelling around there, all so grand, and the clown, just to take him down a peg or two, would ask him a conundrum. And do you think he could ever guess one? Never. Not a one.

And when the clown would tell him what the answer was, he'd be so vexed at himself that he'd try to take it out on the poor clown, and cut at him with his long whip. But Mr. Clown was just as spry in his shoes as he was under the hat, and he'd hop up on the ring-side out of the way, and squall out: "A-a-aah! Never touched me!" We had that for a byword.

Oh, you'd die laughing at the comical remarks he'd make. And he'd be so quick about it. The ring-master would say something, and before you'd think, the clown would make a joke out of it.... I wish I could remember what it was he said that was so funny, the time he started crying. Seems to me it was something about his little brother.... Well, no matter.

Yes, sir, there are heads of families to-day, I'll bet you, that have grown up without ever having heard a clown sing a comic song, and ask the audience to join in the chorus. And if you say to such people: "Here we are again, Mr. Merryman," or "Bring on another horse," or "What will the little lady have now? the banners, my lord?" they look at you so funny. They don't know what you mean, and they don't know whether to get huffy or not. Well, I suppose it had to be that the Funny Old Clown with all his songs, and quips, and conundrums, and comical remarks should disappear. Perhaps he "didn't pay."

I can't see that the rest of the show has changed so very much. Perhaps the trapeze performances are more marvelous and breath-suspending than they used to be. But they were far and far beyond what we could dream of then, and to go still farther as little impresses us as to be told that people live still even westerly of Idaho. The trapeze performers are up-to-date in one respect. The fellow that comes down with his arms folded, one leg stuck out and the other twined around the big rope, revolving slowly, slowly--well, the band plays the Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" nowadays when he does that. It used to play: "O Thou, Sweet Spirit, Hear my Prayer!" But the lady in the riding-habit still smiles as if it hurt her when her horse walks on its hind legs; the bareback rider does the very same fancy steps as the horse goes round the ring in a rocking-chair lope; the attendants still slant the hurdles almost flat for the horse to jump; they still snake the banners under the rider's feet as he gives a little hop up, and they still bang him on the head with the paper-covered hoop to .... Hold on a minute.

Now.

Now... That story the clown told that was so funny, that had something to do with those hoops. I wish I could think of it. It would make you laugh, I know.

People try to lay the blame of the modern circus's failure to interest them on the three rings. They say so many things to watch at once keeps them from being watching properly any one act. They can't give it the attention it deserves. But I'll tell you what's wrong: There isn't any Funny Old Clown, a particular one, to give it human interest. It is all too splendid, too magnificent, too far beyond us. We want to hear somebody talk once in awhile.

They pretended that the tent was too big for the clown to be heard, but I take notice it wasn't too big for the fellow to get up and declaim "The puffawmance ees not yait hawf ovah. The jaintlemanly agents will now pawss around the ring with tickets faw the concert." I used to hate that man. When he said the performance was not yet half over, he lied like a dog, consarn his picture! There were only a few more acts to come. He knew it and we knew it. We wanted the show to go on and on, and always to be just as exciting as at the very first, and it wouldn't!

We had got to the point where we couldn't be interested in anything any more. We were as little ones unable to prop their eyelids open and yet quarreling with bed. We were surfeited, but not satisfied. We sat there and pouted because there wasn't any more, and yet we couldn't but yawn at the act before us. We were mad at ourselves, and mad at everybody else. We clambered down the rattling bedslats seats, sour and sullen.

We didn't want to look at the animals; we didn't want to do this, and we didn't want to do that. We whined and snarled, and wriggled and shook ourselves with temper, and we got a good hard slap, side of the head, right before everybody, and then we yelled as if we were being killed alive.

"Now, mister, if I ever take you any place again, you'll know it. I'd be ashamed of myself if I was you. Hush up! Hush up, I tell you. Now you mark. You're never going to the show again. Do you hear me? Never! I mean it. You're never going again."

But at eventide there was light. After supper, after a little rest and a good deal of food, while chopping the kindling for morning (it's wonderful how useful employ tends to induce a cheerful view of life) out of her dazzling treasure-heap of jewels, Memory took up, one after another, a glowing recollection and viewed it with delight. The evening performance, the one all lighted up with bunches and bunches of lights, was a-preparing, and in the gentle breeze the far-off music waved as it had been a flag. A harsh and rumbling noise as of heavy timbers falling tore through the tissue of sweet sounds. The horses in the barn next door screamed in their stalls to hear it. Ages and ages ago, on distant wind-swept plains their ancestors had hearkened to that hunting-cry, and summoned up their valor and their speed. It still thrilled in the blood of these patient slaves of man, though countless generations of them had never even so much as seen a lion.

"And is that all the difference, pa, that the lion roars at night and the ostrich in the daytime?"

Out on the back porch in the deepening dusk we sat, with eyes relaxed and dreaming, and watched the stars that powdered the dark sky. Before our inward vision pa.s.sed in review the day of splendor and renown. We sighed, at last, but it was the happy sigh of him who has full dined.

Ambition was digesting. In our turn, when we grew up, we, too, were to do the deeds of high emprise. We were to be somebody.

(I never heard of anybody sitting up to see the show depart. And yet it seems to me that would be the best time to run off with it.)

The next day we visited the lots. It was no dream. See the litter that mussed up the place.

We were all there. None had heard the man that runs the show say genially: "Yes, I think we can arrange to take you with us." Here was the ring; here the tent-pole holes, and here a sc.r.a.p of paper torn from a hoop the bareback rider leaped through.... Oh, now I know what I was going to tell you that the clown said. The comicalest thing!

He picked up one of these hoops and began to sniffle.

So the ring-master asked him what he was crying about.

"I--I--was thinking of my mother. Smf! My good old mother!"

So the ring-master asked him what made him think of his mother.

"This." And he held up the paper-covered hoop.

The ring-master couldn't see how that put the clown in mind of his mother. He was awful dumb, that man.

"It looks just like the pancakes she used to make for us."

Well, sir, we just hollered and laughed at that. And after we had quieted down a little, the ringmaster says: "As big as that?"

"Bigger," says the clown. "Why, she used to make 'em so big we used 'em for bedclothes."

"Indeed" (Just like that. He took it all in, just as if it was so.)

"Oh, my, yes! I mind one time I was sleeping with my little brother, and I waked up just as cold--Brr! But I was cold!"

"But how could that be, sir? You just now said you had pancakes for bedclothes."

"Yes, but my little brother got hungry in the night, and et up all the cover."

Laugh? Why, they screamed. Me? I thought I'd just about go up. But the ring master never cracked a smile. He didn't see the joke at all.

Good-by, old clown, friend of our childhood, goodby, good-by forever!

And you, our other friend, the street parade, must you go, too? And you, the gorgeous show-bills, must you tread the path toward the sundown?

Good-by! Good-by! In that dreary land where you are going, the Kingdom of the Ausgespielt, it may comfort you to recollect the young hearts you have made happy in the days that were, but never more can be again.

THE COUNTY FAIR

Whether or not the name had an influence on the weather, I don't know.

Perhaps it did rain some years, but, as I remember, County Fair time seems to have had a sky perfectly cloudless, with its blue only a little dulled around the edges where it came close to the ground and the dust settled on it. Things far off were sort of hazy, but that might have been the result of the bonfires of leaves we had been having evenings after supper. In Fair weather, when the sun had been up long enough to get a really good start, it was right warm, but in the shade it was cool, and nights and mornings there was a chill in the air that threatened worse things to come.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended. Down cellar the swing-shelf is cram-jam full of jellygla.s.ses, and jars of fruit. Out on the hen-house roof are drying what, when the soap-box wagon was first built, promised barrels and barrels of nuts to be brought up with the pitcher of cider for our comforting in the long winter evenings, but what turns out, when the shucks are off, to be a poor, pitiful half-peck, daily depleted by the urgent necessity of finding out if they are dry enough yet. Folks are picking apples, and Koontz's cider-mill is in full operation. (Do you know any place where a fellow can get some nice long straws?) Out in the fields are champagne-colored pyramids, each with a pale-gold heap of corn beside it, and the good black earth is dotted with orange blobs that promise pumpkin-pies for Thanksgiving Day. No. Let me look again.

Those aren't pie-pumpkins; those are cow-pumpkins, and if you want to see something kind of pitiful, I'll show you Abe Bethard chopping up one of those yellow globes--with what, do you suppose? With the cavalry saber his daddy used at Gettysburg.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended. As a result of all the good feeding and the outdoor air we have had for three or four months past, the strawberry shortcakes, and cherry-pies, and green peas, and new potatoes, and string beans, and roasting-ears, and all such garden-stuff, and the fresh eggs, broken into the skillet before Speckle gets done cackling, and the c.o.c.kerels we pick off the roost Sat.u.r.day evenings (you see, we're thinning 'em out; no sense in keeping all of 'em over winter)--as a result, I say, of all this good eating, and the outdoor life, and the necessity of stirring around a little lively these days we feel pretty good. And yet we get kind of low in our minds, too.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended. It's gone, the good playtime when we didn't have to go to school, when the only foot-covering we wore was a rag around one big toe or the other; the days when we could stay in swimming all day long except mealtimes; the days of Sabbath-school picnics and excursions to the Soldiers' Home--it's gone. The harvest is past, the summer is ended. The green and leafy things have heard the word, and most of them are taking it pretty seriously, judging by their looks. But the maples and some more of them, particularly the maples, with daredevil recklessness, have resolved, as it were, to die with their boots on, and flame out in such violent and unbelievable colors that we feel obliged to take testimony in certain outrageous cases, and file away the exhibits in the Family Bible where n.o.body will bother them. The harvest is past, the summer is ended. Rainy days you can see how played-out and forlorn the whole world looks. But at Fair time, when the sun s.h.i.+nes bright, it appears right cheerful.

It seems to me the Fair lasted three days. One of them was a holiday from school, I know, and unless I'm wrong, it wasn't on the first day, because then they were getting the things in, and it wasn't on the last day, because then they were taking the things out, so it must have been on the middle day, when everybody went. Charley Wells had both the depot 'buses out with "County FAIR" painted on muslin hung on the sides. The Cornet Band rode all round town in one, and so on over to the "scene of the festivities" as the Weekly Examiner very aptly put it, and then both 'buses stood out in front of the American House, waiting for pa.s.sengers, with Dinny Enright calling out: "This sway t' the Fair Groun's! Going RIGHT over!" Only he always waited till he got a good load before he turned a wheel. (Dinny's foreman at the chair factory now. Did you know that? Doing fine. Gets $15 a week, and hasn't drunk a drop for nearly two years.)