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PECK'S BAD BOY
WITH THE CIRCUS
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Pa Kept Mauling the Lion.
PECK'S BAD BOY
WITH THE CIRCUS
BY HON. GEO. W.. PECK
Author of Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, Peck's Bad Boy Abroad.
Peck's Uncle Ike and the Red Headed Boy,
Etc., Etc.
Relating the experiences of the Bad Boy and his Dad during
their travels with a Circus. The Bad Boy gets his Dad
in hot water in every conceivable way, and plays jokes
and pranks on everyone, from the Clown to the
Manager, and from the Monkey to the
Elephant. Rip-roaring, side-split-
ting fun from beginning to end.
"
ILLUSTRATED BY C. FRINK
CHARLES C THOMPSON CO.
CHICAGO
Copyright 1905, by
JOSEPH B. BOWLES
Copyright 1906, by
THOMPSON & THOMAS
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Bad Boy Begins a Diary — Dad Has Become Manager for
a Circus — The Bad Boy Expects to Curry the Hyena and
Do Stunts on the Trapeze— Ma Says Pa Will Ogle the
Circassian Beauty — Pa Buys Some Circus Clothes and Lets
His Whiskers Grow.
CHAPTER II.
The Bad Boy Visits the Circus in Winter Quarters — He Meets
the Circus Performers — Dad Rides a Horse and Gets Tossed
in a Blanket— The Bad Boy Goes "Kangarooing"— Pa's
Clothes Cause Excitement Among the Animals — A Monkey
Steals His Watch.
CHAPTER III.
Pa Reproves the Fat Woman for Losing Flesh — The Bearded
Lady Faints in Pa's Arms — The Bad Boy Introduced Into
Animal Society — They Pull the Boa Constrictor's Ulcerated
Tooth.
CHAPTER IV.
Pa Finds the Fat Lady a Burden— The Bad Boy Makes His
First Public Appearance— He Talks Politics with the Midget
— Pa Meets with Numerous Accidents.
CHAPTER V.
The Rogue Elephant Creates a Panic and Pa Proves Himself
a Hero— The Bad Boy Gets Scolded for "Being Tough"—
He Finds that Audiences Like Accidents.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI.
The Bad Boy Puts Fly-Paper in the Bob Cat's Cage— The
Bob Cat Causes a Panic in the Main Tent — The Midget
Quarrels with the Giant — Pa is Almost Arrested for Kid-
naping and the Oistrich Swallows His Diamond Stud.
CHAPTER VII.
The Circus Has a Yellow Fever Scare — The Bad Boy and His
Dad Dress Up as Hottentots — Pa Takes a Mustard Bath and
Attends a Revival Meeting.
CHAPTER VIII.
Pa Takes the Place of the Fat Woman with Disastrous Results
— A Kentucky Colonel Causes a Row — Pa Tries to Roar
Like a Lion and the Rhinoceros Objects — Pa Plays the
Slot-Machine and Gets the Worst of It.
CHAPTER IX.
The Bad Boy Feeds Cayenne Pepper to the Sacred Cow — He
and His Pa Ride in a Circus Parade With the Circassian
Beauties — A Tipsy Elephant Lands Them in a Public Fount-
ain— Pa Makes the Acquaintance of John L. Sullivan.
CHAPTER X.
The Bad Boy and His Pa Drive a Roman Chariot — They Win
the Race, but Meet With Difficulties— The Bearded Lady
to the Rescue — A Farmer's Cart Breaks Up the Circus
Procession.
CHAPTER XI.
The Bad Boy and His Pa in a Railroad Wreck — Pa Rescues
the "Other Freaks" — They Spend the Night on a Meadow —
A Near-Sighted Claim Agent Settles for Damages — Pa
Plays Deaf and Dumb and Gets Ten Thousand.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XII.
The Bad Boy Causes Trouble Between the Russian Cossacks
and the Jap Jugglers— A Jap Tight-Rope Walker Jiu Jitsu's
Pa— The Animals Go on a Strike— Pa Runs the Menagerie
for a Day and Wins Their Gratitude.
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.
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.
CHAPTER XV.
The Bad Boy Feeds the Menagerie Scotch Snuff— Pa Gets
Mauled by the Sneezing Animals — Pa Takes a Midnight Ride
on a Mule to Escape Punishment.
CHAPTER XVI.
A Senator's Son Bets the Bad Boy That Elephants Are Cowards
—They Let a Bag of Rats Loose at the Afternoon Perform-
ance— The Elephants Stampede, Pa Fractures a Rib and
General Pandemonium Reigns.
CHAPTER XVII.
The Bad Boy and the Senator's Son Go on an Elephant Chase
— The Senator's Son Gets His Friend a Bid to Dinner at
the White House — The Trained Seal Swallows an Alarm
Clock.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Show Strikes Virginia and the Educated Ourang Outang
Has the Whooping Cough — The Bad Boy Plays the Part of
a Monkey, but They Forget to Pin on a Tail.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Cireus People Visit a Southern Plantation — Pa, the Giant
and the Fat Woman Are Chased by Bloodhounds — The Bad
Boy "Runs the Gauntlet."
CHAPTER XX.
The Bad Boy Goes After a Mess of White Turnips for the
Menagerie — He Feeds the Animals Horseradish, but Gets the
Worst of the Deal.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Bad Boy and His Pa Inject a Little Politics Into the
Show — Rival Bands of Atlanta Citizens Meet in the Circus
Tent — A Bunch of Angry Hornets Causes Much Bitter
Feeling.
CHAPTER XXII.
The Show Does Poor Business in the South — Pa Side. Tracks
a Circus Car Filled with Creditors — A Performance Given
"For the Poor," Fills the Treasury— A Wild West Man Bun-
coes the Show.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Circus Has Bad Luck in Indian Territory — A Herd of
Animate Turned Out to Graze Is Stampeded by Indians —
They Go Dashing Over the Plains, and the Circus Tent
Follows, Picked Up by a Cyclone.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Pa Is Sent to a Hospital to Recuperate — The Bad Boy Dis-
courages Other Boys from Running Away with the Circus
— He Makes Them Water the Camels, Curry the Hyenas
and Put Insect Powder en the Buffaloes.
8
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXV.
Pa Breaks in the Zebras and Drives a Six-in-Hand Team in
the Parade— The Freaks Have a Narrow Escape fr©m Drown-
ing.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Rings Are So Muddy the Performers Have to Wear Rub-
ber 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.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Pa Kept Mauling the Lion.
And Pa Swatted Her on the Back.
The Sacred Cow Chased Ma Up the Church Stairs.
Was Suspended in the Air.
A Leopard Reached Out His Paw and Gathered in the Tail of
Pa's Coat.
I Will Hold You Responsible for This !
They Had to Turn the Hose on Pa.
They Threw Boiled Potatoes and Scrambled Eggs at Pa.
She Kicked Pa's Hat Off.
Bolivar Took Half a Watermelon and Put the Red Side on
Top of Pa's Head.
Pa Turned the Cock of the Extinguisher and Pointed the
Nozzle at Bolivar's Head.
The Bob Cat Struck Pa on the Back.
The Man Tackled Pa.
The Doctor Said It Was an Unmistakable Case of Yellow
Fever.
After Scratching His Head a Minute, Ike Turned and Walked
Toward the Preacher.
I Punctured Pa's Tires.
Chased by Police.
The Elephant Kept Ducking Pa and Swabbing Out the Bot-
tom of the Fountain.
John L. Slatted Pa Just as Though He Was a Child.
Her Cart, Team and All, Were Thrown Right Against the
Band.
Pa Struck on His Head Against a Wagon Wheel.
Pa Got an Ax and Cut the Fat Woman Out.
II
ILLUSTRATIONS
What Hit Him? That's the Worst Case I Ever Saw!
Gee, but Didn't That Russian Talk Kopec and Damski.
O, but the Jap Didn't Do a Thing to Pa !
The Indians Tied Pa to a Tree and Began to Pile Sticks
Around Him.
The Fat Woman Jabbed Pa with Her Parasol.
When She Saw the Baboon She Yelled Fire.
The Lion Sneezed and Blew Pa Clear Across the Tent.
Pa Rode Out of Town and Rode All Night.
Bolivar Swatted Pa Clear Across the Ring.
Pa, Do Not Fear.
We Met Some Farmers.
Old Gentleman, You Ought to Come Down Off Your Perch.
The Keeper Who Trained the Ourangoutang Took Me in Hand.
He Hit Me Right in the Eye.
Here, Mr. Confederate, I Am not a Union Prisoner.
I Yelled Murder and Ran Between the Giant's Legs.
The Camel Kicked an Arab Off a Rug.
Pa Tasted of It.
He Hit Pa Over the Head with His Chinese Lantern.
They Stampeded Like They Never Met a Hornet Before.
The Sacred Cow Chased Pa Up into the Rafters of the Car.
The Pony Was Off Like a Rabbit.
The Boss Canvasman Went into a Cactus.
Dad Was Only Hitting the High Places.
The Bull Tossed the Boy Through the Tent.
Pa Jumped Like a Box Car.
There Never Was Such a Runaway Since the Days of Ben Hur.
The Zebras Turned Short and Tipped the Tally-ho Over into
the Water.
I Will Search for the Wildest of Red Men.
They Tossed Pa Up in the Blanket.
12
Peck's Bad Boy With the Circus.
CHAPTER I.
The Bad Boy Begins a Diary — Dad Has Be-
come Manager for a Circus — The Bad Boy
Expects to Curry the Hyena and Do Stunts
on the Trapeze — Ma Says Pa Will Ogle the
Circassian Beauty — Pa Buys Some Circus
Clothes and Lets His Whiskers Grow.
April 10, 19. . — I never thought it would
come to this, that I should keep a diary, be-
cause I am not a good little boy. Nobody
ever keeps a diary except a boy that wants to
be an angel, and with the angels stand, or a
girl that is in love, or an old maid that can't
catch a man unless she writes down her emo-
tions and leaves them around so some man
will read them, and swallow the bait and not
feel the hook in his gills, or a truly good bank
cashier who teaches Sunday school, and skips
out for Canada some Saturday night, after the
bank closes, and on Monday morning they
15
PECK'S BAD BOY
find the combination of the lock on the safe
changed, and when they hire a reformed bur-
glar to open the lock the money is all gone
with the cashier. Those are the only people
that ever kept a successful diary.
But I had to promise ma that I would keep
a diary, so she could read it, or I never could
have got her consent for me to go with pa on
the road with a circus. All ma asks of me is
to tell the truth about everything that hap-
pens to me and to pa during the whole sum-
mer, and I have consented, and I can see my
finish, and pa's finish and ma's finish, and the
finish of the circus that is going to take us
along.
Gee, but we have had a hot time at our
house since pa and I got back from our trip
abroad. I brought pa back in better health
than he was when he went away, but he has
got so accustomed to excitement that I knew
something would be doing pretty soon, so I
was not surprised when he told us at the
breakfast table that he supposed he should
have to go and travel with a circus this sum-
mer.
Ma looked at pa as though she wanted to
call the police and an ambulance to take him
16
WITH THE CIRCUS
to the emergency hospital. He looked at ma
and at me, speared another waffle, and said:
"I know you will think I am nutty, but for
almost ten years I have had a block of stock in
a circus and menagerie. I went into it to help
some young circus fellows, and put up quite a
bunch of money, because they were honest
and poor, and for a few years things went
wrong, and I thought my money was gone,
but for the last six years the circus has paid
dividends bigger than Standard Oil, and to-
day it stands away up among the financial suc-
cesses, and the dividends on my circus stock
is better than any bank stock I have got, and
it comes just like finding money. The com-
pany decided at its annual meeting to invite
me to take the position of one of the man-
agers, and I shall soon go to the winter quar-
ters of the show, to arrange to put it on the
road about the ist of May. Now any remarks
may be made, pro or con, in regard to my san-
ity, see?"
Well, ma swallowed something crosswise
down her Sunday throat, and choked, and pa
swatted her on the back so she would cough
it up, and when she could speak she said: "Pa,
do you have to wear tights, and jump through
17
Pa Swatted Her on the Back.
WITH THE CIRCUS
hoops on the back of a horse, and cut up di-
does, at your time of life? For if you do I can
never live to witness any such performances."
Pa was calm, and did not fly off the handle,
but he just said, kindly: "Mother, you have
vague ideas of the duties of the owners of a
circus. The owners hire performers to do
stunts, and break their necks, while we man-
age them and take in the shekels from the
Reubens who come into town on circus day.
We proprietors touch the button, and the act-
ors and animals do the rest. I shall be a di-
rector who directs, a man who sets a dignified
and pious example to the men and women who
adorn the profession, coming as they do from
all climes, and your pa will be the guide, phil-
osopher and friend of all who belong to the
grandest aggregation of talent ever gathered
under one canvas, at one price of admission,
and do not fail to witness the concert which
will be given under this canvas after the main
performance is over."
Ma looked at pa pretty savage, and said:
"O, I see, you are going to be ringmaster, but
what is to become of Hennery and me while
you are cracking your whip around the hind
19
PECK'S BAD BOY
legs of the fat woman, and ogling the Circas-
sian beauty?"
Pa put his hand on my head and said:
"Mother, Hennery will go with me, to see
that I do not get into any trouble as a circus
financier and general manager of the mena-
gerie and Wild West aggregation, and hippo-
drome, in the great three-ring circus, and you
can stay home and give us absent treatment
for what ails us, and pack the money I shall
send you in bales with a hay press, and put it
in cold storage till we come back in the fall. It
is settled, we go to conquer, and the world will
lay at our feet before the middle of August,
and you will be a proud woman to own a hus-
band who will be pointed at as the most suc-
cessful amusement purveyor the world has
ever witnessed, and a son who will start in at
the bottom round of the circus ladder and rise,
step by step, until he will stand beside the
great Barnum."
Ma thought seriously for a few minutes,
and then she said: "O, pa, if it was anything
but the circus business you and Hennery went
into, like selling soap or being a bank default-
er, or something respectable, I could look the
neighbors in the face, but of course if there is
20
WITH THE CIRCUS
money in it, and you feel that the good Lord
has called you to the circus field, and you will
see that Hennery does not stay out nights,
and Hennery will promise to see that you put
on a clean collar occasionally, and you will
promise me that you will not let any of those
circus women in spangles make eyes at you, I
will consent to your going with the circus, just
this once, as the doctor has advised that you
lead an active life, and I guess you will get it
traveling with a circus, for it nearly killed me
that time I took Hennery to see the animals,
and the tent blew down, and we got separated
and the sacred cow chased ma up the
church steps, and Hennery and a monkey were
brought home by a policeman about daylight
the next morning, that time you were off fish-
ing, and I never told you about going to the
circus when you were away. So we are circus
proprietors, are we? Well, it ain't so bad,"
and ma went upstairs to cry at our success,
and pa and I went out to walk off the effects of
the breaking the news to ma.
I had a long talk with pa about our changed
circumstances, and asked him what I would
be expected to do in the show, and he says I
will fit in anywhere. He says that a boy who
21
Sacred Cow Chased Ma Up the Church Step*.
WITH THE CIRCUS
Knows as much about everything as I think I
know, but don't know a blamed thing about,
will be invaluable about a show, and that go-
ing into a new business is like going to college
as a freshman, as all the old circus men will
haze us, and we must not expect an easy life,
but one full of excitement, sleepless nights,
ginger, the glare of the torchlights, the races,
the flying trapeze, the smell of the sawdust
and tanbark, the howling of the wild beasts,
and the plaudits of the multitude of jays and
jayesses, and it will be like one grand circus
day spread all over the summer and fall. He
says he wants me to learn the circus business
from the ground up, from the currying of the
hyenas with a currycomb and brush, to going
up into the roof of the tent on the trapeze and
falling into the net, while the audience faints
with excitement. I asked pa if he wanted me
to keep on playing tricks on him while we were
on the road, and he said he had got so used to
my tricks that he couldn't live without them,
and he didn't want me to let a chance escape
to make him have a good time.
April ii. — Ma and pa have had several dis-
cussions about what kind of a position it is
going to leave her in, among the neighbors,
23
PECK'S BAD BOY
for pa and I to go off with a circus, and ma
wanted to withdraw from the church, and
board up the windows of the house, and make
folks think we had gone to the seashore, but
pa convinced her that we would have preach-
ing in the main tent every Sunday, and he
says there is no more pious lot of people on
earth than those who travel with a circus, and
then ma wanted to go along. She said she
could do the mending of the long socks that
the women wear when they ride barebacked,
but we had to shut down on ma's going with
the show, cause we never could have any fun
with a woman to look after. Pa says nowa-
days the men and women who ride on bare-
back horses in the ring dress in regular even-
ing costume, the women with low-necked
dresses and long trains, and the men
with swallow-tail coats and patent leather
shoes, and they are as polite as dancing mas-
ters.
We have compromised with ma, and she is
to meet the show at Kalamazoo and go with
us to Kankakee and Keokuk until she is over-
come by nervous prostration, when we shall
have her go home. Pa thinks ma would last
about two days with the show, but I guess if
24
WITH THE CIRCUS
she took a course of treatment with peanuts
and red lemonade one afternoon and evening,
she would want to throw up her job, and go
back home in charge of a stomach specialist.
Well, pa showed up at the house in his cir-
cus clothes this afternoon, and he certainly is
a peach. Pa has been letting his chin whis-
kers grow for about six weeks, and today he
had them colored black, and he looks as
though he had swallowed the blacking brush,
and left the bunch of bristles outside, on his
chin. He looks fierce. Then, he has got a new
brand of silk hat, with a wide, curling brim,
and he has had a vesi made of black and blue
check goods, the checks as big as the checks
on a checker board, and a pair of pants that
look like a diamond-back rattlesnake, and he
has got an imitation diamond stud in his white
shirt that looks like a paper weight.
Ma wanted to know if there was any law to
compel pa to dress like that, 'cause he looked
as though he was a gambler or a train robber.
Pa says that a circus proprietor has got to
look different from anybody else, in order to
inspire fear and respect on the part of the
hands around the show, as well as the audi-
ences that flock to the arena, and he asked ma
25
PECK'S BAD BOY
if she didn't remember old Dan Rice, and old
John Robinson. Ma didn't remember them,
but she remembered Barnum, because Bar-
num lectured on temperance, and she said she
hoped pa would emulate Barnum's example,
and pa said he would, and then he took a
watch chain with links as big as a trace chain
and spread it across his checkered vest, from
one pocket to the other, with a life-size gold
elk hanging down the middle, and ma almost
had a convulsion.
Gee, but if pa wears that rig in the mena-
gerie tent the animals will paw and bellow
like a drove of cattle that smell blood. Pa is
going to wear a sack coat with his outfit, so as
to look tough, and he wouldn't hear to ma
when she tried to get him to wear a frock coat.
He said a frock coat was all right in society or
among the crowned heads, but when you have
to mingle with lions and elephants one minute
that would snatch the tail off a coat and chew
it and the next minute you are mixed up with
a bunch of freaks or a lot of bareback riders or
trapeze performers, you have got to compro-
mise on a coat that will fit any climate, and
not cause invidious remarks, whatever that is.
I will have to stand up beside the giant once
26
WITH THE CIRCUS
in a while to show the difference in the size of
men, and at other times I will have to stand
beside the midgets and look like a giant my-
self. We are all packed up, and in two days
we start for the winter quarters of the show,
to pound it into shape for the road. By ginger,
I can't hardly wait to get there and see pa
boss things.
27
PECK'S BAD BOY
CHAPTER II.
The Bad Boy Visits the Circus in Winter
Quarters — He Meets the Circus Perform-
ers— Dad Rides a Horse and Gets Tossed
in a Blanket— The Bad Boy Goes "Kanga-
rooing'' — Pa's Clothes Cause Excitement
Among the Animals — A Monkey Steals His
Watch.
April 15. — We are now at the winter quar-
ters of the show, in a little town, on a farm
just outside, where the tent is put up and the
animals are being cared for in barns, and the
performers are limbering up their joints,
wearing overcoats to turn flip-flaps, and ev-
erybody has a cold, and looks blue, and all are
anxious for warm weather.
Pa created a sensation when we arrived by
his stunning clothes, his jet black chin whis-
kers and his watch chain over his checkered
vest, and when the proprietors introduced pa
to the performers and hands, as an old stock-
holder in the show, who would act as assist-
ant manager during the season and pa smiled
28
WITH THE CIRCUS
on them with a frown on his forehead, and
said he hoped his relations with them would
be pleasant, one of the old canvasmen re-
marked to a girl who rides two horses at once
with the horses strapped together, so they
can't get too far apart and cause her to break
in two, said that old goat with the silk hat
would last just about four weeks, and that he
reminded the canvasman of a big dog which
barked at people as though he would eat them,
and at the same time wagged his tail, so peo-
ple would not think he was so confounded
dangerous.
The principal proprietor of the circus told
pa to make himself at home around the tent,
and not be offended at any pleasantry on the
part of the attaches of the show, for they were
full of fun, and he went off to attend to some
business and left pa with the gang. They were
practicing riding bare-backed horses around
the ring, with a rope hitched in a belt around
the waist of the rider and an arm swinging
around from the center pole, so if they fell off
the horse the rope would prevent the rider
from falling to the ground, a practice that the
best riders adopt early in the season, the same
as new beginners, 'cause they are all stiffened
29
PECK'S BAD BOY
up by being out of practice. One man rode
around a few times, and pa got up close to the
ring and was making some comments such
as: "Why, any condemned fool could ride a
horse that way," when the circus gang as
quick as you could say scat, fastened a belt
around pa's stomach, that had a ring in it, and
before he knew it they had hitched a snap in
the ring, and pa was hauled up as high as the
horse, and his feet rested. on the horse's back,
and the horse started on a gallop.
Well, say, pa was never so surprised in his
life, but he dug his heels into the horse's back,
and tried to look pleasant, and the horse went
half way around the ring, and just as pa was
getting confidence some one hit the horse on
the ham with a piece of board, and the horse
went out from under pa and he began to fall
over backwards, and I thought his circus ca-
reer would end right there, when the man who
had hold of the rope pulled up, and pa was
suspended in the air by the ring in the belt,
back up, and stomach hanging down like a
pillow, his watch dangling about a foot down
towards the ring, and the horse came around
the ring again and as he went under pa, pa
tried to get his feet on the horse's back, but he
30
Pa Was Suspended in the Air.
PECK'S BAD BOY
couldn't make it work, and pa said, as cross
as could be: "Lookahere, you fellers, you let
me down, or I will discharge every mother's
son of you."
But they didn't seem to be scared, for one
man caught the horse and let it out of the
ring, and the man who handled the rope tied
it to the center pole by a half hitch, and the
fellows all went into the dressing room to play
cinch on the trunks, leaving pa hanging there.
Just then the boss canvasman came along and
he said: "Hello, old man, what you doing
up there?" And pa said some of the pirates
in the show had kidnaped him, and seemed to
be holding him up for a ransom, and he said
he would give ten dollars if some one would
let him down.
The boss canvasman said he could fix it for
ten, all right, and he blew a whistle, and the
gang came back, and the boss said: "Bring a
blanket and help this gentleman down;" so
they brought a big piece of canvas, with han-
dles all around it, and about a dozen fellows
held it, and the rope man let pa down on the
canvas, and unhitched the ring, and when pa
was in the canvas he laughed and said:
"Thanks, gentlemen, I guess I am not much of
32
WITH THE CIRCUS
a horseback rider," and then the fellows pulled
on the handles of the canvas, and by gosh, pa
shot up into the air half-way to the top of the
tent, and when he came down they caught him
in the canvas and tossed him up a whole lot of
times until pa said: "O, let up, and make it
$20." Just then the proprietor who had intro-
duced pa to the men came in and saw what
was going on, and he said : "Here, you heath-
en, you quit this hazing right here," and they
let pa down on the floor of the ring, and he got
up and pulled his pants down, that had got up
above his knees, and shook himself and took
out his roll, and peeled off a $20 bill and gave it
to the canvasman, and he shook hands with
them all, and said he liked a joke as well as
anybody, and for them to spend the money to
have a good time, and they all laughed and
patted pa on the back, and said he was a dead
game sport, and would be an honor to the pro-
fession, and that now that he has taken the
first degree as a circus man he could call on
them for any sacrifice, or any work, and he
would find that they would be Johnny on the
spot.
Then he went out to the dining tent and
took dinner with the crowd and had a jolly
33
PECK'S BAD BOY
time. There was a woman trapeze performer
on one side of pa at dinner, and she began to
kick at once about the meals, and when the
waiter brought a piece of meat to us all — a
great big piece, that looked like corned beef,
she said: "For heaven's sake, ain't that ele-
phant that died all been eaten up yet?" and
then she told pa that they had been fed on that
deceased elephant, until they all felt like they
had trunks growing out of their heads, and pa
poked the meat with his fork, and thought it
was elephant, and he lost his appetite, and ev-
erybody laughed. I eat some of it and if it
was elephant it was all right.
Well, when dinner was about over, all filled
their glasses to drink to the health of pa, the
old stockholder and new manager, and pa got
up and bowed, and made a little speech, and
when he sat down one of the circus girls was
in his chair, and he sat in her lap, and the
crowd all yelled, except a Spanish bull-fighter,
who seemed to be the husband of the woman
pa sat on, and he wanted pa's blood, but the
old circus manager took him away to save pa
from trouble, and he glared back at pa, and I
think he will stab pa with a dirk knife.
We got out of the dining tent, and went to
34
WITH THE CIRCUS
the barn, where the animals are kept all win-
ter, and pa wanted me to become familiar with
the habits of the beasts, 'cause they were to be
in pa's charge, with the keepers of the differ-
ent kinds of animals to report to pa. Nobody
need tell me that animals have no human in-
stincts, and do not know how to take a joke.
We are apt to think that wild animals in cap-
tivity are worrying over being confined in
cages, and gazed at and commented on by cu-
rious visitors, and that they dream of the free
life they lived in the jungles, and sigh to go
back where they were captured, and prowl
around for food, but you can't fool me. Ani-
mals that formerly had to go around in the
woods, hungry half the time and occasionally
gorging themselves on a dead animal and
sleeping out in the rain in all kinds of wreather,
know when they have struck a good thing in a
menagerie, with clean straw to sleep in, and
when they are hungry all they have to do is to
sound their bugle and they have pre-digested
beefsteak and breakfast food brought to them
on a silver platter, and if the food is not to
their liking they set up a kick like a star
boarder at a boarding house. Their condition
in the show, in its changed condition from
35
PECK'S BAD BOY
that of their native haunts, is like taking a
hobo off the trucks of a freight train and tak-
ing him to the dining car of the limited, and
letting him eat to a finish. People talk about
animals escaping from captivity, and going
back to the jungles and humane societies shed
tears over the poor, sad-eyed captives, sighing
for their homes, but you turn them loose at
South Bend, and run your circus train to New
Albany without them and they would follow
the train and overtake it before the evening
performance the next day, and you would find
them trying to break into their cages again,
and they would have to be fed.
When pa and I went into the barn where
the cages were, to take an account of stock,
and get acquainted with our animals, they
acted just like the circus men did when they
saw pa's clothes. The animals were about
half asleep when we went in, but a big lion
bent one eye on pa, and then he rose up and
shook himself and gave a roar and a cough
that sounded like he had the worst case of
pneumonia, and he snorted a couple of times,
as though he was saying to the other animals :
"Here's something that will kill you dead, and
I want you all to have a piece of it, raw," and
36
WITH THE CIRCUS
he brayed some more, and all the animals
joined in the chorus, the big tiger lying down
on his stomach and waving his tail, and snarl-
ing and showing his teeth like a cat that has
located a mouse hole, and the tiger seemed to
say: "O, I saw it first, and it's mine."
The hyena set up a laugh like a man who is
not tickled, but feels that it is up to him to
laugh at a funny story that he can't see the
point of at a banquet where Chauncey Depew
tells one of his crippled jokes, and pa was get-
ting nervous. A big grizzly bear was walking
delegate in his cage, and he looked at pa as
much as to say: "Hello, Teddy, I was not at
home when you called in Colorado, but you
get in this cage, and I will make you think the
Spanish war was a Sunday school picnic be-
side what you will get from your uncle Eph-
raim," and a bob cat jumped up into the top of
his cage and snarled and showed his teeth, and
seemed to say: "Bring on your whole pack of
dogs and I will eat them alive."
Pa threw out his chest in front of a monkey
cage, and a monkey snatched his watch, and
then all the animals began to laugh at pa just
like a lot of bad boys in school when visitors
make a call. Pa went around to visit all the
37
PECK'S BAD BOY
animals, officially, while I got interested in a
female kangaroo, with a couple of babies, not
more than three weeks old, and I noticed the
mother kangaroo made the old man kangaroo,
her husband, stand around and he acted just
like some men I have seen who were afraid to
say their souls were their own in the presence
of their wives.
The female kangaroo is surely a wonder,
and seems to be built on plans and specifica-
tions different from any other animal, cause
she has got a fur-lined pouch on her stomach,
just like a vest, that she carries her young in.
When the babies are frightened they make a
hurry-up move towards ma, the pouch opens,
and they jump in out of sight, like a gopher
going into its hole, and the mother looks
around as innocent as can be, as much as to
say: "You can search me. I don't know,
honestly, where those kids have gone, but they
were around here not more than a minute
ago." And when the fright is over the two
heads peep out of the top of the pouch, and
the old man grunts, as much as to say: "O,
come on out, there is no danger, and let your
ma have a little rest, 'cause she is nervous,"
and then the babies come out and run around
38
A Leopard Reached Out His Paw and Gathered In the Tall
of Pa's Coat.
PECK'S BAD BOY
the cage, and sit up on their hind feet and look
wise. That kangaroo pouch is a success, and
( wonder why nature did not provide pouches
for all animals to carry their young in. I
think Pullman must have got his ideas for the
upper and lower berths of a sleeping car by
seeing a kangaroo pouch. I am going to study
the kangaroo and make friends with the old
man kangaroo, 'cause he looks as though he
had troubles of his own.
Pa showed up without any coat, while I was
kangarooing, and there was a rip in his pants,
and I asked him what was the trouble, and he
said he got too near the cage of a leopard that
seemed to be asleep, and the traitor reached
out his paw and gathered in the tail of pa's
coat, and just snatched it off his back as
though it was made of paper.
Pa is a little discouraged about his experi-
ence in the circus the first day, but he says it
will be great when we get the run of the bus-
iness. He says every day will have its excite-
ment. Tomorrow they are going to extract a
tooth from the boa-constrictor, and pa and I
are going to help hold him, while the animal
dentist pulls the tooth, and then we scrub the
rhinoceros, and oil the hippopotamus, and get
40
WITH THE CIRCUS
everything ready to start out on the road, and
I can't write any more in my diary until after
we fix the snake. Gee, but he is as long as a
clothesline.
4*
PECK'S BAD BOY
CHAPTER III.
Pa Reproves the Fat Woman for Losing Flesh
— The Bearded Lady Faints in Pa's Arms —
The Bad Boy Introduced Into Animal So-
ciety—They Pull the Boa Constrictor's Ul-
cerated Tooth.
Winter Quarters of the Only Circus, April
20. — Pa has had a hard job today. The boss
complained to pa that the fat woman had been
taking anti-fat, or dieting, or something, 'cause
she was losing flesh, and the living skeleton
was beginning to fat up. He wanted pa to call
them into the office and have a diplomatic talk
with them about their condition, 'cause if this
thing continued they would ruin the show.
So pa went to the office and sent for them,
and I was there as a witness, in case of trou-
ble. The fat woman came in first, and there
was no chair big enough for her, so she sat
down on a leather lounge, which broke and let
her down on the floor, and pa tried to help her
up, but it was like lifting a load of hay. So he
leaned her against the wall and said:
"Madame, the management has detailed me
WITH THE CIRCUS
to censure you for losing flesh, and I am in-
structed to say if you do not manage to take
on about fifty pounds more flesh before the
show starts on the road, you don't go along.
What you want to do is to eat more starchy
food and sleep more at night. They tell me
you go out nights to dances and drink high
balls, and this has got to stop. Drink beer and
eat cheese sandwiches at night, or it is all off.
This show can't afford to take along no 400-
pound fairy for a fat woman when the con-
tract calls for a 500-pound mountain of flesh,
see?" and pa looked just as stern as could be.
The fat woman began to cry and sob, so it
sounded like an engine blowing off steam, and
she told pa that the cause of her losing flesh
was that she was in love with the living skel-
eton, and that he had been paying attention to
the bearded woman, and she would scratch
her eyes out if she could catch her. Just then
the living skeleton came in, and when he saw
the fat woman sitting on the floor crying", and
pa talking soothing to her and telling her he
could appreciate her condition, 'cause he had
been in love some hisself, the skeleton pushed
pa away and tried to lift it, and said: "What
is the matter with my itty tootsy-wootsy, and
43
PECK'S BAD BOY
what has the bad old man with spinach on his
chin been doing to you?"
Then he turned on pa and his legs began to
shake and rattle like a pair of bones in a min-
strel show, and he said: "I will hold you re-
sponsible for this." Pa said he was not going
to interfere in the love affairs of any of the
freaks, and just then the bearded woman came
in, and when she saw the living skeleton hold-
ing the hand of the fat woman, who sat on the
floor like a balloon blowed up, the bearded
woman gave a kick at the living skeleton
which sounded like clothes bars falling down
in the laundry, and she grabbed the fat wo-
man's blonde wig and pulled it off, and then
the bearded woman began to cry and she
threw herself into pa's arms and began to sob
on his bosom and mingle her whiskers with
his.
Pa yelled for help, and I thought it was time
for me to be doing something, so I went out-
side the office to the fire alarm box and
touched a button, and then I run like thunder
for the police, and the firemen came with the
extinguishers and began to throw chemically
charged water into the room, and the police
dragged out the fat woman, who had fainted,
44
IF
"J Will Hold You Responsible for This!"
PECK'S BAD BOY
and the living skeleton, whom she had pulled
down into her lap, and laid them out in the
ring, and then they got hold of pa and pulled
him out, and the bearded woman had fainted
in pa's arms and the stove was tipped over and
was setting fire to the furniture and they
brought the bearded woman and the fat wo-
man to their senses by pouring water on them
from a hose. Finally they were sent to their
quarters, and the other owner of the show
came to pa and said he hoped this would be the
last of that kind of business, as long as pa re-
mained with the show, that one of the rules
was that no man in an executive capacity must
under any circumstances take any liberties
with any of the females connected with the
show.
Pa was hot, and said when women got
crazy in love no man was safe, and the other
owner of the show said that was all right this
time, but not to let it occur again, and pa tried
to explain how the bearded woman came to
jump on to him and faint in his arms, but the
owner said: "That is all right, but you can't
hold 'em in your arms before folks," and then
pa offered to whip any man who said he was
in love with any bearded woman, and he
46
WITH THE CIRCUS
pulled off his coat. Just then I came along
and told the whole story, and then the crowd
all had a good laugh, and pa took them all out
and treated.
I guess it is all settled now, 'cause the living
skeleton and the fat woman have got permis-
sion to get married, the bearded lady is sweet
on pa, and a girl has just joined the show,
who walks a wire, and she says I am about the
sweetest thing that ever came down the pike,
and I guess this show business is all right, all
right.
April 21. — We are getting acquainted with
the animals, and it is just like going into so-
ciety.
There is the aristocracy, which consists of
the high born animals, the middle class and
the low down, common herd, and when you
go among the animals as strangers you are re-
ceived just as you would be in society. If you
are properly introduced to the elephants by
the elephant keeper, who vouches for your
standing and honor, the elephants take to you
all right and extend to you certain courtesies,
same as society people would invite you to din-
ner, but if you wander around and sort of butt
in, the eleohants are on to you in a minute and
47
PECK'S BAD BOY
roll their eyes at you and look upon you as a
common "person," and if you attempt any fa-
miliarity they look at you as much as to say:
"Sir, I am not allowed to associate with any
except the 400." Then they turn their backs
and act so much like shoddy aristocracy that
you would swear they were human.
I remember when pa was first in the ele-
phant corral, the keeper forgot to tell the big
elephant who pa was, and when the keeper
raised up one foot, of the elephant and exam-
ined a corn, pa went up and pinched a bunch
on the elephant's leg and said to the keeper:
"That looks to me like a spavin," and he
nebbed it hard. Well, the elephant groaned
like a boy with a stone bruise on his heel, and
before pa knew what was coming the elephant
wound his trunk under pa and raised pa upon
his tusks and was going to toss him in the air
and catch him as he came down and walk on
him, when pa yelled murder and the keeper
took an iron hook and hooked it into the ele-
phant's skin, and said: "Let that man down,"
and he let pa down easy, and the keeper some
way showed the elephant that pa was one of
the owners of the show, and that elephant act-
ed just as human as could be, for he fairly
48
WITH THE CIRCUS
toadied to pa, like a society leader that has
given the cold shoulder to some one that is as
good or better than they, or like an impudent
employe who has insulted his employer and is
afraid of losing his job. After that whenever
pa and I go around the elephants they bow
down to us, and I think I could take an iron
hook and drive an elephant anywhere.
There are all classes among the animals in
a menagerie the same as human society. The
lions are like the leaders of society who are
well born and proud but poor. They are al-
ways invited everywhere, but never entertain,
though they kick and find fault and ogle ev-
erybody and look wise and distinguished.
The sacred cattle are too good to live and
pose as the pious animals who do not want to
associate with the bad animals and are con-
stantly wearing an air of "I am holier than any
of you," but they will reach through the bars
of their cage and steal alfalfa from the Yak
and the mule deer, and if they kick about it the
sacred cattle look hurt and act like it was part
of their duty to take up a collection, and they
bellow a sort of hymn to drown the kicking.
The different kind of goats in a menagerie
are the butters-in, or the new rich, who get
49
PECK'S BAD BOY
in the way of the society leaders and try to
outdo them in society stunts, but they smell so
that the other animals are made sick and the
goats are only tolerated because animal so-
ciety is afraid to offend them, for fear the lead-
ers may some time go into bankruptcy and the
goats will take their places and never let them
get a smell of the good things of life.
The bears are the working people of the
show, and the big grizzlies are the walking
delegates who control the amalgamated asso-
ciation of working bears, and the occupants
of the other cages have got to cater to Uncle
Ephraim, the walking delegate, or be placed
on the unfair list and slugged.
The hyenas and the jackals and the wolves
represent the anarchists who are down on ev-
erybody in the show, who won't do a thing to
help along and won't allow any other animal
to do anything, and who seem to want to burn
and slay, to carry a torch by night and poison
by day, and want everything in the show to be
chaos. Those animals are never so happy as
when the wind and lightning strike the tent,
and blow it down and kill people and create a
panic, and then these anarchists sing and
50
WITH THE CIRCUS
laugh and enjoy their peculiar kind of animal
religion.
The zebras and giraffes are the dudes of the
show, and you can imagine, if they were hu-
man, they would play tennis and golf, drive
four in hands and pose to be admired, while
the Royal Bengal tigers, if they were half hu-
man, would drive automobiles at the rate of a
mile a minute on crowded streets, run over
people and never stop to help the wounded,
but skip away with a sneer, as much as to say :
"What are you going to do about it?"
The hippopotamus is like the lazy fat man
that groans from force of habit, sits down as
though it was the last act of his life and only
gets up when the bell rings for meals, and he
sweats blood for fear he will lose his meal
ticket and starve to death.
The seals are the clean-cut Baptists of the
show, who believe in immersion, and they
have more brain than any animals in the
show, because they live on a fish diet, though
they have a pneumonia cough that makes you
feel like sending for a doctor.
Gee, but last night when we thought spring
had come and wc could start on the road pret-
ty soon, the snow fell about a foot deep, and it
51
PECK'S BAD BOY
was so cold that all the animals howled all
night, and shivered, and went on a regular
strike. We had to put blankets on them, and
no one of them seemed to be comfortable ex-
cept the polar bears, the arctic foxes and the
fat woman. The other owners of the show
thought it was a good time to take the boa
constrictor and pull an ulcerated tooth, 'cause
he was sort of dumpish, so pa and I helped
hold the snake, which is about twenty feet
long.
Pa was up near the snake's head, and when
the man with the forceps got hold of the tooth
and gave it a yank, the confounded snake come
to and began to stand on his head and thrash
around, and pa dropped his hold and started
to climb the center pole, but he got caught in a
gasoline torch, and they had to turn a hose on
pa, and he was awful scared, 'cause he always
did hate snakes, but they gave the snake chlo-
roform and got him quiet, and pa came down,
and they gave him a pair of baggy trousers be-
longing to the clown, to go to dinner in, and pa
was a sight.
52
They Had to Turn the Hose on Pa.
PECK'S BAD BOY
CHAPTER IV.
Pa Finds the Fat Lady a Burden— The' Bad
Boy Makes His First Public Appearance —
He Talks Politics with the Midget— Pa
Meets with Numerous Accidents.
May i. — We had the darndest time getting
packed up and started on the road. How in
the name of heaven we ever got half the things
on the cars is more than I know, but it seems
as though the circus company had a man to
look after everything, and he had men under
him to look after his regular share of things,
so when the cars were loaded, and the boss
clapped his hands, and the engineer tooted his
whistle, there wasn't a tent stake or a rope,
or a board seat, or anything left behind.
Every man knew exactly where the things
were that he was responsible for, so he could
lay his hands on them in the dark, and he knew
just what wagon his stuff was to go in.
Gee, but you talk about system, there is no
business in the world that has a system like
a show on the road. Every performer was in
his or her section in the sleeper, and pa and
54
WITH THE CIRCUS
I got an end section with the freaks, the fat
woman across the aisle from us. That fat
woman is going to make life a burden for pa,
I can see that plain enough. She is engaged to
the living skeleton, and he sleeps in the upper
berth, over her, and he is jealous of pa, while
the fat woman has got to depending on pa
to do little things for her.
Of course, the first night out is always the
worst on a sleeper, and the poor woman is
nervous, and when the animal train, in the
second section, ran on a side track beside our
train of sleepers, and Rajah, the boss lion, got
woke up and exploded one of his roars, with-
in six feet of the fat woman's berth, she just
gave one yell, and reared up, and came down
hard in the berth. Something broke, and she
went right through the bottom of the berth to
the floor, doubled up like a jackknife.
Pa got up and went to her berth, though
I told him to keep away, 'cause he would get
into trouble. First he stumbled over one of
her shoes, and said he thought he had told
everybody to keep their telescope valises in
the baggage car, and that made her mad. Then
he reached in the berth and got hold of one
of her feet, and pa got the men to help and
55
PECK'S BAD BOY
they got her out, but she seemed all squshed
together. She sat up all night and wanted to
lean on pa, but the skeleton kept his head over
the rail of the upper berth and his snake-like
eye never left pa all night.
The bearded woman got up out of her berth
about daylight, to go to the toilet room for a
shave, or a hair cut, or something, and when
she saw pa trying to soothe the fat woman
and hold her from breaking in two, she
screamed and slapped pa's face, and had a mess
of hysterics. The fat woman grabbed a couple
of handfnls of female whiskers, and was going
to pull them out by the roots, when the beard-
ed woman begged her not to pull them out,
as to lose her whiskers would destroy her
means of livelihood.
Then the bugle blew for everybody to get
up and go to the show lot, and put up the
tents for the first show of the season. When
we got out of the sleeper we asked where we
were, and a man told pa we were at Peoria,
111., and he wanted pa to give him a compli-
mentary ticket for telling what town we were
in, but pa looked fierce at the man and asked
what kind of an easy mark he took him for,
and the man slunk away. You wouldn't think
56
WITH THE CIRCUS
they could unload those two trains of cars,
about 80 in all, in a week, but when we got
out the horses were hitched on the wagons,
and in 15 minutes they were loaded and on
the way to the lot, and pa and I got on the
first wagon.
Talk about system. The surveyors were
there ahead of us, and had measured off the
lot and pushed wire stakes in the ground
where the grub tent was to be, and when the
first wagon of the grub outfit arrived, which
contained a big range, big enough to cook for
a thousand men, stove pipes were put on,
which telescoped up into the air, and in two
minutes a fire was built and bacon and po-
tatoes and coffee were cooking, local bread
wagons were unloading bread on the grass,
50 men put up poles and spread the tent on,
and others set up tables in the tent, and in
half an hour breakfast was served to the first
500 men. Pa and I drew up to the first table,
but there was a yell to "put 'em out," and we
found we had sat down to the table of the
negro canvasmen, and they struck because
they would not associate on an equality with
white trash.
Gee, but pa was mad. He said he was as
57
PECK'S BAD BOY
good as any nigger, and that made them mad
and they threw boiled potatoes and scrambled
eggs at pa, and we had to retire, but when
pa complained to the boss canvasman, he told
pa to go and eat with the freaks and try and
keep in his place.
We got breakfast at another table, and then
we went out on the lot to superintend the put-
ting up of the big tents. The greatest thing
was a wagon containng a miniature pile driver,
run by steam, which was driven around out-
side of where the big tents were to be, and
it drove down the big stakes so quick it would
make your head swim, and the grounds were
covered with Peoria people who wanted to see
how it was done.
Pa imitated the boss canvasman by walking
around the lot with his coat over his arm,
and a dirty shirt on, trying to look tough, and
he bossed the sightseers about, and acted
cross, and told a man and woman with a baby
wagon to get off the lot, but pa was called
down by the principal owner of the show good
and plenty.
Said the owner to pa: "Remember, the suc-
cess of our show depends on the friendship
and good will of the people who think enough
SB
They Threw Boiled Potatoes and Sof'ambled Eggs at Pa
PECK'S BAD BOY
of us to come out to see us set up keeping
house, and that they are all our guests, and if
they get in our way we should go around them,
and look pleasant. We must not get the big
head and show that our hair pulls, and that
we are tired and cross. This is a place of
amusement, and all connected with the show
are expected to heal up sores, instead of caus-
ing bruises, and if you ever see an employe of
this show treating a visitor unkindly, send him
to the ticket wagon to get his wages, and tell
him to go away quick, and stay away long."
You could have lit a match to pa's face, it
was so red hot, but he learned a lesson, for
I saw him holding a tired mother's baby up
on his shoulders, so it could see the drove of
camels come up to the lot from the train, soon
after. It was great to see all the tents go up
as if raised by machinery, and after all were
erected, and the rings were graded, and the
animals in the menagerie tent all fed and wa-
tered, and the performers in the dressing-room
ready for the afternoon performance, pa was
the proudest man ever was. He walked all
around, inspecting everything, and kicking oc-
casionally at something that got balled up,
and when the crowd came to buy tickets, he
60
WITH THE CIRCUS
stood around the grand entrance, looking wise,
and he was so good natured that he bet ten
dollars he could guess which walnut shell a
bean was under, which a three-card monte
man was losing money at, and pa lost his ten
with a smile. He said he wanted to be kind
to the patrons of the show.
This was my first appearance in the show
business. I had to stand up beside the giant,
to show how little I was, and then I had to
stand up beside the midget to show how big
I was compared with him. It went all right
with the giant, because he was so big I was
afraid of him, but I thought the midget was
about my age, and needed protection, and when
the crowd surged around us I said: "Don't
be afraid, little fellow, I will see that no one
harms you." The look he gave me was enough
to freeze water.
When the crowd had gone into the big show
tent, what do you think, that confounded mid-
get began to ask me how I stood on the tariff
question, and he argued for free trade, what-
ever that is, for half an hour, and made me
think of Bryan during a campaign, and then
he branched off on to the Monroe doctrine,
which I suppose is something connected with
61
PECK'S BAD BOY
a rival show, and I guess he would be talking
yet, only a big husky fellow came along, a fel-
low about 25 years old, and he stooped over
and put his hand on the midget's shoulder and
said: "Hello, dad," and by gosh, the midget
introduced me to the big galoot as his young-
est son. Wouldn't that skin you.
The first day of the season was great, only
all the performers had not got limbered up.
One of the girls on the flying trapeze fell off
into the net from the roof of the tent and broke
her suspenders, so when they got her down in
the ring it seemed as though everything she
had on was going to shuck loose, and leave
her with nothing but a string of beads, and
pa went up to wrap his coat around her, and
she kicked his hat off and ran into the dressing-
room. The audience just yelled, and pa
blushed scarlet, 'cause he saw it was a put-up
job to make him ridiculous.
During the chariot races pa had to jump like
a box car to keep from being run over by a
four-horse chariot driven by a one-horse girl,
and the attendants dragged pa out from under
a bunch of horses being ridden barebacked,
like fury. Then two horses hitched together
with a strap were being ridden by a woman,
62
She Kicked Pa's Hat Off.
PECK'S BAD BOY
the strap broke and the horses spread apart,
and some one yelled that she had split clear in
two. Pa rushed in to help carry one half of
her into the dressing-room, but she wasn't
hurt at all, 'cause the peanut boy told me she
was a rubber woman, and you could stretch
her half way across the ring, and she would
come together all right, and eat a hearty meal.
Gee, but a circus is a great place to study
human nature.
In the evening performance at Peoria there
came up a windstorm which blew down part
of the menagerie tent, where the freaks were,
and when the storm was over, and the tent
top was pulled up again, they found pa all
right. He started to crawl under the canvas,
and skip out for fear of the animals, but the
fat lady caught him and sat down on him.
64
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER V.
The Rogue Elephant Creates a Panic and Pa
Proves Himself a Hero — The Bad Boy Gets
Scolded for "Being Tough"—He Finds That
Audiences Like Accidents.
May 6. — We had the worst time at Akron
last week and pa proved himself a hero, though
he was swatted good by the rogue elephant
before he got his second wind and went for the
animal.
We have a male elephant that is almost
human, 'cause he gets on a tear about once a
month, like a regular ugly husband. You can't
tell when his mind is in condition for running
amuck, but suddenly he will whoop like a
drunken man, strike his poor patient wife over
the back with his trunk and grab her tail and
try to pull it out by the roots, and jump up
and crack his heels together like a drunken
shoemaker, and bellow as though he was say-
ing he was a bad man from Bitter Creek.
Well, at Akron, the keeper of this elephant,
Bolivar, had to go and see a girl that he met
when the show was here last year, and settle a
65
PECK'S BAD BOY
case of breach of promise before a justice of
the peace, and the boss told pa to look after
the elephant for an hour or so. So pa took
a pole with a hook in it and sat down on a
bale of hay to watch Bolivar. It was one of
those hot days, and Bolivar stood drooping
and perspiring, and wishing the show was in
Alaska, and pa was kind of sleepy, like every-
body in the show, when suddenly that elephant
whooped, and swatted Jeanette, his wife, a
couple of times, and she cried pitiful, and pa
put the hook in Bolivar's hide and gave a jerk,
and told him to hush up that noise, but Bolivar
just reared and pitched and walked right
through the side of the menagerie tent, and
seemed to say to the other animals: "Come
on, boys; there is going to be something do-
ing," and the animals all set up a howl in their
own language, as though they were saying:
4:Whooper up, old man, and don't let them
monkey with you."
Bolivar west out in the street and mowed
a wide swath, with pa after him, hooking him
all the time, but he paid no attention to pa.
He put his head under the side of a street car
loaded with negroes that had come to see the
show, dressed in the-?? Sunday clothes, and
6&
Bolivar Took Half a Watermelon and Put the Red Side on
Top of Pa's Head,
PECK'S BAD BOY
tipped the car over on the side, and the ne~
groes crawled through the windows and went
uptown yelling murder, while Boliver went in
front of a grocery store where there was a pile
of watermelons, and began to throw them at
the people in the street, and the negroes
thought an elephant was not so bad, so they
came back and had a feast.
Pa tried to head off Bolivar at the grocery,
but Bolivar took half a watermelon and put
the red side on top of pa's head, and squashed
it down so the seeds and juice and pulp ran
down pa's shirt and neck, and he looked as
though murder had been committed, but pa
wiped his face on his shirt sleeve and showed
game, because he kept mauling Bolivar with
the hook. Bolivar broke up a millinery store
by throwing tomatoes at the women in the
windows, and he went into a yard where a
woman was washing and squirted the bluing
water all over the woman, and all over pa,
and then he chewed the clothes on the line, and
drove the family over the fence.
You'd a died to see those milliners climb
over a high board fence head first, and Bolivar
actually seemed to laugh. Bolivar run one of
his tusks through a barrel of gasoline, and it
68
WITH THE CIRCUS
run out on the street car track, and an elec-
tric spark set it on fire, and the fire depart-
ment turned out, but the engines had to all
go around Bolivar, 'cause he wouldn't budge
an inch, but seemed to say: "Let 'er rip, boys;
this is the Fourth of July."
The circus men began to come with ropes
and clubs, to tie Bolivar and throw him, but
he escaped into a side street and watched the
engines put out the fire, and he swung around
with his trunk and tusks and wouldn't let any-
one come near him but pa with the hook, and
he seemed to enjoy the prodding, but I guess
that gave him courage to keep on doing things.
The principal proprietor of the show came
along, and when he saw pa with watermelon
and bluing water all over him, and perspira-
tion rolling down his face, he said to pa: "Why
don't you take your elephant back to the lot,
'cause the afternoon performance is about to
begin," and that made pa mad, and he said:
"You go on with your afternoon performance,
and I will have Bolivar there all right," and
then everybody laughed, but pa knew what
he was about.
Pa dropped his hook and went to a hose
cart and took a Babcock extinguisher and
69
PECK'S BAD BOY
strapped it on his back and went up to Boli-
var, who was tipping over some dummies in
front of a clothing store, and pa said: "Boli-
var, you lay down," but Bolivar threw a seven-
dollar suit of clothes at pa, and bellowed, as
much as to defy pa. Pa turned the cock of the
extinguisher, and pointed the nozzle at Boli-
var's head, and began to squirt the medicated
water all over him. For a moment Bolivar
acted as though he couldn't take a joke, and
was going to start off again, but pa kept
squirting, and when the chemical water began
to eat into Bolivar's hide, the big animal weak-
ened, and trumpeted in token of surrender,
and kneeled down in front of pa, and finally
got down so pa could get on his back, and pa
took the hook and hooked it in the flap of Bol-
ivar's ear, where is a tender spot, and he told
Boliver to get up and go back to the tent, and
Bolivar was as meek as a lamb, and he got up,
with pa on his back, and the fire extinguisher
on pa's back, and marched back to the tent,
through the hole he had made coming out.
Thousands of people followed, and cheered
pa, and when they got in the tent pa said to the
principal owner of the show, who had made
*un of him: "Here's your elephant, and when-
70
3 — 1
Pa Turned the Cock of the Extinguisher and Pointed the
Nozzle at Bolivar's Head.
PECK'S BAD BOY
ever any of your old animals get on the war-
path, and you want 'em rounded up, don't for-
get my number, 'cause I can knock the spots
out of any animal except a giraffe." The
crowd cheered pa again and he got down off
the elephant, took off his fire extinguisher,
and handed Bolivar a piece of rag carpet, and
said: "Eat it, you old catamaran, or I'll kill
you," and Bolivar was so scared of pa he eat
the carpet, which shows the power of brain
over avoirdupois, pa says.
The regular keeper of Bolivar heard he was
on the rampage, and he came back on the run
to conquer him, after pa had got him back in
the tent, but Bolivar looked at him with a far-
away look in his eyes, as much as to say*.
"Seems to me I have met you somewhere be-
fore, but a new king has been crowned," and
he took his old keeper by the back of his coat
and threw him toward the monkey cage. The
monkeys gave the keeper the laugh, and Bol-
ivar put his trunk lovingly on pa's shoulder,
and seemed to say: "Old man, you are it,
from this time out." Pa looked proud, and the
old keeper looked sick. The people in the show
are going to present pa with a loving cup, and
72
WITH THE CIRCUS
I guess he can run the menagerie part of the
show.
When the freaks heard of pa's bravery, the
fat woman and the bearded lady wanted to
hug pa, but pa waved them away, and said
he liked the elephant business best.
May 7. — I used to think that if I could be-
long to a circus, and go away with it when it
left the town I lived in, that it would be pretty
near going to heaven. I used to hope for the
time when I would get nerve enough to run
away, and go with a circus, and wear a dirty
shirt, and be around a tent and wash off the
legs of a spotted horse with castile soap, and
when people gathered about me to watch the
proceedings, to look tough and tell them in a
hoarse voice way down my throat, sort of
husky from sleeping in the wet straw with
the spotted horse, that they must go on about
their business, and not disturb the horse.
I had thought if I should run away and go
with a circus, some day, when I got far enough
away from ma, that I would up and swear,
and be tough, and when I came home in the
fall, and the neighbor boys would come around
me, I would chew tobacco and tell them of the
73
PECK'S BAD BOY
joys of circus life. Well, maybe I will some
day, but at present I am sleepy all the time.
We have showed six times the last week,
and traveled a thousand miles, and it seems
as though there is nothing doing but putting
up and taking down tents, and going to and
from the cars, and you can't be tough, 'cause
there is always some boss around to tell you
to look pleasant if you are cross, and to tell
you to change your shirt or get out of the
show, and if you swear at anything you are
called down.
Pa and I put in a good deal of time during
the afternoon and evening performances in
the dressing-room, near the door leading to
the main tent. That is the nearest to being in
an insane asylum of any place I was ever in.
The performers get ready for their several acts
in bunches or families, all in one spot, and
they act serious and jaw each other, and each
bunch acts as though their act was all there
was to the show, and if it was cut out for any
reason, the show would have to lay up for the
season, when in fact each one is only a cog
in the great wheel, and if one cog should slip,
the wheel would turn just the same. These
people never smile before they go in the ring,
74
WITH THE CIRCUS
but just act as though too much depended on
them to crack a smile. When a bunch is calktl
to go in the ring, they all look at each other
as though it was the parting of the ways, and
they clasp hands and go out of the dressing-
room as though walking on eggs. When they
get in the ring they look around to see if all
eyes are upon them, and bow to people who
are looking at something going on in another
ring, and who don't see them, and then they
go through their performance with everybody
looking somewhere else.
When the act is over the audience seems
glad, and clap their hands because they are
polite, and it don't cost anything to clap hands,
and the performers turn some more flip flaps,
and go running out to the dressing-room, and
take a peek back into the big tent as though
expecting an encore, but the audience has for-
gotten them and is looking for the next mess
of performers, and the ones who have just been
in go and lie down on straw and wonder if
they can hit the treasurer for an advance on
their salaries, so they can go to a beer garden
and forget it all.
An average audience never gets its money's
worth unless some one is hurt doing some
75
PECK'S BAD BOY
daring act. Pa suggested that they have some
one pretend to be hurt in every act, and have
them picked up and carried out on stretchers
with doctors wearing red crosses on their arms
in attendance, giving medicine and restora-
tives. The show tried it at Bucyrus, O., and
had seven men and two women injured so
they had to be carried out, and the audience
went wild, and almost mobbed the dressing-
room, to see the doctor operate on the injured.
It was such a great success that next week we
are going to put in an automobile ambulance
and have an operating table in the dressing-
room with a gauze screen so the audiences can
see us cut off legs like they do in a hospital.
Maybe we shall put in a dissecting room if
the people seem to demand it.
76
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER VI.
The Bad Boy Puts Fly-Paper in the Bob Cat's
Cage — The Bob Cat Causes a Panic in the
Main Tent — The Midget Quarrels with the
Giant — Pa is Almost Arrested for Kidnap-
ing and the Ostrich Swallows His Diamond
Stud.
May 14. — This has been a week that would
kill anybody, and pa and I talk of resigning,
though pa feels as though he didn't want to
break up the show by going away right in the
middle of the harvesting of shekels from the
country men, and I don't know what would
happen if pa and I should both be taken sick
at the same time.
The boss of the menagerie got a new animal
by express from Colorado when we were leav-
ing Akron, O., and we got it in one end of a
cage occupied by a happy family of rabbits,
coons, a spotted leopard and a hound dog and
a house cat. The new animal was a bob cat,
such as Roosevelt shoots when the man has
the camera ready to catch him in the act. Say,
but that bob cat is a terror, and crosser than
77
PECK'S BAD BOY
any animal we got, except the hyenas. The
bob cat just walked around and snarled and
spit at the happy family through the bars, and
kept them awake all night on the road, and the
happy family held a sort of convention and I
could see by the way they all looked at me
that they were passing resolutions inviting me
to break up the bob cat business. The man-
ager of the menagerie told pa he wished the
confounded bob cat would escape, 'cause he
was a blooming nuisance, so I thought I would
help get rid of the beast, and save the show
from disgrace. So when we got to Oberlin
I thought that was a pious community that
could stand a wild bob cat, so I put several
sheets of sticky tanglefoot fly paper in the bob
cat's cage and opened the door of the cage,
after the crowd had gone into the main tent
to the big show, and the menagerie tent was
empty except the keepers. They were all
asleep under the wagons, and the animals had
all curled down for a nap, and the freaks were
on their platform lolling around, waiting for
the main show to be out so they could do their
stunts over again.
The bob cat got all his four feet in the tan-
glefoot fly paper, then he grabbed a sheet in
78
The Bob Cat Struck Pa on the Back.
PECK'S BAD BOY
his mouth and rolled over in a few more sheets,
and when he was entirely harmless and you
couldn't tell what he was, I opened the door of
the cage and he went out like a rocket, and
rolled over a few times in the sawdust, and
then jumped on the platform with the freaks,
run over the fat woman, who was laying back
in a Morris chair, and left one of the sheets
of fly paper on her low neck, and it stuck like
a porous plaster. She yelled that she had been
stabbed, and pa came along just as the bob cat
jumped off the platform, and struck pa on the
back, and the cat spit at pa, and pa fell over
among the sacred cattle and rolled under a
cow and got on his knees, when the animals
all began to roar, and pa crawled behind a bale
of hay, and a zebra stepped on pa's face, and
pa yelled "Hey, Rube," which is a grand hail-
ing sign of distress when circus men want to
fight, and about a hundred of the canvasmen
came running with tent stakes to hit people
with.
Pa crawled out from the bale of hay, whicn
he had pulled over him, and the hay stuck to
the fly paper on pa, and a camel began to eat
the hay, and he chewed pa's shirt until the
hands pulled pa away.
80
WITH THE CIRCUS
The bob cat escaped into the main tent,
just as the Japanese jugglers were juggling in
No. i ring, and the elephants were standing
on their heads in No. 2 ring, and the flying
trapeze artists were jumping from one trapeze
to another, and the bob cat rushed through
the Japanese, and amongst the elephants, with
the fly paper all over him, and the audience
fairly yelled, 'cause they thought it was a clown
dressed up to do some stunt, but the Japanese
left the ring in a panic, while the elephants
got down off their heads and stood on their
hind feet and cried like children.
The audience saw that something had hap-
pened that was serious and they all rose to
their feet and were going off into a panic when
pa and a few brave men came and drove the
bob cat up a centerpole, away up above the
torches, and made speeches to the audience,
and quieted them down, and the performance
went on. But pa was a sight, and the head
circus man told pa he would have to dress bet-
ter, or forever after hold his peace, and pa said
if any man could be more patient than he was,
with a bob cat on his neck, a sacred cow walk-
ing on him, and a camel trying to eat his whis-
kers and shirt, they better hire that man.
81
PECK'S BAD BOY
But it was all fixed up and everybody apol-
ogized to everybody, and the bob cat went
on up the center pole and out on top of the
canvas and escaped into Ohio, where it will
probably be holding office before next fall.
Gee, but the giant is a coward. When the
bob cat began to run up the giant's leg, and
then up his back, and then jumped from his
shoulder onto the fat lady, the giant turned
pale and cried, and the midget said to him:
"O, you big stiff, why didn't you have sand
enough to hold the kitty till the keeper came?
I've a good mind to get on a stepladder and
kick you," and the cowardly giant cried again,
and said if the midget ever struck him he would
report him to the management. Just then
pa came along and asked what the row was
about, and when pa found that the midget was
trying to pick a quarrel with the giant, he took
the midget across his knee and gave him a
few spanks, and told him to quit bullying the
freaks. The midget got up on a barrel and
called his son, who is bigger than pa, when
I stepped in between them and told the mid-
get's son if he struck my father I would have
his heart's blood, and he quailed, and then I
82
WITH THE CIRCUS
bullied the giant, who is a coward, and now
they are all afraid of me.
I don't see how a big fellow like a giant can
be afraid of things smaller than he is, and shy
when a dog barks, and be afraid some one is
going to smash him in the jaw, but pa says the
size of a man don't make any difference, 'cause
it is the heart that does the business. A man
may be big enough and strong enough to tip
over a box car, loaded with pig iron, but if his
heart is one of these little ones intended for
a miser, with no pepper sauce running from
the heart to the arteries and things, and a liver
that is white, and nerves that are trembly, and
no gall to speak of, why a big man is liable to
be walked all over by a nervy little man who
is spunky, and gets mad and froths at the
mouth.
I have been having great times with the
monkeys, and I guess the manager will make
me superintendent of monkeys, 'cause they all
seem to be stuck on me, and will do anything
I tell them to. Pa says they think I am some
new kind of a monkey, and they look up to
me. I lead out the big monkeys that ride the
goats and dogs, and have a horse race in the
ring, and fasten them on the little animals,
PECK'S BAD BOY
and when they ride around the ring on the
dogs and goats and ponies, they keep looking
at me as though they wanted my approval.
There is one little monkey that sleeps nearly
all the time, and I played a trick on pa with
it that like to got me arrested and licked by
a man who was mad. A man and woman
with a baby in a little wagon were going
through the menagerie, and it was crowded,
and they left the baby and wagon in pa's
charge, near the monkey cage, while they went
to see the hippopotamus. Pa is the most ac-
commodating man about holding babies that
ever was. The baby was asleep when its folks
left it in the wagon with pa, but it woke up
while they were gone, and pa took it out of
the baby wagon and carried it around just as
he would at home, and showed it the animals,
and held it up on his shoulder, and I took the
little monkey and put it in the baby wagon,
and it went to sleep, and I put a veil over it,
and was standing by the wagon talking with
a peanut butcher, when the parents of the
baby came back, and the woman raised up the
veil to see if the child was asleep, when the
monkey woke up and put its hairy hands up to
rub it' eyes. The monkey looked up at the
84
WITH THE CIRCUS
woman with beady eyes and began to chatter,
and she yelled and her husband took a look
at the monk, and he was mad. They could
both see it was a monkey instead of a baby,
and they asked where the old man with the
chin whiskers was that they left the baby with,
and the peanut butcher said: "What, that old
guy with the checkered vest? Why, he has
gone with the baby over to the lion cage, where
they are feeding the lions. Don't you see him
holding the baby upon his shoulder?" By
ginger, I never saw two people sprint the way
they did, 'cause I guess they thought pa was
sure crazy, and would give the baby to the
lions. But I told them the old man was all
right, and would bring the baby back, and if
he didn't they could have the monkey, 'cause
I didn't want them to think they were going
to be losers while attending our show. Then
I chucked the monkey under the chin and said :
"Maybe this is your baby, 'cause they change
wonderfully when they get into a show."
Well, I just had time to put the monkey
back in the cage when I saw that couple sur-
round pa, and the woman grabbed the baby
out of his arms, and the man tackled pa around
the legs below the knee, and threw pa down
85
PECK'S BAD BOY
under the ostrich cage, and said: "You kid-
naper! I am a good mind to choke the life
out of you," and he squeezed pa's windpipe
until pa's tongue run out, when a canvasman
came along and hit the man in the ear, and
he laid down near a zebra, and the zebra kicked
at the man and hit pa, 'cause a zebra is cross-
eyed and kicks like a woman throws a stone,
and no man knows where it listeth.
Pa got up to murder the man that choked
him, when the ostrich reached its head out
between the bars of the cage and picked pa's
big diamond stud off his shirt, big as a piece
of rock candy, and swallowed it, and pa said
that's the limit, and he called the manager
and asked him how he was going to get his
diamond stud out of the ostrich. The manager
told pa to go to the dressing-room and ask
the woman who has charge of the wardrobe
for the ostrich stomach pump, and when he
got the stomach pump the manager said the
ostrich would cough up the diamond stud.
Pa went off to the dressing-room to get the
©strich stomach pump, and I knew there was
going to be trouble, 'cause I thought the man-
ager was just stringing pa.
Well, he went up to the woman in the dress-
86
Th« Man Tackled Pa.
PECK'S BAD BOY
ing-room, and said he came after her stomach
pump, ostrich size, and you'd a died to see the
ruction. The woman looked at pa as though
he had escaped from a sanitarium, and then
she seemed to think he was trying to make
game of her, and she said: 'You old skate,
do you know who you have the honor of ad-
dressing? I am the queen of this realm, and
they all kow-tow to me; now you come and
take your medicine," and before pa could say
boo she had pulled a big clothes bag over his
head and tied it around his feet, and said:
"Come on, girls, we are going to have roasted
missionary," and they were lighting a gaso-
line torch to roast pa, when the owner of the
show came along and asked what was up.
When the wrardrobe woman told him pa had
insulted her, the owner gave her $10 to buy
champagne for the performers, and she re-
leased pa, and he went back to choke his dia-
mond out of the ostrich.
Pa says this life is more exciting, if anything,
than staying at home, and it will either kill
him or cure him of a desire to be a Barnum
in about a month more.
88
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER VII.
The Circus Has a Yellow Fever Scare — The
Bad Boy and His Dad Dress Up as Hotten-
tots— Pa Takes a Mustard Bath and Attends
a Revival Meeting.
Well, we have had a row for your life, and
all the excitement anybody can stand. We
got into Indiana and have had a yellow fever
scare, a quarantine that lasted one night, so
nobody could sleep on our train, a riot at Ev-
ansville 'cause we took on a couple of female
trapeze women that came from Honduras, via
New Orleans, and a revival of religion, all in
one bunch, and pa is beginning to get haggard,
like a hag.
The female trapeze performers, who had
been expected ever since we started on the
road, had been quarantined at New Orleans,
where the yellow fever is raging, and finally
got through the quarantine guard somewhere
in Mississippi, and got to us Saturday after-
noon, and some official telegraphed to the
mayor that two yellow fever refugees had
struck his town to join the circus, and he or-
89
PECK'S BAD BOY
dered the chief of police to hunt them out,
and put them in a pest house. The Honduras
females were yellow as saffron, but it was
caused by the climate of Honduras, but the
whole show was scared to death for fear we
would all have yellow fever, and the manage-
ment detailed pa and I to hide the yellow girls
from the police.
Pa fixed up one of the cages, with the girls
blacked up as Hottentots and pa and I blacked
up as an African king and prince of the blood,
and we did stunts in the cage at afternoon
and evening performances, and the crowd
could not keep away from our cage, until pa
got hot and unbuttoned his shirt and, before
we knew it, everybody saw pa's white skin
below where his face and neck were blacked,
and while we were talking gibberish to each
other a country jake got mad and he led a
crowd to open the cage and make us remove
our shirts to prove that we were Hottentots.
When they found we were white people
blacked up they wanted their money back and
were going to tip over the cage, when pa saved
the day by making a speech, at the evening
performance, to the effect that we were all
yellow fever refugees from New Orleans and
90
WITH THE CIRCUS
the mob lit out on the run for the main tent,
where they announced that there were four
cases of fever in the menagerie tent, and that
settled it.
The mayor and police closed the show on
account of yellow fever, and we couldn't get
out of the tent. Pa had been quite close
to the yellow girls and when he found out
that yellow fever was a disease that catches
you when not looking, and in 15 minutes you
look like a corpse, and in four hours you are
liable to be a sure enough corpse, he shook
the yellow girls, and asked an old sailor what
a man ought to do who has been exposed
to yellow fever, and the old sailor, who has
had yellow fever lots of times, told pa to strip
off his clothes and take a bath of prepared
mustard, and rub it in thoroughly, and then
wipe it off, and take a vinegar rub, and after
that sprinkle a little red pepper on himself,
put on different clothes and drink about a gal-
ion of red lemonade and he could defy yellow
fever.
Pa is an easy mark and he believed the old
sailor, who is tattooed and makes a show of
himself with the freaks, and pa took a change
of clothes and a bottle of mustard and a cruet
91
PECK'S BAD BOY
of vinegar and a bottle of red pepper and went
into a dressing room and got behind a wagon
and began to take the cure the sailor had pre-
scribed. I don't know as it was right to do
it, but about the time pa had got to the red
pepper course and was sprinkling it on his
skin pretty thick, and he was beginning to get
pretty hot, and was yelling a little, I told the
chief of police, who was looking around with
the health officer for suspicious cases, that
there was a man acting sort of queer behind
the wagon that had a piece of canvas over the
wheels. They both rushed in on pa and
grabbed him.
Gee! but pa looked and smelled like a plate
of pigs' feet and the doctor said it was an un-
mistakable case of yellow fever, he could tell
by the smell, and then pa turned pale and
yellow from fright, and they wrapped him up
in a piece of canvas and took him away in an
emergency hospital ambulance, and the whole
show at once knew that we were in for a quar-
antine.
They burned up the suit of clothes pa took
off and the one he was going to put on, and
the ambulance drove away, while pa shook
one fist at the sailor and one at me, and his
92
The Doctor Said it was an Unmistakable Case of Yellow Fever
PECK'S BAD BOY
skin began to shrink and smart, and he yelled,
and the audience stampeded, and the show was
in the dumps.
We had to stay over Sunday in Evansville,
and the show people were so scared the man-
ager thought he better have religious services
in the tent Sunday, so they got a revivalist
preacher to preach to them, a fellow who used
to preach to the cowboys out west. Sunday
morning the tough fellows in the show said
they wouldn't do a thing to the preacher when
he came on to do his stunt. Their idea was
to wait until he got well on his sermon and
then begin to interrupt him and ask questions,
and finally to get a blanket and toss him up a
few times for luck, and then chase him out
and have the circus bulldog, that chews the
clown's pants, catch the minister's coat tail
and just scare him plum to death.
The boys said it would be the biggest picnic
that ever was — a regular barbecue. The boss
canvasman said he was opposed to mixing re-
ligion with the circus business, because the
fellows could get all the religion they needed
in the winter, when the show was laid up and
he would see the boys through in anything
they proposed to do to the sky pilot that was
94
WITH THE CIRCUS
going to play his game in ring No. I at 10:30
the next day.
Well, after I heard the circus men talk about
what they would do to the preacher, I was
afraid they would kill him, so when he and
a helper brought a little melodeon into the
ring, facing the reserved seats, I told him the
boys were going to raise a rumpus and drive
hi-m out of the tent with the bulldog hanging
to his coat tails. He put his hand on his pistol
pocket and pulled a long, blue gun about half
way out, and let it drop back down beside his
leg, and he winked at me and said he guessed
not, scarcely, as he had preached to crowds so
tough that a circus gang was a Sunday school
in comparison.
Then I got on a front seat to watch the fun.
About 800 of the circus hands, performers,
clowns and peanut butchers, came in, snicker-
ing, and sat down on the reserved seats in
front of the little pulpit, improvised from the
barrels the elephants stand on, and some of
them laughed and said: "Hello, Bill!" and
"Ah, there!" and "Get on to his collar," and
a lot of other things.
The little husky preacher had a Salvation
Army girl to play the melodeon, and he didn't
95
PECK'S BAD BOY
take any notice of the remarks the boys made,
except to set his jaws together and moisten
his lips. Finally they were all seated, and he
got up to open the services, when a big can-
vasman, a regular Smart Aleck, got up on a
seat and said: "Pardner, how you going to
open this jack pot?"
The crowd laughed and the preacher pulled
his long blue gun up out of his pocket, and
laid it on the barrel, and then picked it up and
pointed it at the big canvasman and said:
"This game is going to be opened with this
hand, seven of a kind, all 45 caliber, dum-dum
bullets, and unless you sit down quick I will
send a mess of bullets into your carcass right
where your heart ought to be. If you open
your mouth again before I say 'amen!' real
loud at the close of the services, I will shoot
all your front teeth out. Do you comprehend?
If so, be seated."
The big fellow dropped on to the blue seat,
as though he had been hit with a piledriver,
and the crowd was so tickled to have the
bully's bluff called, that they cheered the
preacher. Then he said. "We will now open
this jack pot with singing and I shall keep one
0
After Scratchinq His Head a Minute, Ike Turned and Walked
Toward the Preacher.
PECK'S BAD BOY
eye on the gentleman who was last up, but
who is now seated pretty low down."
You could have heard a pin drop.
The preacher wiped his face calmly, and
said: "We will now sing and I expect every
man will sing, and to that end I will appoint
Big Ike, who asked me how I was going to
open this jack pot, to come down in front of
the seats and lead in the singing, for I know
by his voice, which I heard in debate, that he
is a crackerjack," and the preacher took hold
of the handle of the blue gun and Big Ike
walked down through the rows of seats, and
as the melodeon began to squawk, Ike got
down in front of the audience, and some of
the boys said: "Bully for you, Ike," and after
scratching his head a minute Ike turned and
walked towards the preacher, at the edge of
the ring, and I thought there was going to be
the worst fight ever was, and as the preacher
reached for the gun I crawled under the seat,
and peeked out between the legs of a fat man,
but Ike walked up to the minister and said, as
the melodeon began to cough: "Boys, this
tune is on Ike." He started it and every man
sang.
When it was ended the boys clapped and
98
WITH THE CIRCUS
stamped for an encore, and they sang it
through again, and the face of the preacher
beamed with joy, and I saw there was not
going to be any fight and I crawled out from
under the seats.
Pa came in the tent just then, with a new
suit of clothes on, having been discharged from
the hospital as cured of yellow fever, and I
gave him my seat, and he held me in his lap.
The preacher then preached a sermon that
did them all good. He dwelt upon the hard
life of the showman, and gave them such good
advice that when it was all over and he said he
wanted to shake hands with every man in the
bunch, Ike marshaled them all up to the ring
and introduced them, and no minister ever
was more cordially congratulated, and they
wanted him to go along with the show, and
preach every Sunday.
The preacher said he couldn't join the show,
but he traveled around a good deal and he
would probably be in the same town with the
show several times during the summer and he
would drop in on them occasionally and keep
them straight.
Pa was watching the crowd for the sailor
who prescribed cayenne pepper for yellow
99
PECK'S BAD BOY
fever, and when he saw the sailor come up to
the minister, with tears in his eyes, and say:
"Parson, I has been a bad man and killed a
man once, but he was a Portuguese sailor, and
he had the drop on me, the same as you did
on Big Ike at the opening of these proceedings,
and I had to kill him. And I begs the pardon
of this old gentleman for lying to him." And
then pa shook hands with the sailor and the
parson, and the parson put his blue gun down
his trousers leg, and said: "By the way, the
bulldog you were going to let take a lunch
off m:, :" he all right?"
Then the parson and the girl went away,
and the boys carried out the melodeon, and
the quarantine was declared off. After dinner
the boys took down the tents and put them on
the train that Sunday afternoon, singing de-
cent songs as they pulled up the stakes and
rolled up the canvas, and on the train, late in
the night, we could hear "Old Hundred" be-
ing sung as the cars ran through the pennyn'al
district of Indiana.
100
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER VIII.
Pa Takes the Place of the Fat Woman with
Disastrous Results — A Kentucky Colonel
Causes a Row — Pa Tries to Roar Like a
Lion and the Rhinoceros Objects — Pa Plays
the Slot-Machine and Gets the Worst of It.
This has been an eventful week with the
show. We have had heat prostrations in Ken-
tucky, nearly the whole show got drunk on
16-year-old whisky, and if it hadn't been for
the animals keeping sober this show would
have been pulled for disorderly conduct.
Nobody knows how the row started, but pa
says every man in Kentucky carries a blue gun
and a bottle of red licker, and they wear white
hats, so the red, white and blue business is all
right, only it is a combination that is death on
a circus. I think one of the ushers, at the
afternoon performance, told an old colonel that
he must move along quicker, when the colonel
began to talk back, and say, "Who is you
talkin' too, sah?" And the usher stood it as
long as he could, when he took the colonel by
the collar and sat him down so quick he didn't
IOI
PECK'S BAD BOY
come to for a couple of minutes, and when
the colonel got his senses, and found that the
usher had ushered him into a seat between two
gaily decorated colored women the trouble be-
gan. The colonel never forgot that he was
a gentleman, for he rose up, took off his hat to
the colored women, and said: "You must ex-
cuse me, ladies, but I shall have to go and kill
the scoundrel who sat me down with niggers,"
and he got down off the seats and struck the
usher with his cane, and the usher yelled:
"Hey, Rube!" and all the circus people made
a rush for the colonel. The colonel said, "Men
of Kentucky, to the rescue," and before I could
crawl under the seats the air was full of bag-
gage, seats, tent pins and white hats, guns
were fired, and blood flowed, and the police
pulled everybody, and the evening perform-
ance was given up.
One of the proprietors of the show got a
wen on his head as big as a football from be-
ing struck by a handle of a revolver, and the
colonel who started the row was knocked silly
by a tray of red lemonade which the butcher
smashed him with, and the colonel cried be-
cause the lemonade was all water, and he was
afraid it would soak into him and cause him to
I02
WITH THE CIRCUS
warp. When the lemonade butcher apolo-
gized, and the usher told him it was all a mis-
take his being seated with the niggers, the
colonel wept on their necks and invited the
whole crowd to go to his distillery and help
themselves.
When we got to the next town every man
in the show had a grouch and a Katzenjam-
mer, and their hair was so sore it was murder
and suicide combined to comb it.
The way pa escaped injury was 'cause he
had to take the place of the fat woman on the
platform v/ith the freaks, as the fat woman
was overcome with the heat and had to stay
in the car.
The way they fixed pa up to resemble the
fat woman was scandalous. They have some
rubber things in the wardrobe tent that you
can blow up and make a big arm, and a big
leg, and a big stummick, so anybody couldn't
tell the difference, and they fixed pa up with
blowed up clothes of flesh colored rubber, and
but for his chin whiskers you couldn't tell
him from the fat woman. He said he wouldn't
cut off his whiskers for anybody's circus, so
they fixed a veil to cover part of his face and
put the fat woman's dress on pa, and put him
103
PECK'S BAD BOY
up beside the skeleton, the midget and the
giant.
Pa said he didn't want to do it, 'cause it
seemed too much like fraud, but they told him
the fate of the show depended on our all being
willing to take any part assigned to us, and
so pa sat down and began to fan himself, and
tried to look flirty like a woman.
The other freaks never noticed but what it
was the fat woman until the show was half
over. It was too much for me, and I just
laffed at pa. I got up behind him and told him
in a whisper that I wanted a dollar to play the
slot machine, and he told me to go to thunder,
and get out of there. I couldn't stand it to be
insulted by my own father, so I took a hat pin
out of the hat of the bearded lady and punched
it into pa's blowed up rubber shirt, and pa
began to sis, like a soda fountain, and the wind
struck the living skeleton and blew him over
like a cyclone, and by that time pa was blowing
off wind in a dozen places that I had punctured,
and he was scared for fear there wouldn't be
anything left of him, and the giant saw the
fat woman slowly fading away, and the coward
had heart failure and lay down on the plat-
form. Somebody shouted that the fat woman
104
I Punctured Pa's Tires.
PECK'S BAD BOY
was all melting away, and a fellow who was
watering a camel out of a bucket came to the
rescue and threw the bucket of dirty water all
over pa, and then I thought I better go away
into the tent and see the fight, but pa was
taken to the dressing room and rescued from
the shrinking rubber balloons that were bust-
ed, and he said he would hunt the man that
punctured his tire to his dying day, but he
didn't know it was me.
Gee, it looks to me as though pa has been
engaged to act as the easy mark in this show.
Say, they got pa to practice on roaring like
a lion, so he could stand behind the cage when
the lion has a sore throat and roar, and scare
folks, and pa has been going around behind
the cages, every evening, when the menagerie
is closed, and the crowd in the main tent, mak-
ing noises that have made the animals look
at each other as much as to say, "Well, what
do you think of that?" The rhinoceros was so
disgusted at Paducah that he reached out his
nose and took pa on his horn and held him
up to the scorn of the other animals until pa's
pants gave way and he was a sight, and he was
so scared that he got out of the tent and made
a run for our train, chased by the police, who
1 06
Chased by Police.
PECK'S BAD BOY
thought he was a burglar that had been eat
by a house dog.
The worst thing we have had on pa was at
Louisville, where we stayed over Sunday. An-
other fellow and I got a system on slot ma-
chines, and one day we beat the machines out
of a shotbag full of nickels, and when we
showed up at the tent all the fellows wanted
to know how we did it, and pa said it was
gambling, and we ought not to do it, but he
also wanted to know how we managed to win,
and when we told pa about it pa said it was
no sin to beat a slot machine, 'cause it was an
inanimate thing, just a machine, and anybody
who could beat a nickel in the slot machine at
his own game was equal to a Rockefeller.
So after everybody had got excited about
our nickels I told them how to beat the ma-
chine. I told them I didn't get excited and go
rushing in where angels fear to tread, and feed
the slot machine on good hard earned nickels
of my own, but waited until the countrymen
and tenderfeet had fed it on nickels until it
was too full for utterance. When the machine
swelled out like it was blowed up, and it kind
of wheezed, like it was ready to cough up, and
was only waiting for an excuse, I put a cough
1 08
WITH THE CIRCUS
lozenger about the size of a nickel in the slot
and turned the diaphram. The machine shud-
dered a minute and then had a regular hem-
orrague, and coughed up a tin cupful of nickels
into my hand, and the machine seemed to rest
easy, and take nourishment again from the
silly fellows, who thought they could beat it.
Well, sir, the whole crowd was so excited
they could hardly wait to find a slot machine,
and finally they bought nearly all my cough
lozengers, and went out into the night, and
pa and I went along, 'cause pa said he under-
stood all the slot machines were owned bv
Rockefeller, and he made more money on them
than he did on Standard oil, and the money
that he gave away to schools and churches
was from his rake-off on his slot machines.
Pa said it would be a good thing if someone
could break up the reprehensible practice by
beating the blasted machines to a finish.
So pa he got a bag to bring back the nickels
in, and a bunch of us went to a store where
one whole side of the place was filled with slot
machines, and the way the people were playing
the game was scandalous. Pa watched a ma-
chine until the players had fed it so it seemed
as though it would die unless it got air, and
IOQ
PECK'S BAD BOY
he stepped up and put in a lozenger and
turned the wheel, and held the bag under the
spout for the coin, but it didn't come. Some
more fellows put in nickels, and the machine
gave little hacking coughs and coughed up
three or four nickels, but nothing that seemed
at all in the nature of a financial hemmorague,
when pa took another lozenger and put it in,
and by ginger the machine began to heave up
nickels like it was in the trough of the sea.
Pa was so excited he forgot to hold the bag,
and nickels went all over the floor, and every-
body made a grab for them, and pa was shoved
aside, and he swore he would have the place
pulled, and just then a law officer took pa in
charge because he had put a cough lozenger
in the slot machine, and he searched pa and
found a lot more bronchial trochees, and pa
was in for it on a charge of malpractice, for
giving cough medicine for the stomach trouble
of the slot machine, instead of pepsin tablets.
They took pa in a back room and searched
him some more, and found his roll, and then
a man who said he was a lawyer offered to help
pa, and keep him out of the penitentiary. He
told pa the law of Kentucky made the crime of
trifling with a slot machine the same as breach
no
WITH THE CIRCUS
of promise, or arson, and that he would be
lucky if he got off with ten years in the pen,
with 30 days' solitary confinement in a Turkish
bath cell, with niggers for companions.
Pa turned blue and asked the lawyer if thevt
was no way out of it, and the lawyer told him
that for $120 in spot cash he would let him go,
and fight the case after the show had got out
of the state. A hundred and twenty-five dol-
lars was the amount they found on pa, and he
told them that inasmuch as they already had
it, they better keep the money and let him go,
and he would be always a living example of
the terrors of gambling.
So they let pa go, and all the way to the
train he told us he hoped this experience would
be a lesson to us not to covet the money of
the rich, and as far as he was concerned, John
D. Rockefeller could go plum to thunder with
his money after this.
Then we got to the car, and found about a
doze,u of the circus men who had been out to
beat the slot machines, broke flat, and I had
to divide my shot bag of nickels with them,
that I had won before I let them into the game,
before they would let me go to bed.
Dad says this circus life is making me pretty
tough.
in
PECKS BAD BOY
CHAPTER IX.
The Bad Boy Feeds Cayenne Pepper to the
Sacred Cow — He and His Pa Ride in a
Circus Parade With the Circassian Beauties
— A Tipsy Elephant Lands Them in a Pub-
lic Fountain — Pa Makes the Acquaintance
of John L. Sullivan.
I am learning more about animals every
day, and when the season is over I will be an
expert animal man. Animals naturally have
a language of their own, and lions understand
each other, and bears can converse with bears,
but in a show, all animals seem to have a com-
mon language, so they understand each other
a little.
I found that out when I put a paper of
cayenne pepper into a head of lettuce and gave
it to the sacred cow. She chewed the lettuce
as peacefully as could be, and swallowed the
cayenne pepper, and then stopped to think.
You could tell by the expression on her face
that when the pepper began to heat her up in-
side she wanted to swear, although she was a
sacred cow. She humped herself, and shiv-
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WITH THE CIRCUS
ered, and then bellowed like a calf who has
been left in the barn to be weaned, while its
mother goes out to pasture, and the sacred bull,
her husband, he came and put his nose up to
her nose, as much as to say: "What is the
matter, dearie?" and she talked sacred cattle
talk to him for a minute, and then the bull
turned to me and chased me out of the tent.
Now, as sure as you live that cow told the
bull that I had given her something hot. All
the animals within hearing were onto me, and
they would snarl, and make noises when I
came along, and act as though they wanted
to make me understand that they knew I gave
that cow a hot box, and they all wanted to
get a chance at me.
They don't like pa any better than they do
me, and the big elephant seems to have been
laying for pa ever since he run the sharp iron
into him, the time he got on a tear and tried to
run a town. When the elephants are perform-
ing in the ring, they all have an eye on pa, so
everybody notices it. I knew something would
happen to pa, so when the man who plays the
shiek, and rides the elephant in the street
parade, in a howdah, with a canopy over it,
with some female houris in it, and they called
Il3
PECK'S BAD BOY
for a volunteer to do the shiek act, at Steuben-
ville, and pa offered to do the stunt, I went
along as an Egyptian girl, 'cause I knew there
would be something doing.
The elephant eyed pa when he got up into
the bungalow on top of him with the Circas-
sian woman and me, and winked at the other
elephants, as much as to say: ''Watch my
smoke." As he went out from the lot, on the
way downtown, ahead of the bunch, all the
other animals acted peculiar, and seemed to
say: "He will get his before we get through
this parade."
The big elephant is one of the best ring per-
formers, but he has always been steady in the
street parade, with the light of Asia on his
back. We got to the edge of town and stopped
to let the rear wagons close up, and were in
front of a saloon, where the bartender had been
emptying stale beer out of the bottoms of
kegs into a washtub, which was standing on
the sidewalk, ready to be sold to people who
who buy it in pails.
Well, sir, that confounded elephant got his
trunk in that tub of stale beer, and he never
took it out till the beer was all gone. I looked
down from the pagoda and told pa the elephant
114
WITH THE CIRCUS
was drinking again, and had drank a washtub
of beer, but pa couldn't say anything, 'cause
he was doing the Arab sheik act, and had to
look dignified, as though he was praying to
Allah.
But just then the band struck up, and we
started down the main street of Steubenville.
The people began to cheer, 'cause our elephant
began to hippity-hop, and waltz sideways
across the street and back again, and I thought
pa would die. In the parade one man on a
horse attends to the elephants, so the sheiks
don't have anything to say, and pa remained
like a statue, and told me and the Circassian
beaties to be calm, and trust in him and Allah.
This Allah business was all right when the ele-
phant waltzed, but when we got to the next
block the beast began to stand on his hind
feet, and pa and the houris rolled to the back
end of the howdah, and were all piled in a
heap, while I held on to the cloth of gold
over the elephant's head.
Pa yelled to the people on horseback to kill
the elephant, and the crowd cheered, thinking
it was the best performance they ever saw
in a free street parade, and the animals in the
cages behind were yapping as though they
115
PECK'S BAD BOY
knew what was going on. The elephant got
down on all fours, and we straightened up in
the pagoda, and for a block or so the beast
only waltzed around. As we got to some
sort of a public square, where there were thou-
sands of people, the stale beer seemed to be
getting in its work, for the elephant looked at
the people, as much as to say: "Now I will
show you something not down on the bills,"
and, by ginger, if he didn't raise up his hind
quarters and stand on his front feet, right by
the side of a big fountain, and he reached in
his trunk for a drink, when all of us on the
pagoda clung to pa, and we all slid right off
into the big basin of water. The fountain
played on us, and pa was under water, with the
four Circassian beauties, and when we rolled
or slid down over the elephant's head, he
looked at us and seemed to chuckle: "What
you getting off here for, the show ain't half
out."
Well, the parade went on and left the ele-
phant and the rest of us at the fountain, and
to show that animals understand each other,
and can appreciate a joke, every animal that
passed us gave us the laugh, even the hippo-
potamus, which opened his mouth as big as
116
The Elephant Kept Ducking Pa and Swabbing Out the Bot-
tom of the Fountain.
PECK'S BAD BOY
a tunnel, and showed his teeth and acted as
though he would like to exchange tanks with
us.
The circus people that could be spared from
the wagons came to help us, and the citizens
helped out the Circassian beauties who were
praying to Allah, and wringing out their
clothes, and I crawled up on the neck of a
cast-iron swan in the fountain. Pa yelled and
talked profane, and told 'em to bring a cannon
and kill the elephant, which kept ducking him
with his trunk, and swabbing out the bottom
of the fountain basin with pa. It seemed as
though he never would get through using pa
for a mop, but finally the people got a rope
around pa, and a keeper got an iron hook in
the elephant's ear, and they pulled pa out on
one side, and got the elephant away on the
other side, and just then the callipoe, that ends
the parade, came by us and played the "Blue
Danube," and the elephant got on his hind
feet and waltzed on the pavement. They put
pa and the Circassian beauties in a patrol
wagon and took them to the show lot, and I
sat by the driver, and he let me drive the team.
Pa had his sheik clothes rolled up around
his waist, and was wringing them out, and
nS
WITH THE CIRCUS
talking awful sassy, and when we got to the
lot it took a long time to convince the police-
men that we were not guilty of disorderly con-
duct, and just then the elephant came tearing
by us, with the keeper on horseback behind
him, prodding him in the ham every jump with
a sharp iron, and he went through the side of
the tent as though he was mighty sorry he
didn't kill us all.
They made him get down on his knees and
bellow in token of surrender, and then we all
went and changed our clothes for the after-
noon performance. As we passed through the
menagerie tent, dripping, every animal set up
a yell, as much as to say: "There, maybe you
will give cayenne pepper to a pious sacred
cow again, confound you," and that convinces
me that animals are human.
The last week has been the hardest on pa
of any week since we have been out with the
circus. The trouble with pa is that he wants
to be "Johnny on the spot," as the boys say,
and if anything breaks he volunteers to go to
work and fix it, and if anybody is sick or dis-
abled, he wants to take their place, as he says
so he will learn everything about the circus,
119
PECK'S BAD BOY
and be competent to run a show alone next
year.
But it was a mean trick the principal owner
of the show played on pa at Canton, O. You
see John L. Sullivan used to do a boxing act
with this show, years ago, and everybody likes
John, and when he shows up where the show
gives a performance he has the freedom of the
whole place, and everybody about the show is
ready to fall over themselves to do John L. a
service.
Well, Sullivan showed up at Canton, and he
went everywhere, all the forenoon, and met
all the old timers, and at the afternoon per-
formance he was awfully jolly.
John was standing beside the ring when the
Japanese jugglers were juggling, and he
leaned against a pole. Pa came in from the
menagerie tent, and he didn't know Sullivan,
and when he saw Sullivan holding the pole up,
pa said to the boss proprietor that the fat man
who was interfering with the show ought to
be called down or put out.
The boss said to pa: 'You go take him by
the ear and put him out," and pa, who is as
brave as lion, started for Sullivan, and the
boss winked at the other circus men, and pa
1 20
John L. Slatted Pa Just as Though He Was a ChlM.
PECK'S BAD BOY
went up to Sullivan and took hold of John's
neck with both hands, and said: "Come on
out of here."
Well, sir, we ought to have moving pictures
of what followed. Sullivan turned on pa, and
growled just like a lion. Then he took pa
around the waist and held him up under his
arm, and picked up a piece of board and slat-
ted pa just as though pa was a child, and the
audience just yelled, and pa called to the circus
men for help, but they just laughed.
Pa got a chance at the fat man and he hit
him in the jaw, but it did not hurt Sullivan,
only made him mad. He took pa up by the
collar and whirled him around until pa was
dizzy, and then he started with him for the
menagerie tent, and called to the boss canvas-
man: "Bill, come on and tell me which is the
hungriest lion, and I will feed him with this
cold meat."
Pa yelled, 'cause he thought he was in the
hands of an escaped lunatic, and the circus
hands came and took him away. Then the
owner told pa who Sullivan was, and pa
almost fainted. But finally, after breathing
hard for awhile, pa went up to Sullivan and
shook his hand, and said: "Mr. Sullivan, you
122
WITH THE CIRCUS
must excuse me. If I had known you were the
great John L., I would not have licked you/'
Sullivan looked at pa and said: "Well, you
are a wonder, old man, and you did do me
up," and pa and Sullivan became great friends.
Since then pa is pretty chesty, 'cause the cir-
cus men point him out to the jays as the man
who whipped John L. Sullivan.
12%
PECK'S BAD BOY
CHAPTER X.
The Bad Boy and His Pa Drive a Roman
Chariot — They Win the Race, but Meet
With Difficulties— The Bearded Lady to
the Rescue — A Farmer's Cart Breaks Up
the Circus Procession.
Ohio was a hoodo for the circus business,
and Kentucky got the whole bunch ready for a
long stay at Dwight, 111., but the agent routed
us into Pennsylvania, and pa has had nothing
but a series of disasters since striking the
state.
Pa gave notice that when we got to his old
home, at Scranton, where he lived when he
was a boy, he wanted to sort of run things, so
his old neighbors would see that he had got
up in the world since he left the old town. So
the manager gave pa about 400 free tickets
to distribute among his friends, and arranged
for pa to show off as the leading citizen in the
show. He was offered a chance to take the
place of the clown, the ring master or any-
body whose duty he thought he could per-
form. Pa selected the place of driver of the
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WITH THE CIRCUS
Roman chariot with four horses abreast, in
place of the Irish Roman who was accustomed
to drive the chariot in the race with the female
charioteer, a muscular girl who used to clerk
in a livery stable at Chicago.
The chariot race is a fake, because it is ar-
ranged for the girl to win, so the audience will
go wild and cheer her, so she has to come
bowing all around the ring. The way the job
is put up is for the two chariots to start, and
go around twice. On the first turn the man
driver is ahead, and takes the pole, and on the
second turn the girl's ahead, and she takes the
pole, and on the third turn the man is ahead,
and they begin to whip the horses, who seem
crazy, and on the last stretch the man holds
his team back a little, and the girl passes him
and comes out a trifle ahead, and the crowd
goes wild.
Well, the master of ceremonies coached pa
about the business, and told him what to do.
They knew he could drive four horses, be-
cause he said he was an old stage driver, and
whan he got in the chariot with the Roman
suit on gleaming with gold, and the brass hel-
met, and the cloth of gold gauntlets, and stood
up like a senator, gee, I was proud of him,
125
PECK'S BAD BOY
and when he and the female drove out of the
dressing-room and halted by the door for the
announcer to announce the great Ben Hur
chariot race, I got into the chariot behind pa,
and told him he must win the race, or the peo-
ple of Scranton would mob him. For they
knew these races were usually fixed before-
hand, but since he was to drive one of the
teams, all his friends were betting on him, and
if he pulled the team and let that livery stable
lady win the race, they would accuse him of
giving free tickets to get them in the show
and skin them out of their money.
Pa said to me: "This race is going to be
on the square, and you watch my smoke. Do
you think I would let that red-headed dish
washer beat me? Not on your life."
The play is to have a little boy kiss the male
driver good-by, and a little girl kiss the
female driver good-by, as though they were
taking their lives in their hands. I had climbed
up to pa and put my arms around his neck,
and kissed him, and a girl kissed the female,
when the gong sounded, and both four-horse
teams made a jump, before I could get out of
the chariot, so I got right in front of pa and
peeked over the dashboard of the chariot, and,
126
Her Cart, Team and All Were Thrown Right Against the
Band.
PECK'S BAD BOY
gee, but didn't we fairly whizz by the poles,
and the audience looked like a panorama.
Pa got the pole and kept it, and we went
around three times, and found the female
chariot ahead of us, cause pa had gone around
twice to her once. She turned out a little
right by the band-stand, and pa run his team
right inside her chariot and caught her wheel,
and when he yelled to his team, her cart, team,
and all were thrown right into the band,
which scattered over the backs of the seats.
The horses were all mixed up with the instru-
ments, and the female driver was thrown into
the air and came down in a sitting position
right into the bass drum. She went right
through the sheepskin, so her head and hands
and feet were all of her that remained outside
the drum.
She yelled for help and the circus hands
rolled the drum, with her in it, into the dress-
ing-room, where they had to cut the sides
of the drum with an ax, to get her out, while
others caught her horses and pulled the char-
iot out of the band, and the music stopped;
but pa went on forever.
He went around six times yelling like an
Indian at a green corn dance, and when he
128
WITH THE CIRCUS
thought it was time to let up, because he had
missed the other chariot, he pulled so hard he
broke the lines on the two inside horses and
then it was a runaway for sure, and the audi-
ence stood up on the seats and yelled, and
women fainted.
Finally the circus hands grabbed some hur-
dles, and threw them across the track, near
the main entrance, and when we came around
the last time, two of the horses jumped the
hurdles all right, but two fumbled and fell
down, and there was a crash, and I didn't
know anything until I felt cold water on my
face that tasted sour, and colored my shirt
red, and I found the lemonade butcher was
bringing me to by pouring a tray of lemonade
over me.
When my eyes opened, I saw a sight that I
shall never forget. It seems that when the
horses fell down, the chariot and the other
two horses and pa and I had landed all in a
heap right on top of the lemonade and peanut
concession, and carried it up onto a row of
seats near the main entrance from the menag-
erie. The elephants that were to come on
next were in the door waiting for their signal,
and they were scared at the crash, and they
129
PECK'S BAD BOY
came in bellowing, the keepers having lost all
control of them. The audience was stamped-
ing, and the circus men were trying to
straighten things out.
Pa struck on his head against a wagon
wheel and his brass helmet was driven down
over his face, so when he yelled to be pulled
out of the helmet his voice sounded like a
coon song, coming from a phonograph. It
was the closest call from death pa ever had,
'cause they had to cut the helmet with a can
opener to let pa out, like you open a can of
lobsters. When they got the helmet opened
so pa could come out, he looked just like a
boiled lobster, and when the chief owner of
the circus came up on a run, and asked if pa
was dead, pa said: "Not much, Mary Ann;
did I win?" and the manager said it was a pity
they ever opened that helmet and let pa out.
The man told pa he won in a walk, but the
chief of police of Scranton was going to arrest
pa for exceeding the speed limit.
They took pa to the dressing-room on a
piece of board, and when the woman driver
saw him, she got an ax, and wanted to cleave
him from head to foot, but the bearded woman
stepped in front of her and said: "Not on
130
Pa Struck on His Head Against a Wagon Wheel.
PECK'S BAD BOY
your life," and she shielded pa from death
with her manly form, which pa says he shall
never forget. Pa's old friends in Scranton
gave him a banquet that night, but pa couldn't
eat anything, cause the rim of the brass hel-
met cut a gash in his Adam's apple.
After the chariot race the managers con-
cluded they wouldn't let pa have any position
of importance again very soon, and I made up
my mind you wouldn't ever catch me in any
game that pa was in; but in the circus busi-
ness you can never tell what is going to hap-
pen from one day to another.
On the train on the way to Wilkes Barre
there was a hot box on one of the sleepers,
and the car was side-tracked all night.
When we arrived at the town about 40
wagon drivers that were in the car did not
show up, and they had to press everybody
that could drive a team into the service to
haul the stuff to the lot, and pa drove four
horses so well with a load of tent poles that
the manager complimented pa, and that gave
pa the big head. When the parade was all
ready to start through town, and the drivers
had not arrived, the manager asked pa if he
thought he could drive the ten gray horses on
132
WITH THE CIRCUS
the band wagon, to lead the procession, and pa
said driving ten horses was his best hold, and
he got up on the driver's seat, and called me to
get up with him, and I hate a boy that will dis-
obey a parent, so I climbed up and began to
jolly the band about the chariot race, and I
told them pa wouldn't do a thing to them this
time.
The manager of the show always rides
ahead of the parade, with the chief of police of
the town, and the band horses follow him, so
it is easy enough to drive ten horses, cause all
you have to do it to hold on to the 20 lines, and
look savage at the crowd on the sidewalks,
and the horses go right along, and the people
think the driver is a wonder. So when the
manager started in his buggy pa pulled up on
all the lines he could hold on to, which filled
his lap, and made him look like a harness
maker, and he yelled: "Ye-up," and the pro-
cession moved, and the ten teams pa was
driving went along all right, and pa looked
as though he owned the show and the town.
We got downtown, to a wide street, and
there was a fire alarm ahead, or something,
and the procession stopped, and the manager
and chief of police disappeared, and there was
133
PECK'S BAD BOY
a wagon load of green corn stalks right beside
the lead team, which a farmer was taking to a
silo, but he had stopped his team to see the
parade. The three teams of pa's leaders, six
horses, began to eat the corn stalks, and the
camels, that were behind us, worked along up
by the band wagon and began to eat, and the
farmer got scared to see his corn stalks dis-
appearing, so he drove off on a side street,
and started for the silo, and by ginger, pa's
team turned onto the side street and followed
the wagon of corn stalks, and pa couldn't hold
them, and the band played, "In the Good Old
Summer Time, There Will Be a Hot Time in
the Old Town."
The camels kept up with the farmer's
wagon, too, and the whole parade followed
the band. The farmer started his horses into
a run, and the team of ten horses that was
driving pa started to galloping, and I looked
back, and the elephants were beginning to gal-
lop, and all the cages were coming whooping,
and it was a picnic. The band stopped play-
ing, and the players were scared, and as we
were crossing a little bridge over a small
stream, on the edge of town, I turned around
to the band and told them to jump for their
134
WITH THE CIRCUS
lives, and they all made a jump for the stream,
and the air was full of uniforms and instru-
ments, and they landed in the stream all right.
We went on up a hill, and were in the
country, and the farmer turned into a farm-
yard, and the band wagon followed, and the
farmer jumped off the corn stalk wagon and
rushed for the house, and pa's ten-horse team
surrounded the wagon, and every horse was
eating corn stalks, and the team was all mixed
up. The camels and the elephants crowded
in for the nice green lunch, and the farmer's
wife came out with her apron waving, and said
"Shoo," but none of the animals shooed worth
a cent, and pa pulled on the lines, and yelled,
while the rest of the parade came into the farm
and lined up. The drivers yelled at pa to know
where in thunder he was going, and pa said:
"Damfino."
Just then the manager and chief of police
came up, and the way they talked to pa was
awful. Pa couldn't explain how it was that
he took the parade out in the country, and you
never saw such a time.
By this time the regular drivers had arrived
on a special, from where we left them with a
hot box, and they took possession of the
'35
PECK'S BAD BOY
teams, and we got back to the circus lot in
time for the afternoon performance. I don't
know what they are doing to pa, but they had
him in the manager's tent all the afternoon
with some doctors, who seem to be examining
him for insanity.
Everybody about the show thinks pa has
hoodooed the aggregation, but pa says such
things are always happening, and it is wrong
to blame him.
The farmer got paid for his corn stalks, and
it is to be charged up to pa.
1&
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER XL
The Bad Boy and His Pa in a Railroad Wreck
— Pa Rescues the "Other Freaks" — They
Spend the Night on a Meadow — A Near-
sighted Claim Agent Settles for Damages —
Pa Plays Deaf and Dumb and Gets Ten
Thousand.
It has come at last.
Everybody about the show expects that the
show has got to have a railroad wreck every
season, and all hands lay awake nights on the
cars to brace themselves for the shock. Some-
times it comes early in the season, and again a
show goes along until almost the the end of
the season without a shake-up, and fellows
think maybe there is not going to be any
wreck, but the engineers are only waiting till
everybody has forgotten about it, and then,
biff, bang, and they have run into another
train, or been run into, and you have to be
pulled out of a window by the heels, and laid
out in a marsh until the claim agents can set-
tle with you.
I always thought in reading of railroad ac-
137
PECK'S BAD BOY
cidents, that the railroad sent out a special
trainload of doctors and nurses, to care for the
injured, but the special train never has a doc-
tor until the lawyers give first aid to the
wounded in the way of financial poultices for
the cripples. People in our business are on
the railroads, and we work them for all there
is in it; and the man that is hurt the least
makes the biggest howl, and gets the biggest
slice of indemnity. Some circus people spend
all their salary as they go along, and live all
winter on the damages they get from the rail-
roads when the wreck comes.
The night of the wreck our train was
whooping along at about 90 miles an hour,
on a hippity-hop railroad in Pennsylvania, and
the night was hot, and the mosquitoes from
across the line in New Jersey were singing
their solemn tunes, and pa, who attended a
lodge meeting that night at the town we
showed in, was asleep and talking in his sleep
about passwords and grips, and the freaks and
trapeze performers in our car had got through
kicking about how the show was running into
the ground, when suddenly there was a terrific
smash-up ahead, an engine boiler exploded,
a freight car of dynamite on a side track ex-
'33
WITH THE CIRCUS
ploded and there was a grinding and bumping
of cars. Then they rolled down a bank, over
and over, so the upper berth was the lower
berth half the time, and finally the whole busi-
ness stopped in a hay marsh, and the bilge
water in the marsh leaked into the hold of our
car; people screamed, and some one yelled
"fire!" and I pulled on pa till he woke up.
I thought pa's head was all caved in, be-
cause he talked nutty. The first thing he said
was: "Say I, pronounce your name, and re-
peat after me," and then he said: "I promise
and swear that I will never reveal the secrets
of this degree," and then the conductor pulled
pa's leg and said: "Crawl out of the window,
old man, 'cause the train is in the ditch, the
car is afire, and if you don't get out in about
a minute with the other freaks, you will be a
burnt offering."
Pa said you couldn't fool him, 'cause he
knew he was being initiated into the 20-
steenth degree of the Masons, and he guessed
he could tell a degree from a train wreck,
'cause the degree was a darn sight worse than
a wreck, but the conductor took one of those
long glass fire extinguishers and sprinkled the
medicated water on the freaks in the next
139
PECK'S BAD BOY
berth, and then turned it on pa, and pa tastecl
it, and thought he was at a banquet, and he
said "that sauterne is not fit to drink."
Then when the bearded woman yelled that
the fire had almost reached her whiskers, and
would nobody save her, pa began to get ready
to move on, 'cause he concluded he hadn't
been riding a goat after all, and he told me
to hand him his pants. Pa is a man that will
never go out among people, no matter how
dark the night is, without his pants, and I
admire him for it. Some of the circus men
didn't care for dress that night, but got out
just as they were, and the result was that
when daylight came they had to tie hay
around their legs.
Our car was bottom-side up, but I found
pa's pants and he got his legs in, and I but-
toned him in, but I felt all the time as though I
had buttoned them in the back, so the seat was
in front, but the fire was crackling and pa
pushed me out of a transom, and then he
crawled out, and we sat down in the mud.
The bearded woman came next, with her
whiskers done up in curl papers, and then the
fat woman got one foot through the transom,
and she couldn't get it back in, and the train
140
Pa Got an Ax and Cut the Fat Woman Out.
PECK'S BAD BOY
hands got an ax and were going to cut her
leg off, and save one foot, at least, when pa
got a move on him, and took the ax and broke
out the side of the car, and got her out. Eight
or nine men lifted her tenderly onto a stack of
hay, and she wrapped it around her, 'cause
she left her clothes in her berth.
Well, it was a sight when the people were
got out of our car, and they let it burn, to light
up the scene, and pa and I and the boss can-
vasman went along the ditched train, and
helped people out. The giant was in two up-
per berths, and he got one leg out of the
transom over one berth, and one leg out of
the transom over the other berth, and we
pulled his legs, but he couldn't make it, so pa
took an ax and made both berths into one, and
got him out.
The giant shook himself and started on a
run across the marsh, but he mired up to his
neck, and a farmer who heard the noise came
to order us off his hay field for trespass, and
yelled: "Here's a head of some of your per-
formers cut off away over here," and he was
going to bring it in, when the farmer found
the head was alive, and he ran away from it.
In an hour we had everybody out, and made
142
WITH THE CIRCUS
beds for them by spreading out hay cocks, and
nobody seemed to be hurt so very much. We
heard a locomotive whistle up the road, and
some one said the relief train was coming with
doctors and nurses, but the show owner who
was with us said: "Relief doctors, nothing.
That is a train-load of lawyers and claim
agents to settle with us. The doctors will not
come till to-morrow. Now, everybody pre-
tend to be hurt awful bad, and strike the
sharks for $10,000 apiece, and come down to
$100, if you can't do any better."
It was getting daylight, and the relief train
stopped, and the good Samaritans came wad-
ing into the hay marsh, bent on settling with
us cheap. The first lawyer asked the princi-
pal owner how many were killed, 'cause they
could figure exactly how much they have to
pay for a dead one, but the live ones are the
ones that make trouble for a railroad, 'cause
they can kick and argue. The boss said no-
body was dead, but the giant, who was mired
in out of sight. The giant heard what was
said, and he yelled that he was alive, and
wouldn't settle for less than $20,000, but the
claim agent said the giant would be dead in
143
PECK'S BAD BOY
15 minutes in that quicksand, so he would let
him sink, and pay for him as a dead one.
The giant said if they would pull him out
of the mud he would settle for $100, and they
pulled him out, and the rest of the injured
were going- to mob him for settling so cheap.
One of the claim agents found the bearded
woman sitting on a hay cock, combing out her
whiskers, and asked what it would take to
settle, and she said $10,000, and she got up and
walked over to another hay cock where the
Circassian beauty was drying her hair, and the
claim agent looked at how spry the bearded
woman walked, and he said to the boss: "7.
won't give that fellow with the curly whiskers
a single kopeck," and the bearded woman
came back and swatted the claim agent for
calling her a fellow. So they compromised on
$200, and she went behind the haystack and
put it in her stocking, which convinced the
claim agent that she wasn't a man.
A near-sighted claim agent came to the hay-
stack where the fat woman was, and the boss
told her now was her time to have a mess of
hysterics, so she set up a cry that scared the
agent, who thought there were at least six
women on the haystack, and he said: "What
144
"What Hit Him? That's the Worst Case I Ever Saw!"
PECK'S BAD BOY
will all of you people up there on the haystack
settle for in a lump, for I am in a hurry?"
The fat woman caught on at once, and said:
"We will all settle for $10,000." Then she
yelled, and the agent thought her back was
broke, and he offered $7,500, and she cried and
said: "Make it $10,000," and the agent said:
"I will go you," and he made out a check, and
the fat woman had some more hysterics.
I had watched the settling all around, and
I told pa to be deaf and dumb when they came
to him, and just point to the seat of his pants
in front and buttoned up behind, and look as
though he was suffering the tortures of the in-
quisition, and let me do the talking, and I
would make the old railroad go into a receiv-
er's hands.
So pa said: "You are the boss," and he
looked so pitiful that I almost cried.
When the near-sighted claim agent came to
pa, I told him that pa's last words were to beg
to be shot, and the man looked at pa's pants,
and then at his face, and said: "What hit
him? That's the worst case I ever saw in a
railroad wreck."
I put my handkerchief to my eyes and said:
"Well, when the shock came, pa was all right,
146
WITH THE CIRCUS
as handsome a man as you would often see.
I think there must have been a pile driver on
the train that struck him, and changed sides
with him, knocking his stomach around on
the back side of him, and placing his spinal
column around in front of him, where his
stomach was, and causing him to lose the
sense of speech. Think of a middle-aged man
going through life mixed up in that manner,
having to sit down on his stomach, and having
his backbone staring him in the face. How
does he know when he takes food in his mouth
that it can corkscrew around under his arm
and eventually find his stomach? How a man
can be ground and twisted, and mauled, and
stamped on by a reckless locomotive with a
crazy engineer and a drunken fireman, rolled
over by box cars, and walked on by elephants,
and still live, is beyond me. As he told me be-
fore he lost the power of speech, not to be too
hard on the railroad company, though some
railroads would be glad to pay him $20,000,
and no questions asked, he begged me, as heir
to his estate, to let you off for a paltry
$10,000."
Pa made up the darndest face, and groaned.
The agent called another agent, and they
147
PECK'S BAD BOY
whispered together, and finally the first one
came to me and asked pa's full name, and then
the two of them got out a fountain pen, and
they made out a check, and he said: "This is
the first case in the history of railroad wreck-
ing that the agent has not had the heart to try
to beat the injured party down. This is cer-
tainly the most pitiful case that has ever been
known, and if your father ever comes to his
senses you can tell him he is welcome to the
money."
The agents shook hands with pa and I, and
went away to their train, and pa winked at
me, and a wrecking train came and we got on
a special, and got to Pittsburg before break-
fast, and pa is going to buy me a dog out of
the money.
Gee, but there is all kinds of money in the
circus business. Pa is going to wear his pants
hind side before until we get out of Pittsburg,
148
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER XII.
The Bad Boy Causes Trouble Between the
Russian Cossacks and the Jap Jugglers — A
Jap Tight-Rope Walker Jiu-Jitsu's Pa—
The Animals Go on a Strike — Pa Runs the
Menagerie for a Day and Wins Their Grati-
tude.
I did not mean any harm when I told the
Japanese jugglers that they ought to kick
against having those Russian cavalrymen in
the show, the fellows who ride horses stand-
ing up, in the wild-west department, 'cause I
had listened to their Russian talk, and it
seemed to me they were spies who were look-
ing for a chance to do injury to the "poor little
Japs." I could see that I made the Japs mad
the first thing, and then I told them that pa
and all the managers of the show felt sorry
for the little Japs, 'cause some day the big
Russians would ride right over them, and kill
them right in the ring. I said that everybody
thought the Japs ought to resign from the
show, for fear of a clash with the Russians, or
149
PECK'S BAD BOY
else they ought to have some grown persons
to act as chaperones.
You ought to have seen the look of scorn
on the faces of the Jap jugglers when the in-
terpreter told them that the circus people were
afraid the Russians would hurt them. They
jabbered awhile, and then the interpreter told
me that the ten little Japs could whip the 20
Russians in four minutes. Probably it was
none of my business, and I never ought to
have repeated it, but in a circus everybody
wants to know everything that is going on,
so when the big leader of the Russians asked
me what those brown monkeys were talking
about, I told him: "Nothing particular, only
they say the ten of them could lick you 20 Rus-
sians in four minutes."
Gee, didn't that Russian talk kopec and
damski, and froth at the mouth. Then he
called his Russians together, and the talk
sounded as though a soda fountain had burst.
Then they all yelled : "Killovitch the monkey-
ouskis."
I went and told pa there was going to be a
riot between the Jap jugglers and the Russian
horsemen, and probably the fight would take
place when the Japs came out of the ring at
ISO
"Gee, But Didn't That Russian Talk Kopec and Damakl.'*
PECK'S BAD BOY
the afternoon performance, and the Russians
went in, right near the dressing-room. I asked
pa not to mix in it, but keep away in the ani-
mal tent. Pa said, not much, he wouldn't be
away, and he told all the managers, and they
all got around the dressing-room to stop the
muss, if one started.
Well, to show how the Japs were organized,
as soon as they felt there was going to be a
row, they kept their eyes on the Russians all
the time they were in the ring doing their pole
balancing, and the little Jap up on the bamboo
pole, with a fan, kept jabbering to the fellows
down on the ground, and I could see that trou-
ble was coming. When their act was over the
Japs bowed to the audience, and started out
where the Russians were lined up to come rid-
ing in. The big Russian said: "Look at the lit-
tle monkeys," but he hadn't got the words out
of his mouth before the Japs turned, and every
man grabbed the tail of every other horse, and
jumped up behind the Russians, and each of
the ten Japs took a Russian by the neck with
a jiu jitsu strangle hold, and reached out his
leg and wound it around the Russian on the
next horse, and in ten seconds they had un-
horsed the 20 Russians. The whole 30 men
352
WITH THE CIRCUS
were on the ground rolling in the sawdust,
the Japs rolling over and under the Russians,
twisting their legs and arms in an unknown
manner, and making them yell for help like a
mastiff that has trifled in an overbearing man-
ner with a little bulldog, until the bulldog got
mad and began the chewing act on the mas-
tiff's fore leg.
It was the worst mix-up ever was and the
managers told pa to put a stop to it, and pa
pulled off his coat and grabbed the first Jap
he could dig out, and began to pull him, like
you would take hold of the leg of a dog in a
fight.
Pa said: "Here, quit this foolishness, 'cause
there is an armistice, and the war is over, any-
way."
O! O! but the Jap didn't do a thing to pa.
He grabbed pa by the wrist, and he seemed to
be having an epileptic fit, and pa's leg shot out
so his feet hit a guy pole, and then the Jap
pulled him back like he was a rubber ball on
a string, and then he took pa by the elbow and
held him out at arm's length, and then swung
him around a few times and let go of him, and
he fell down among the reserved seats whir.h
representatives of the press occupy. Pa stood
153
PECK'S BAD BOY
on one ear on a crushed chair, with his legs
over the railing-, and when he came to, the
newspaper men wanted to interview pa. Pa
said all he remembered was that the air ship
was sailing over the town, and they threw him
out for ballast, and he struck a church spire
and bounded onto a warehouse filled with
dynamite, which exploded when he struck it,
and the neighbors picked his remains up on
a dustpan and emptied them in here. Then he
asked if his head was on straight, and the cir-
cusmen took him away to the hospital tent.
The circus hands separated the Russians
and Japs, or at least pulled off the Japs, and
the Russians limped to the dressing-room,
and their act was cut out. Unless the terms
of peace between Japan 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 Philadel-
phia, and wanted to know where I was during
the fight. He said he rushed right in and
grabbed a Jap in one hand and a Russian in
the other, and bumped their heads together,
and threw one of them towards the ring, and
the other up among the seats, and he wanted
154
«0, But the Jap Didn't Do a Thing to Pa!"
PECK'S BAD BOY
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 perform-
ers, one a Russian and the other a Jap, 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 man-
agement 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
nobody would do any work, and the walking
delegates from the Teamsters' union just took
possession of the show, and we were stuck,
156
WITH THE CIRCUS
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 be-
came 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 ele-
phants 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,
157
PECK'S BAD BOY
but threw it all over the tent, and acted riot-
ous.
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
passed 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 thun-
der was the matter with the animals. All
kinds of theories were advanced, such as
poison, malaria from Indiana, and pure cuss-
edness. After they had discussed the matter
158
WITH THE CIRCUS
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 an-
imals all day, and while I do not say they un-
derstand 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 hap-
pened, and they are displeased at something,
and they have lost respect for the employer.
They are on a strike, and the very devil is go-
ing to pay to-morrow, unless the cause of the
dissatisfaction is discovered, mutual conces-
sions 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,
159
PECK'S BAD BOY
but they wanted to know what he thought an-
imals 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
160
WITH THE CIRCUS
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, ele-
phants, 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 burfed,
for the hyenas and jackals, and every animal
was happy. They did their turns better than
ever, and the sacred cattle almost acted devil-
ish.
Now the animals have declared the strike
off, and they want to lick pa's hand. The own-
ers of the show appreciate genius, and they
have raised pa's salary and given him full
charge of the menagerie.
161
PECK'S BAD BOY
CHAPTER XIII.
The Circus Strikes the Quaker City— They Gg
on a Ginger Ale Jag — Pa Breaks Up an In-
dian 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 Saturday and that we
should have to stay over Sunday in that town,
there has been symptoms of a revolt. Every-
body 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 nobody but the newspaper peo-
ple who had free tickets attended the perform-
ances, 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
162
WITH THE CIRCUb
cholera infantum, and unless his friends hold
him he goes out into the world and wants to
kill the women and children, and non-com-
batants.
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 passed
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 per-
formance, and then they kick because the au-
dience 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
163
PECK'S BAD BOY
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 re-
mains 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 crape on our arms, but a circus is not
built that way.
Ordinarily it may be quiet enough in Phil-
adelphia 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,
164
WITH THE CIRCUS
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 Sun-
day, 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 mid-
dle 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
165
PECK'S BAD BOY
when thew mix beer with green corn, for it
has about the same effect as committing sui-
cide 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 massacre. I told the hands, who
were sleeping under the seats, or playing cards
166
'W
The Indians Tied Pa to a Tree and Began to PH« Stick*
Around Him.
PECK'S BAD BOY
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.
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 canni-
bals went to work and skun the dogs, and be-
gan 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
1 68
WITH THE CIRCUS
it would have been all right, only the canni-
bals 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 passed 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 per-
formers and freaks who had missed their pet
dogs, and the circus hands told them the can-
nibals 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 canni-
bals, 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 go-
ing to burn him, and congratulated her on re-
169
PECK'S BAD BOY
covering her dog, she turned on pa and ac-
cused 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 par-
asol, but pa was innocent.
The Indians got back to the tent along to-
wards morning, and the cannibals went back
with us, and we had to feed them on weiners,
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 re-
sign 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 disci-
pline 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 in-
consistency of the manager, he ordered pa
to go on ahead of the show to New York, and
170
TheFat Woman Jabbed Pa with Her Parasol.
PECK'S BAD BOY
advertise that the cannibals in our show would
give an exhibition cf roasting and eating a
human being, and to offer a reward for any-
body that would consent to be roasted and
eaten in public.
Pa has gone to New York to look for some-
body 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 Insur-
ance scandal, who has lost all desire to live any
longer, and who will gladly go into this "mu-
tual" 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
pass 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.
172
WITH THE CIRCUS
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 re-
markable 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,
173
PECK'S BAD BOY
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 irom 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. After pa and
I got to sleep that baboon got my clothes, and
put them on, slipped the chain over his head,
jumped through the transom, and went into
every berth where the transom was open, and
chatted with the people who occupied the
berths. There was an old man and woman
from New Hampshire in one berth, and when
the monk got in their berth and began to talk
the Newport language, the old man thought
it was me, and he said: "Now, bub, you go
away to your pa."
The monk went out, and got into another
berth, and crawled under the bunk, and when
the woman came in to go to bed, she looked
under it to see if any man was there. When
she saw our baboon she yelled "fire," and the
officers of the boat pulled him out by the hind
leg, and tore my pant leg off. Pa and I had to
sit up the rest of the night with him, and when
174
When She Saw the Baboon She Yelled Fire*
PECK'S BAD BOY
we landed him with the show at Madison
Square Garden we felt relieved.
One woman on the boat has followed us
ever since to collect damages from pa, 'cause
his oldest son, the monk, proposed to her.
Gee, it seems to me a woman ought to know
the difference between a baboon and a man,
but some women will marry anything that
wears clothes.
The monk took to me so, Pa said I must
teach him everything I could that men do, so
I though it would do no harm to teach him to
chew tobacco, 'cause he could already smoke
cigarettes, so I borrowed a chew from the boss
canvasman, a great big chew of black plug
tobacco, and the monk grabbed it, and chewed
it awhile, just before the afternoon perform-
ance, and swallowed it. I knew that settled
the monk, and when the audience came along
by his cage, and pa was trying to get him to
perform, as he did at Newport, eating dinner
like a man, the monk turned pale, and his
stomach ached, and he stood on his head, and
held his stomach in both hands, and kicked the
table over. Then he hit pa a swat with his
foot, and wound his tail around pa's neck, and
176
WITH THE CIRCUS
laid his head on pa's shirt bosom, and was sea-
sick.
Pa said: "Well, this beats everything.
What did you do to him?"
I told pa I had only been teaching the monk
manly tricks, and pa said: "Well, you have
overdone it." And then the Humane society
had pa arrested for cruelty to animals. But
the monk got over it, and now he tries to be
a masher, and winks at women, and flirts
with them just as the men do at Newport.
■»!*■ *L» *J* «A» »*»■ vi. >j*
*^ ^^ >« ^^ *^ ^* ^*
We thought we were smart when we held
up the railroad for damages back in Pennsyl-
vania, after the wreck, but we are getting a
dose of our own medicine. At Poughkeepsie
there came up a wind and rainstorm that blew
the tent down right in the midst of the even-
ing performance, and scared everybody half to
death. Several people were hit by tent poles
and hurt some, and it was the wildest scene I
ever saw, and people who got out alive ran
away in the dark, and somebody said the ani-
mals had all got loose, and some of the peo-
ple never stopped running till daylight the
next morning.
Some run into the river, and the ambulances
177
PECK'S BAD BOY
carried the injured to hospitals. Pa stampeded
with the elephants, and never showed up till
noon the next day. By that time at least 1,000
people had filed claims for damages, and all
the lawyers from Albany to New York were on
our trail.
The managers appointed pa to settle with
the injured, and the way he argued with those
people was a caution. One old woman was
killed, and pa tried to show her relatives that
as she was old and helpless, and more or less
a burden to the family, they ought to pay the
show something for getting her off their
hands. One tramp had his feet cut off, and
pa tried to show him how much he would
save in shoes the rest of his life, and that
he was in big luck. We left pa at
Poughkeepsie to settle the cases, and went
on to New York, and we heard the peo-
ple had lynched him, but he showed up in a
couple of days with money left. Now all the
lawyers in New York are after us with claims
and they have attached most everything, and
the show is up against it.
What a difference it makes who wants dam-
ages. When we were working the railroad for
damages, it was a cinch, and like getting
178
WITH THE CIRCUS
money from home, but now that the people
are working us for damages, for being
smashed up under our tent, we look upon it as
a crime, and tell them it is an act of Provi-
dence, and that the show is not to blame for
a windstorm. But the lawyers can't be very
pious, for they won't believe in the act of Prov-
idence racket, and we shall have to cough up
all the profits of the season.
Since we got settled in New York for a two
weeks' stand, in Madison Square Garden, we
are having the tents repaired, and don't have
to put up and take down tents, and ride all
night on trains. We are all stopping at
hotels and getting rested, and pa is having a
chance to shine.
The managers think pa is trying to commit
suicide, for he wants to take the place of any-
body who is sick or drunk, and is the under-
study of everybody. We got one act that just
curdles your blood, a cage in the ring, with
lions and tigers and leopards, who go through
all kinds of stunts. One lion rides a horse
and jumps through hoops, and lands on the
back of the horse, and jumps on a staging and
lets the horse go around the ring, and then
jumps on again. The horse is blindfolded, so
179
PECK'S BAD BOY
he don't know it is a lion that jumps on his
back, but thinks it is a man.
The tigers ride bicycles, and the leopards
jump about wherever the trainer tells them to;
a monkey acts as clown, and a little elephant
runs a make-believe automobile. That act
alone is worth the price of admission.
Well, the regular trainer went to Coney Is-
land, and got drunk, and we either had to cut
out that performance, or give back the money,
and the manager was wailing about it, 'cause
nothing makes a circus man wail like giving
back good money. Then pa said he would
save the day by taking charge of the animal
act. He said he had watched it every day,
and knew how to do it, and he could dress
up in the clothes of the regular trainer, and
the animals wouldn't know the difference.
Gee, but I was scared to have pa try to run
that animal show, and I think everyone in
the show believed it would be pa's finish. I
felt like an orphan when pa came out of the
dressing-room with the trainer's clothes on,
though pa's stomach was so big you would
think a blindfolded horse would know pa was
no trainer.
Well, pa went in the round cage made of
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WITH THE CIRCUS
bar iron, and motioned to the attendants to
send the animals into the cage through the
chute from the animal quarters. The first to
come were two tigers that were to ride ve-
locipedes. I trembled for pa when they went
in and waved their tails and looked at pa as
much as to say: "O, we won't do a thing to
you." They actually looked at each other and
winked; but pa motioned to the velocipedes,
and looked fierce, and when they hesitated
about getting on, pa said: "You won't, won't
you," and he took a club filled with lead and
started for the biggest tiger. He hesitated
a moment, and then he jumped on the ma-
chine, and the other followed, and they
raced around, and then pa made them get off
and jump hurdles. Finally he motioned to a
shelf for them to jump up onto, and when they
hesitated he kicked one in the slats, and hit
the other with the club, and they went up on
that shelf too quick, but they stayed there and
snarled at pa, and I was afraid they would
jump on him when his back was turned.
Then they brought in the blind horse and
the lion, and the lion was onto pa, and he
struck right off. He got up on the pedestal
from which he was to jump onto the horse's
181
PECK'S BAD BOY
back, but when the horse came around the lion
wouldn't jump, and pa said : "I'll give you one
more chance," and the horse went under the
lion, and he wouldn't jump. So pa stopped the
horse and took an iron bar and knocked the
lion off onto the floor, and he growled at pa,
but pa kept mauling him, and finally the lion
jumped up on the pedestal and seemed to say:
"Bring on your horse," and pa started the
horse, and Mr. Lion made his jumps all right,
and the audience cheered pa.
All the animals went through their stunts
all right, but I thought I could see they were
laying for pa, and I wished he was out of the
cage. The wind-up came when the lions were
seated on benches, and the elephant was be-
tween them, and the tigers and leopards made
a pyramid, and the monkey was clawing
around pa's legs. The signal was about to be
given for the animals to return through the
chute, when the monkey tackled pa's legs like
a football player, the elephant pushed pa over,
and the lions pawed him and snarled, and the
tigers took a mouthful out of pa's pants, and
the leopards snatched his red coat off, and the
signal was given for them to get out of the
cage, and they went out like boys at recess,
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Pa Kept Mauling the Lion.
PECK'S BAD BOY
leaving pa in the cage with the blind horse,
with not clothes enough left on him to wad a
gun. He was not even scratched, however, the
animals having just combined to humiliate pa.
The audience cheered. Pa said "Well,
wouldn't that skin you." They threw him an
overcoat to put on, and he bowed like a hero,
and quit the ring cage, and was met outside
by the whole show management, and congrat-
ulated on having more nerve than any man
alive.
Pa said: "If you will give me a shotgun
loaded with bird shot, I will make those ani-
mals get on their knees at the next perform-
ance, and beg my pardon. You can discharge
your trainer, and I will teach them a lot of
new stunts."
Say, pa is a wonder, and he has already got
old Barnum beat a block.
1 84
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER XV.
The Bad Boy Feeds the Menagerie Scotch
Snuff — Pa Gets Mauled by the Sneezing Ani-
mals— Pa Takes a Midnight Ride on a Mule
to Escape Punishment.
Well, I s'pose I have done it now and it
would not surprise me to be killed and fed to
wild animals. The manager of the show was
talking to pa and me, before we left New York,
about the condition of the show. Its finances
were all balled up on account of settling with
people who pretended to be injured when the
tent blew down at Poughkeepsie, and the
hands and performers are kicking because we
are a month behind on salaries, and they get
drunk whenever any jay will buy for them.
Everybody gives passes to everybody that
wants to get in the»show, so the box office man
has a sinecure, and people chase us from town
to town for money for board, and hay and
everything.
All through New Jersey we showed to claim
agents and creditors, and didn't take in money
enough to buy meat for the animals. He said
185
PECK'S BAD BOY
the animals had all taken cold, and lay around
dormant, and didn't take any interest in the
business, and the manager told pa he must
think of something to wake the animals up.
Pa said he would leave it to me to wake 'em
up, and get some ginger into them. I told pa
if I had five dollars to spend I could make every
animal jump like a box car. Pa gave me the
money, and I went and bought five pounds of
Scotchsnuff, and divided it up into ounce pack-
ages, and started during the afternoon per-
formance at Wilmington, Del., to wake up the
animals.
There is something peculiar about animals,
if you try to give them anything that they
think you want them to take, you can't drive
it down them with a pile driver, but if you try
to hide something where they can reach it,
they watch you out of one eye, and when you
go away they look at you as much as to say:
"O, you think you are smart, don't you?"
Then they will go and dig it up, and play with
it, and eat it if they want to.
I took my first package of snuff to the lion's
cage, and he was the sickest and most disgust-
ed looking lion you ever saw, acting like a
man who has taken a severe cold, and wants
1 86
WITH THE CIRCUS
to kill anybody that looks at him. The lion lay
on the straw, stretched out full length, paying
no attention to the crowd that passed his cage,
and acting as though he wanted a hot whisky
and his feet soaked in mustard water. When
he was not looking I hid the package of snuff
under the straw, and rattled the straw a little,
and he opened his eyes and looked at me as
much as to say: "You can't fool old Shadrack,
for I am onto you." I walked away behind the
hyena cage, and Mr. Lion got up and stretched
himself, and walked to the place where I put
the paper of snuff, put his foot on it and broke
the paper, and then he put his nose down and
sniffed a sniff that drew the whole of the snuff
up into his nose and lungs, and insides gen-
erally.
Gee, but you never saw such a change in a
lion. The crowd of visitors were right near
his cage, when he sniffed, and when he got the
snuff into him, he began to heave his sides like
a man who is preparing to sneeze, caught his
breath a few times, and let out a sneeze that
sounded like the explosion of an automobile
tire. It threw cut feed all over the audience,
and everybody ran away yelling that the lion
busted.
187
PECK'S BAD BOY
He kept on sneezing, and looking so as-
tounded, as though he couldn't make out what
had got into him. Pa heard the commotion
and came running up to the cage to find out
what ailed the lion. After I had gone around
to the other cages and put snuff in all of them,
I came up to the lion's cage. The lion had
stopped sneezing and was roaring and jumping
up and down, with his mouth open, trying to
catch his breath, like a man who has taken too
big a dose of fresh horse-radish.
Pa said: "What have you been doing to
Shadrack?"
I told pa I had woke Shadrack up, and that
in about a minute he would find that the whole
animal kingdom had got a bellyful, and would
join in the chorus.
Pa tried to soothe the lion by going up to the
cage and stroking his mane, but the lion looked
cross-eyed and stopped prancing and gave a
sneeze right at pa, which blew pa clear across
the tent to where the sacred cow had just got
hers. When the stuff began to work on that
cow it was simply scandalous, 'cause she bel-
lowed and cried and sneezed all at once, and
pawed pa. He got up and told me I was over-
doing this waking up act on the animals.
188
The Lion Sneezed and Blew Pa Clear Across the Tent.
PECK'S BAD BOY
By that time the cage of hyenas began to
sneeze a quartette, and fight each other, and
the atmosphere about their cage was full of
hair and language that would be much like
cussing if it could be translated into English.
Pa tried to quiet the crowd and silence the
hyenas by taking an iron bar and mauling
them, but the hyenas just backed up against
the rear of the cage and howled and sneezed
at pa, and dared him to come on.
One of them caught him by the shirt sleeve
and tore pa's shirt off and eat it. Pa was a
sight, with no shirt on, and he ought to have
gone to the dressing room and slicked, but
just then the camels and the giraffes, who had
inhaled their snuff, began to sneeze and beg to
be killed, and pa had to go over there and quiet
them. A camel is the solemnist looking beast
on earth when he tries to be good natured, but
when he is sick and mad, and full of snuff, he
is a fiend. One such camel is enough for a man
to handle, but when 14 camels are all sneezing
at once, and trying to locate the person that is
responsible for their trouble, it is the safest to
keep away, and when pa went in amongst
them, with no shirt on, and the Arab keepers
190
WITH THE CIRCUS
had run away in fright, it was a dangerous
thing to do.
But pa is brave even to rashness. He went
up to Mahomet, the double-humped leader of
the herd, who was the leader of the sneezers,
and kicked him in the slats and told him to
hush up his noise. He clubbed him on the
humps with a tent stake. Then there was a
rebellion in Egypt, and Mahomet bit pa, and
wouldn't let go, and the other camels sneezed
all over pa, and had him down, walking on
him with their padded feet. The circus hands
had to pull pa out, and it wasn't so bad, be-
cause the crowd remained and they thought it
was a part of the show, and that the animals
were trained to sneeze that way.
The worst case was the hippopotamus. He
was so big, and had such big nostrils, that 1
laid about half a pound of snuff on the side ol
his tank, and when he snuffed it up his nose he
got it all. I heard a howl from the tank and
the herd, who was the leader of the sneezers,
and I told pa to come on, 'cause Vessuvious-
was going to erupt.
Pa came on the run, just as he was, and then
the worst happened. I think the hippo went
under water when he found the sneeze was
191
PECK'S BAD BOY
coming, for just as pa got to the tank the
water flew into the air like a torpedo had ex-
ploded under a battle-ship, and the hippo had
sneezed all right and pa and the audience
which had followed him were drenched and
deafened by the explosion. The hippo had
blown the water all out of his tank, and he
lay at the bottom, on his side, sneezing
little sneezes not louder than the report of a
six-pound cannon, and panting for breath.
Then he raised his head, got up on his feet,
and opened his mouth like a gash cut in a
steer by a cow catcher of an engine, and he
yawned, and I guess he got the lockjaw, 'cause
he kept his mouth open all the afternoon to
get the air, like a soprano singer in a choir,
who has been fed a cayenne pepper lozenger
by the tenor, just before she gets up to sing:
"A Charge to Keep, I Have."
We went around and inspected the sneezing
animals with the manager, and he compliment-
ed me by saying I had saved the show from be-
coming an aggregation of stuffed animals, only
fit for a taxidermist studio, and made every
animal show that he had ginger in him. He
wanted me to try my snuff cure on the per-
192
WITH THE CIRCUS
formers and freaks, 'cause they were getting
to be dead ones.
Well, before the day was over at Wilming-
ton, Del., pa was scared worse than he ever
was in all his life before. The state of Dela-
ware is the only state that punishes criminals
by tying them up and whipping them on the
bare back with a cat-o'-nine-tails, and all our
men had been warned to be good while they
were in Delaware, 'cause if they committed
any crime there was no power on earth that
could save them from being publicly horse-
whipped. Pa himself impressed it on the men
to look out that they didn't get into any
trouble. Gee, but the fear of a public whip-
ping makes men good.
Twenty years ago some hold-up men from
New York robbed a bank in Delaware, and
were caught, and given 50 lashes apiece on
the bare back, by a big negro, and there has
never been a burglary in Delaware since. We
thought we would play a joke on pa, so the
manager told pa that constables were looking
for him to arrest him for cruelty to animals,
for kicking a camel in the stomach, and hitting
the camel with an iron bar, and that if pa
didn't want to be publicly horsewhipped on the
193
PECK'S BAD BOY
bare back he better skip out for Washington,
D. C, where we would show in a couple of
days, and wait for us.
Pa was so frightened he couldn't get supper,
and everybody talked about cats of nine tails,
and how prisoners were cut to pieces, and
every time pa saw a jay with a slouch hat he
thought it was a constable after him. After
dark he put on an old suit of clothes and said
he was going to Washington. They told him
if he went to take a train he would surely be
arrested at the depot, so pa put a saddle on one
of the mules, and rode out of town and rode
all night, and all the next day he bought oats
of farmers to be delivered at Wilmington for
the circus. Finally he got out of Delaware,
and the next day the farmers came in with the
oats, but the show was gone, and they won't
do a thing to pa if he ever shows up in Dela-
ware again.
Pa met us at the depot in Washington, but
he was ever so changed from his long ride and
anxiety over the possibility of being arrested
and pilloried, and lambasted by a negro in
Delaware. He said to me, with a trembling
voice: "Hennery, this 'ere show business is
too much for your pa. I would rather be a
194
Rode Out of Town and Rode All Night.
PECK'S BAD BOY
Mormon, in Utah, with 40 wives, and several
hundred children, and long whiskers. I am a
changed man. Hennery, and afraid of my
shadow."
T06
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER XVI.
A Senator's Son Bets the Bad Boy That Ele-
phants Are Cowards — They Let a Bag of
Rats Loose at the Afternoon Performance —
The Elephants Stampede, Pa Fractures a
Rib and General Pandemonium Reigns.
Gee, but I must be an easy mark. I have got
so I bet on a sure thing, and when a fellow
bets on a sure thing he is bound to lose.
It was this way. The show arrived in
Washington, D. C, on a Sunday morning, and,
as usual, all the boys in town came to the lot
to see us put up the tents. I was around with
pa and the boss canvasman, and the town boys
could see I belonged to the show, and they en-
vied me and wanted to get acquainted with
me, so I would let them walk around with me,
and go into the tents Sunday afternoon and
see the animals.
There was one boy with a sort of rough
rider hat on, and buckskin fringe on his pants,
and everybody said he was a senator's son, but
the other boys had rather be acquainted with
me, because I belonged to the show, and I took
197
PECK'S BAD BOY
pity on the senator's son and let him talk to
me, without looking cross at him, or snubbing
him, as I do most boys who try to butt iv on
me. I got to liking the senator's son and had
him come in the tent, and we put in the after-
noon looking at the animals.
The elephants were chewing hay and looking
fierce, and the senator's boy said elephants
were the greatest cowards on earth, and I
said, "Not on your life; the giant in our show
is the greatest coward, and the behemoth of
holy writ is next." The senators son said ele-
phants were such cowards they were afraid of
mice, and we could take a trap full of mice
and turn them loose in the ring and the ele-
phants would stampede, and he would bet five
dollars on it. I excused myself for a moment
and told pa what the senator's son offered to
bet, and pa said: "Here's $50, and you can
take all the bets you can get. Why, this herd
of elephants would walk on mice, and rats,
too. You bet with him and tell him to bring
along all the rats and mice he can find in the
white house, and you can turn them into the
ring Monday afternoon when the elephants do
their turn, and if an elephant bats an eye I will
eat his ears lor mushrooms."
198
WITH THE CIRCUS
I went back to young Mr. Senator and took
his bet, and told him I had plenty more money
to bet the same way, and he said the next after-
noon he would come with his mice and rats,
and a lot of money to bet that you couldn't
hold that flock of elephants with log chains
when he opened his bag of rats and mice.
Well, how it got into the papers I do not
know, but the next morning they all said an
interesting experiment would be made the
next afternoon at the great and only circus,
to determine once and for all whether ele-
phants were afraid of mice, and that a senator's
son and a son of one of the proprietors of the
show would conduct the experiment by turn-
ing loose a lot of mice and rats in the rings
at precisely 3:30 p. m.
Well, you never saw such a crowd in a circus
as we had that afternoon. It seemed as though
the whole population turned out, foreign min-
isters, negroes, society people and clerks. That
senator's son and the whole family, and the
i ighors, must have been up all night catch-
ing mice and rats, and it took nine boys and
three servants to carry the baskets and traps
and bags of mice and rats. I passed them all
in and we lined up on a front seat to wait for
199
PECK'S BAD BOY
the elephant stunt, and when the thing was
ripe we were to empty the whole mess of ver-
min into the ring.
I felt as though something was wrong 'cause
I saw the new moon over my left shoulder
the night before, and now I wish I had died
before this thing happened. When the Japan-
ese jugglers went out of the ring I knew that
was the cue for the elephants to come in, and
when the dressing room curtain was pulled
aside and old Bolivar came out at the head
of the herd, and they marched around the out-
side of the ring, clear around the tent, my
heart jumped up into my throat, and I felt
sick.
The senator's son said: "When these rats
and things begin to chase your old elephants,
you won't be able to see their tails for the
dust they will kick up."
Then I thought of the money pa had given
me to bet, and I offered to bet it all, and a
negro produced funds and took all my bets
like a bookmaker.
Well, after doing a turn around the big ring,
the trainer steered the elephants into the mid-
dle ring, and the great audience leaned for-
ward to catch every trick the elephants did.
200
WITH THE CIRCUS
Us boys held on to the bags that the mice
and things were in, waiting for our cue. The
elephants stood on their heads and hind feet,
and fore feet, laid down, fired pistols, and did
everything just right, without making a mis-
take. Finally the trainer formed the whole
herd into a grand pyramid, with old Bolivar
in the center, each elephant holding an Ameri-
can flag with his trunk, and waving it, and the
audience broke out into a cheer that fairly
ripped the canvas.
Then I said to young Mr. Senator: "Come
on with your rats, now, and I win $50." All
hands picked up the baskets and bags and
went to the side of the ring and emptied the
whole bunch of more than 500 into the ring.
The rats and mice rushed for the elephants,
and then turned and made a rush for the re-
served seats.
Oh, dear, what a time we had. The ele-
phants got down off that pyramid so quick
it would make your head swim, and old Boli-
var trumpeted in abject fear, and tried to break
away, but pa came along with a tent stake
and hit Bolivar over the head, and told the
trainer to put the elephants back into the pyra-
mid and hold them there till the bell rung for
201
PECK'S BAD BOY
them to cease their stunt. The trainer
couldn't do anything with them, and they bel-
lowed and dodged mice and shied at rats, and
Bolivar took his trunk and swatted pa clear
across the ring.
The elephants followed Bolivar to the main
entrance, each elephant trying to walk on the
heels of the one ahead of him, and all the cir-
cus hands trying to head off the elephants,
but they wouldn't head off. They were simply
scared to death, and they broke out the side
of the tent near the lemonade stand and went
whooping out into the open air and freedom,
while the audience yelled with joy.
Young Mr. Senator said to me: "What do
you think of elephants now?"
I told him to take his money and he
darned.
The audience was getting nervous, so the
band struck up "A Hot Time in the Old
Town," and they were quieting down as the
curtain raised and the horses for the chariot
race came out. Just then a woman with red
socks got up on her chair in the press seats
and pulled her dress away up and yelled,
"Rats!" and another woman screamed and
jumped up on a seat with her clothes at half
202
Bolivar Swatted Pa Clear Across the Ring.
PECK'S BAD BOY
mast, and yelled that there were mice on the
seats. In less than two minutes every woman
in the audience, and the bearded woman, and
the fat woman, were standing up on some-
thing, holding up their dresses and shaking
their skirts and screaming, and when the fat
woman fell into the arms of the bearded
woman, in a faint, and the bearded woman
dropped the fat woman, pa told the bearded
woman he was ashamed of her screaming,
'cause she ought to be more of a man than
that.
Well, every mouse and rat in the bunch
seemed to be looking for women to scream
at them, and there was no use trying to run
a show with such an excited audience, so pa
had the band play "Good Night, Ladies," and
he announced that the performance might be
considered over for the afternoon. Every-
body made a rush for the exits. Each woman
held up her skirts and fairly galloped to get
away from the mice and rats.
They all got out of the tent finally, and
then the managers had a meeting to find out
who started the trouble, and what it was best
to do about it. I was sitting alone on a front
seat, thinking over the scenes of the after-
204
"Pa, Do Not Fear."
PECK'S BAD BOY
noon, and wondering what the young sena-
tor's son would do with the money he had won
of me, and whether he had depopulated the
white house of rats and mice, so the president
would notice it. I was thinking about ele-
phants and wondering if they were cowards
by nature, or had acquired cowardice by asso-
ciating with mankind, when pa came along
and sat down by me, a picture of despair,
'cause Bolivar had fractured one of his ribs,
and the fat woman had paralyzed his knees
sitting on his lap while they brought her to
after she fainted when she thought a rat was
climbing into her sock.
Pa sighed, and said: "Hennery, I wanted an
exciting life, to keep me from brooding over
advancing age, and I chose the circus busi-
ness, but I find it is rather too strenuous for
me. Each day something occurs to try my
nerves. I do not claim that you are to blame
for it all, but I think I could enjoy my position
with the show if you would take the first train
that goes north, and leave me for awhile.
What I need is rest. Go, boy, go!"
I felt sorry for pa, but I put my arm around
him, and I said: "Pa, do not fear. I will
never desert you, until the season is over,
206
WITH THE CIRCUS
Wherever you go, I will go, and I will keep
you awake, don't fear. Now that we are go-
ing into the sunny south, where every man
may have it in for you, 'cause you were a
Yankee soldier, I will stay by you, and there
will be things doing that will make you think
the past has been a sweet dream. See, pa!"
Pa sighed again, and said: 'This is too
much !" and he rushed off to find the elephants.
107
PECK'S BAD BOY
CHAPTER XVII.
The Bad Boy and the Senator's Son Go on an
Elephant Chase — The Senator's Son Gets
His Friend a Bid to Dinner at the White
House — The Trained Seal Swallows an
Alarm Clock.
The show remained in Washington two
days, 'cause it took all one day and night to
catch the elephants, after the senator's boy
and I turned the rats and mice loose in the
ring while the elephants were forming a pyra-
mid. Pa and all the circus hands had to go
away down towards the Bull Run battlefield to
round them up, and young Mr. Senator let me
ride one of his ponies and he and I went along
to help catch the elephants.
We went out through Alexandria towards
Bull Run battlefield. There we overtook pa
and the boss canvasman and the elephant
handler, and we met some farmers coming into
Alexandria with their families, stampeding
like people out west when the Indians go on
the warpath. They had got up in the morning
to milk the cows and found about 20 elephants
208
■"fv..
We Met Some Farmers.
PECK'S BAD BOY
in the barnyard, making the cows do a song
and dance. Pa told them there was no danger
at all, 'cause he would take any elephant by the
tail and snap its head off, like boys snap the
heads off garter snakes, and I told them that
me and the senator's boy stampeded the ele-
phants and we could drive them back to town
like a drove of sheep.
The farmers thought we were great and
they followed us back to the farm, where we
found the herd of elephants had taken posses-
sion and were having the time of their lives.
About a dozen of the big elephants had found
a couple of barrels of cider in a shed and had
been drinking it, and when we got there they
were like section hands with jags on.
Bolivar, the big elephant, was the drunkest,
and when he saw pa coming with the gang of
hands, with ropes and spears, he winked at the
other elephants and seemed to say: "Watch
me tree 'em," for he came out of the gate and
bellowed, and made a charge at the gang, and
pa beat them all going up crab apple trees.
The senator's son saw pa up a tree, and he
said: "Old gentleman, if these are your ani-
mals, or insects, or whatever they are, you
ought to come down off your perch and take
210
Old Gentleman, You Ought to Come Down Off Your Perch.
PECK'S BAD BOY
them to a Keeley cure, because they are intox-
icated."
And pa came down and took a fence rail and
sharpened it with an ax, and he run it into Bol-
ivar about a foot, and Bolivar trumpeted for
surrender, and that settled the elephant strike,
for pa ordered Bolivar into the road, and in
five minutes the whole herd of elephants was
following Bolivar back to Washington, as
meek as a drunken husband being led home by
his wife.
Gee, what do you think? The president
heard how the senator's boy and I stampeded
the elephants and invited the senator's boy to
bring his young friend around to the white
house to supper. Well, we went.
I forgot what we had to eat, I was so inter-
ested in the president's conversation. He
talked about the show business as though he
had been a ringmaster in a circus. He said
he was in the show the day before when we
stampeded the elephants, and he told us about
his hunting trips in the west, until I could
smell bacon cooking at the camp fire, and I
could smell the balsam boughs they slept on,
on the ground.
When he let up a little on his talk, I braced
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WITH THE CIRCUS
up and asked him if he had rather shoot wild
cats and bears than be president. He hedged
and said both occupations worked pretty well
together and he had enjoyed 'em both. Then
I asked him if he was going to run for presi-
dent again, and he winked at his wife, and
then he asked me what made me ask the ques-
tion. I told him pa wanted me to find out. I
told him all the boys wanted him to run, 'cause
he was a good feller, and not afraid of the
cars.
The president laughed and said: "Well,
it's this way. The president business is a
good deal like bear hunting. You get on a
fresh track, either in politics or bear hunting,
and follow the game with dogs, or politicians,
as the case may be. The trail keeps getting
fresher and by and by the game is in sight, and
the dogs are nipping its hind legs, if it is a
bear, or chewing big words if it is an opposing
candidate, and nipping him in exposed places.
You ride like mad, your clothes or your repu-
tation torn by briars if it is a bear, or by oppo-
sition newspapers if it is a political compaign,
and you wish it was over, many times, and are
so tired you wish you were dead. Finally
your bear or your opponent in politics is treed
213
PECK'S BAD BOY
and the dogs are trying to climb the tree, and
your bear or your political opponent is up on a
limb snarling and showing his teeth at the
dogs or the politicians, and then you ride up,
look the ground over, wait till your heart stops
beating and fire the shot at a vital part, and
your bear or your political opponent comes
tumbling to the ground. When he ceases to
kick you put your foot on his neck and feel
sorry you killed him, but you go to work and
skin him and hang his hide on the fence. Then
you have got to ride all night to get to camp, if
it is a bear, and work harder than a man on a
treadmill for four years, if it is a presidential
candidate you have skun."
I had sat with my mouth open while the
president talked, and never said a word, but
when he quit I said: "Yes, but suppose when
you got your bear skun, another bear should
come after you. and dare you to knock a chip
off his shoulder, and growl, and walk sideways
with his bristles all up, would you run, or
would you stand your ground?"
"We better change the subject," said the
president, and rose from the table, and we all
got up. He patted me on the head, and said:
'Tell your pa I will see him later, and in the
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WITH THE CIRCUS
meantime, you run your circus and I will try
to run mine."
The queerest thing happened that night.
The senator's boy spoke of our trained seals,
that catch a fish if you throw it to them and
swallow it whole. He said it would be fun to
take a little alarm clock and sew it up in a fish,
and set the alarm at seven o'clock p. m., when
the crowd is watching the seals swallow fish,
and throw it to the big seal, and the alarm
would go off inside him.
Well, I bit like a bass, and said we would
do it, so he took a little alarm clock, and set it
for seven o'clock. We got it into a fish, and I
am ashamed to tell what happened. Gee, but
that seal grabbed the fish with a clock in it,
and tried to swallow it, but the brass ring
caught on one of his teeth, and he was trying to
get it loose when the alarm went off, and the
seal jumped out of the tank and began to
prance around the crowd, scaring the women,
and making all the animals nervous. He stood
on his head and bellowed, and all the circus
hands came rushing up. Finally the alarm
clock quit jingling, and they caught the seal
and pulled the clock off his tooth, and just then
pa came up to me and said: "What deviltry
215
PECK'S BAD BOY
you boys up to now? Suppose that seal had
swallowed that clock, and you couldn't wind
it up; it might kill him. Now, go to the car,
'cause we are going to get out of this town
right off. You make me tired." And pa
helped to lift the slippery seal into the tank,
and looked mad at his little boy, and hurt the
feelings of the senator's boy.
216
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Show Strikes Virginia and the Educated
Ourang Outang Has the Whooping Cough
— The Bad Boy Plays the Part of a Monkey,
but They Forget to Pin on a Tail.
Well, I have broke the show all to pieces,
just by not being able to stand grief. Every-
thing is all balled up, the managers are sore at
me, and afraid of being sent to jail, and pa
thinks I ought to be mauled.
It was this way: When we left Washing-
ton we cut loose from every home tie, and
plunged into Virginia, and the trouble began
at once. We met a lawyer on the train, on the
way to Richmond, and fed him in our dining
car, and got him acquainted with all the per-
formers and freaks, and he told us that we
would have to be careful in Virginia, 'cause
all the white people were first families and
aristocratic, and if any man about our show
should fail to be polite to the white people
they would be shot or lynched, but if we
wanted to shoot niggers the game laws were
not very strict about it, 'cause the open season
217
PECK'S Bad BOY
on niggers run the year around, but you
couldn't shoot white people only two months
in the year. He said another thing that scared
pa and the managers. He said that if a travel-
ing show did not perform all it advertised the
owners were liable to go to state prison for
20 years, and that each town had men on the
lookout to see that shows didn't advertise
what they didn't carry out.
Pa and the managers held a consultation,
and couldn't find that we advertised anything
that we didn't have, except the ourang outang
that we took on at New York, which eats and
dresses like a man, 'cause that animal got
whooping cough in Delaware and had to be
sent to a hospital, but we heard he was well
again and would join the show in a week. Pa
asked the Richmond lawyer how it would be
if one of the animals that was advertised was
sick and couldn't perform, and he told pa the
people would mob the show if anything was
left out.
When we got to Richmond the whol^ popu-
lation, principally niggers, was at the lot when
we put up the tents, and everybody wanted to
catch a sight of Dennis, the ourang outang,
and the posters all over town that pictured
218
The Keeper Who Trained the Ourangoutang Took Me In Hand.
PECK'S BAD BOY
Dennis smoking cigarettes with a dress suit
on, and eating with a knife and fork and a
napkin tucked under his chin, were surround-
ed by crowds. It was plain that all the people
cared for was to see the monk.
The managers held a council of war and de-
cided the show would be ruined if we didn't
make a bluff at having an ourang outang, so
it was decided that I was to be dressed up in
Dennis' clothes, and put on a monkey mask,
and go through his stunt at the afternoon per-
formance.
Gee, but I hated to do it, but pa said the
fate of the show depended on it and if I didn't
take the part he would have to do it himself,
and I knew pa wasn't the build of man to play
the monkey, and so I said I would do it, but I
will never do it again for any show. The
wardrobe woman fixed my up like Dennis,
and I had seen him go through his stunt so
often I thought I could imitate him, and of
course there was no talking to do, but just to
grunt once in awhile, the way Dennis did, and
have an animal look.
Well, sir, the keeper who trained the ourang
outang took me in hand, and in an hour I was
perfect. I had rubber feet and wore black
220
WITH THE CIRCUS
gloves, and had a tail fastened with a safety
pin, that would deceive the oldest showman in
the business. When the crowd was the big-
gest, in the middle ring, the keeper led me out
of the dressing room with a chain. The an-
nouncement was made by the barker that Den-
nis, the educated ourang outang, that had
performed before crowned heads in Europe
and sapheads in Newport, the only man-
monkey in the known world, would now enter-
tain the most select audience that had ever
been u^der the tent. Then I was dragged into
the ring and put on the platform.
They didn't put on my dress clothes at first,
but had a little screen on the platform for me
to go behind to dress, and I appeared first in
the natural state of the ourang outang, with
a suit of buffalo robe stuff that looked exactly
like a big monkey. I bowed and the audience
cheered, and I stood on my hands and
scratched at an imaginary flea, and pa, who
was leaning against the platform, whispered
to me that I was making the hit of the season.
Then the attendants set the table and the
keeper took me behind the screen and dressed
me, and the old fool forgot to put on my tail.
He led me out and I sat up to the table, hitched
221
PECK'S BAD BOY
up my cuffs, put a napkin under my chin, took
a knife and fork and began to eat, just like a
human being. The audience cheered, and the
circus people crowded around and said I was
just as good as Dennis himself. I went
through the whole of Dennis' performance and
never skipped a note, until a smart white man
yelled: "Where is the tail of your ourang
outang?" and the crowd began to be suspi-
cious, and more than a thousand yelled. "'There
is no tail on your monkey."
That rattled the trainer and he remembered
that he had forgotten to pin the tail on me, so
while I was using the finger bowl he went to
the screen and got the tail and came out and
was pinning it on to my dress pants, when
the audience began to yell: "Fraud! Fraud!
Kill the monk !" and a lot of stuff.
Then pa got on a barrel the elephants had
been performing on and got tlie attention of
the audience and told them not to be unrea-
sonable. Pie said the management had found
by experience that after the ourang outang
had been trained to eat like a man and wear
men's clothes, that his tail was in the way, so
at a great expense the management had caused
Dennis' tail to be amputated at a New York
222
Me HK Me Right in the Ey*.
PECK'S BAD BOY
hospital, and while we always carry the tail
along, it was only used when a critical audi-
ence demanded it, but if this refined audience
so desired the tail would be attached to the in-
telligent animal.
The crowd yelled: 'Tin on the tail; the tail
goes with the hide," and the trainer began to
pin it on. Say, I could have killed that trainer.
He run that safety pin about an inch into my
spine, and I jumped into the air about four
feet, and I was going to use a cuss word that
I learned in Philadelphia, but I had presence
of mind enough to grunt just as Dennis used
to, and chatter like a monkey, and the day was
saved. The tail was on and I turned my back
to show that it was on straight, like a woman's
hat, when pa said to hurry the performance to
a conclusion, because he could see that there
was a spirit of unrest in the audience, and he
would not be surprised any moment to see Vir-
ginia secede and go out of the union.
There was nothing more for me to do except
to drink my cup of after-dinner coffee, and
smoke my cigarette, and quit, and I was pat-
ting myself on the back at my success and
squirming around in the chair, 'cause the pin
in my tail hurt my back but I never said a
224
WITH THE CIRCUS
word. The attendant brought in the coffee
and I took a couple of swallows, when I real-
ized that somebody had put cayenne pepper
into it, and I was hot under the collar, but
though I was burning up inside, I never
peeped, but just choked and took a swallow
of water and vowed to kill the person that
made the coffee.
I kept my temper till the trainer handed me
the cigarette and a match, and the first puff
I realized that they had rilled the cigarette
with snuff, and after blowing out the smoke I
began to sneeze, and the audience fairly went
wild. I sneezed about eight times, and at
every sneeze the pin in my spine hurt like
thunder, but I never lost my temper, till about
the seventh sneeze, when my monkey mask
flew off, and then a boy about my size, right
in front of me, yelled: "It ain't a monkey at
all, it is a little nigger," and he threw a ripe
persimmon and hit me right in the eye. I said
right out in plain English: "You're a liar and
I can knock the stuffing out of you."
I pulled off my dress coat and started for
him, but pa grabbed me on one side and the
monkey trainer on the other, and they tried
to get me to return to the monkey character,
225
PECK'S BAD BOY
and chatter, and pa put my monkey mask on
me, but I struck right there, and pulled it off,
and told him and the managers that I would
not play monkey any more with a tail pinned
to my spine, my stomach full of cayenne pep-
per and my nostrils full of Scotch snuff, and
my face all puckered up with persimmons.
The crowd yelled: "Fraud! Fraud! Kill
the bald-headed old man who is the father of
the monkey," and they were making a rush to
clean out the show when the dressing-room
door opened to let the hippodrome chariot
racers out, and the way the chariots scattered
the crowd was a caution.
That saved us from serious trouble, for the
chariots rim over a lot of negroes, which
pleased the audience, and they let us off with-
out killing us. They got me back to the dress-
ingroom and had to take a pair of pinchers to
get that safety pin out of my spine, and on the
way to the dressing-room some one walked on
my monkey tail and pulled it off, and that was
a dead loss. Pa sat by me and fanned me, 'cause
I was faint, and then he said: "My boy, you
played your part well, until the persimmon hit
you, and then you forgot that you were an
actor, and became yourself, and I don't blame
226
WITH THE CIRCUS
you for wanting to punch that boy who called
you a little nigger, and said I was your pa.
After this chariot race is over we will go
around in front of the seats, and find the boy,
and you can do him up. Your monkey busi-
ness was the feature of the show to-day."
We went out and found a boy that looked
like the one that sassed me, but he must have
been his big brother, 'cause when I went up to
him and swatted him on the nose, he gave me
a black eye, and I am a sight.
That evening, at the performance, we cut
out the educated ourang outang, and the law-
yer we met on the cars came to the show, and
said we would all be arrested for not perform-
ing all we advertised, but he could settle it for
a hundred dollars, and pa paid him the money,
and he went out and got a jag and came in the
show and was going to make trouble, when pa
took him to the cage where the 40-foot boa con-
strictor was uncoiling itself, and the Virginian
got one look at the snake and went through
the side of the tent yelling: "I've got 'em
again. Catch me, somebody."
We got out of town before morning, and
nobody was arrested, except the negroes that
got run over in the chariot race.
227
PECK'S BAD BOY
CHAPTER XIX.
The Circus People Visit a Southern Planta-
tion— Pa, the Giant and the Fat Woman
Are Chased by Bloodhounds — The Bad
Boy "Runs the Gauntlet."
Gee, but pa is sore at me. He has been dis-
gusted with me before, but he never had it in
for me so serious as he has now. I guess the
whole show would breathe easier if I should
fall off the train some dark night, when it was
stormy, and we were crossing a high bridge
over a stream that was out of its banks on ac-
count of a freshet.
It was all on account of our taking an after-
noon off on a Sunday at Richmond. An old
planter that used to be in the circus business
before the war thought it would bring back
old recollections to him and give us a taste of
country life in the south if he invited all of us,
performers, managers, freaks, and everything,
to spend the day on his plantation, and go nut-
ting for chestnuts and hickory nuts, pick
apples and run them through a cider mill and
drink self-made cider, and have a good time.
228
WITH THE CIRCUS
We all appreciated the invitation, and after
breakfast we rode out in the country to his
plantation in carriages and express wagons
and began to do the plantation. The fat lady
and the midgets rode out together in a load
of cotton, and when they got to the house they
had to be picked like ducks, and they looked
as though they had been tarred and feathered.
The planter gave us a fine luncheon of fried
chicken and corn pone, and cider, and pa acted
as the boss of the circus folks, while the planter
and his family, with about ioo negroes, passed
things around. They all seemed to be inter-
ested in seeing how much stuff the giant and
the fat lady could hold without putting up
sideboards to keep the food from falling off.
If pa hadn't told the negroes not to feed the
fat lady and the giant any more, there would
have been two circus funerals next day.
I got acquainted with a boy that was the
planter's son, and while the rest were eating
and drinking the boy showed me a pack of
hounds that are kept for trailing criminals and
negroes who have looked sassy at white
women. The trouble with negroes is that they
all look alike, and if one commits a crime they
can prove an alibi, 'cause every last negro will
229
PECK'S BAD BOY
swear that at the time the crime was commit-
ted the suspected man was attending a prayer
meeting, so they have to have hounds that can
be taken to the place where the crime was com-
mitted, and they find the negro's track, and
they follow it till they tree him. The hounds
do not bite the negro, like we used to hear
about, but they just follow him till he is treed,
and then they bark, as much as to say: "Ah,
there, Mr. Nigger, you just stay where you
are till the sheriff comes to fetch you," and
Mr. Negro just turns pale and stays on a limb
till the sheriff comes with his lynching tools.
When the sheriff pulls a gun the negro con-
fesses right there, and the deputy sheriff
brings the rope.
I asked the boy if the hounds would trail a
white man without hurting him, and he said if
you put anise seed on their shoes the hounds
will trail 'em all right, so we put up a job to
have some fun. The boy gave me some anise
seed, and told me to put it on the shoes of any-
body I wanted trailed, and after they got out
in the woods he would put the hounds on the
trail, and the people would have to get up
trees, or have their pants chewed, but the dogs
would not hurt anybody.
230
WITH THE CIRCUS
Well, it made me laugh to think about it.
I went to pa and told him his shoes were all
covered with red Virginia dust, and I took my
handkerchief and dusted them off, and made
him hold up his foot like a horse that is being
shod. Then I put a handful of anise seed
around the sole, and in his shoes. He said it
was mighty kind in me to do it. Then I went
to the giant, and brushed the dust off his
shoes, and put two handfuls of anise seed in
them, and he said I was a nice boy. I told the
fat woman about the dust on her telescope
valises, and I rubbed it off, and gave her feet
a dose of anise seed that ought to have para-
lyzed a pack of hounds. She wanted to hug me
and let me kiss her, but I said I passed, and
she said she would do as much for me some
time.
About this time the planter took the lead,
and they all went across a pasture into the
woods, and began knocking nuts off the trees.
All through the woods there were signs: "No
Tresspassing," and "Beware of the Dogs," but
the planter said to never mind the signs. I
told the boy to let the dogs loose on the trail
in about half an hour, and I went along with
the folks, and I told pa I had seen a pack of
231
PECK'S BAD BOY
bloodhounds that would eat people alive, and
if he heard hounds barking to run like a white-
head and climb a tree. I got with the giant,
who is a coward in his own right, and told him
the only trouble about these great plantations
in the south was the wild dogs that inhabited
the mountains, that would not hesitate to at-
tack a man if they got good and hungry, but
there was no danger to him, because he was a
good sprinter, and could outrun a jack rabbit.
The giant wanted to go back to the house,
'cause he said he didn't want to run no foot
race with hounds, and he had seen the sign to
beware of the dogs. I never ought to have
done it, 'cause the fat woman looks as though
she was built a purpose for apoplexy, but I
told her as a friend, not to load herself down
with nuts, but to travel light, so if the wild
dogs came down to raid the plantation she
could crawl in a hole out of sight till the dogs
had eaten some of the men. She came near
fainting right there, before the dogs got busy.
There were about 20 negroes throwing clubs
at the nuts, and everybody was having a big
time. The trapeze performers were squirrel-
ing up among the limbs, when suddenly, in the
distance came the bay of the pack of blood-
232
WITH THE CIRCUS
hounds, and every negro turned pale, and got
ready to climb a tree. The planter stopped to
listen, and when one of the managers of the
show asked him what was the matter, he said:
"You can search me, sah. If that is my pack
of hounds a crime has been committed, and the
sheriff has started the pack on the trail of the
criminal, sah, because the dogs are never
turned loose, except for business."
Then the planter yelled to the niggers, and
said: "If any of youall are guilty of crime,
you best get scarce, or pick out your tree, and
get up it mighty sudden, 'cause the hounds
haven't been fed lately." Every colored man
picked a tree, and the hounds kept coming,
finally showing up jumping the fence, and en-
tering the woods, and the planter cut a club
to beat off the dogs. Pa looked as innocent as
John Wana maker's picture addressing a Sun-
day school, the giant saw the dogs and started
for a tall tree, and the fat lady said she couldn't
find any hole big enough to hide in, and "the
idea," if there were not men enough to protect
a lady.
Well, I never expected to see anything so
fine as the way those hounds run with their
noses to the ground, scattered in three packs,
^33
PECK'S BAD BOY
one pack on the trail of each of the three whose
shoes I had doctored. When they got near us
they broke up and went around everywhere
that pa and the giant and the fat lady had
walked, and fell over each other, but finally one
pack went to the tall tree where the giant had
climbed to the first limb, and stood on their
hind legs and barked a salute to him. He trem-
bled so I was afraid he would fall off, but he
wound his arms and legs around the tree, and
began to cry. The planter told him whatever
crime he had committed it was all up with
him.
The part of the pack that was on pa's trail
began to close in on pa, and I said: "Pa, if
you don't want to be dog meat, it is up to you
to climb, and you better get a move on, or I
shall be an orphan mighty quick, 'cause the
dogs are starving." Pa made a couple of quick
jumps, and grabbed a limb of a hickory tree,
and was pulling himself up and repeating;
prayers, when the leading dog reached up his
nose and smelled pa's shoes, when the intelli-
gent animal gave a bark and a yell to the other
dogs, as much as to say: "That's the identical
cuss. Eat him alive."
He grabbed about a double handful of the
234
"Here, Mr. Confederate, I Am Not a Union Prisoner."
PECK'S BAD BOY
cloth of pa's clothes right below where his sus-
penders button on and held on, and shook p?
real hard, but the cloth was tough and didn't
tear. Pa suddetf / seemed to be endowed with
superhuman stre.. jth, for he drew himself up
on the limb and raised the dog from the
ground, and all the pack came arond the tree
and set up a howl that scared pa so the perspi-
ration rolled off him, and he had a chill so he
shook like the ague.
Pa yelled to the planter, who was holding up
the fat lady and said: "Here, Mr. Confeder-
ate, I am not a union prisoner, and I want you
to unlock your dog's jaws, and free me, 'cause
I can't hold up a 90-pound dog by my suspen-
ders much longer. If this is southern hospital-
ity, I don't want to be entertained no more."
The planter leaned the fat lady against a tree,
and took the dog by the hind legs and pulled
him off.
The planter yelled to the negroes to come
down and help handle the dogs, but just then
the boy who started the dogs on the trail, at
my request, came up whistling, with a dog
whip in his hand, and all the dogs surrounded
him, and he made them lay down and roll over.
All of the scared people came down from their
236
I Yelled Murder and Ran Between the GJant'p Legs-
PECK'S BAD BOY
perches in the trees, and surrounded the boy
and the dogs, and the dogs panted and lolled,
as though they had been having a nice run for
their money. The old planter asked his boy
how the dogs had happened to get loose, and
that fool boy told the whole thing, how I had
asked him to let the pack run, and how I had
put anise seed in the shoes of pa, the giant and
the fat lady. Then you ought to have seen
what they did to me. The planter said they
usually had a lynching when the dogs made a
run, but that was impossible in this case, so he
suggested that they make me run the gaunt-
let. I didn't know what running the gauntlet
was, but after pa had told me he should disown
me from that moment, I said I was willing to
run any gauntlet, so they all cut switches and
formed in two lines, and let me run down be
tween them. I thought it would be fun, but
when I started and every last man gave me a
cut across the end of my back with a hickory
switch, I yelled murder, and run between the
giant's legs and tackled him like football. I
toppled him over against the next man, and
that man hit the giant in the stomach, and
everybody began to fight, and the festivities
broke up.
238
WITH THE CIRCUS
I went to the house with the boy and the
dogs, and we set the dogs on a mess of cats,
and treed everything alive on the plantation.
Finally the whole crowd came back to the
house and had another lunch, with mint julep
and champagne, and then everybody was hug-
ging some one, and crying on each other's
neck, and swearing that the war was over, and
that the north and the south were one and in-
separable, and the two together could whip
the whole world.
Pa somehow saw double. I was standing
alone, smarting from the switching I got, when
pa came up to me and said: "I want you two
boys to understand that I don't want any more
experiments played on me. I can take a joke
as well as anybody, but when you set a hun-
dred dogs on my trail, I am no gentlemen, see?
Now we will go back to the show."
239
PECK'S BAD BOY
CHAPTER XX.
The Bad Boy Goes After a Mess of White
Turnips for the Menagerie— He Feeds the
Animals Horseradish, but Gets the Worst
of the Deal.
You can learn something new and interest-
ing every day in a circus, and a boy, particu-
larly, can store his mind with useful knowl-
edge, that will be valuable to him in after
years.
Gee, but I have learned some things that I
could never have learned in college, 'cause at
college you only learn things that have to be
verified by actual experience in business. Pa
says one year in the circus will be better for
me than ten years in a reform school. But I
learned something yesterday that made such
an impression on me that I will not be able to
sit down comfortably before the season is over.
You see, it was this way. Once a week it is
the custom to feed all the animals that are
vegetarians a mess of ground white turnips,
'cause it opens up the pores, and makes the
animals feel good, like a politician who goes
240
WITH THE CIRCUS
to French Lick springs, and has the whisky
boiled out of him. After the animals have
eaten the turnip mush, they become agreeable,
and will rub against the keepers, and eat out
of your hand.
I had been with pa a dozen times to find a
place where we could get a few barrels of tur-
nips ground up fine, and so yesterday, when
the boss animal keeper was sick, and turned
his job over to pa, pa told me to go out in town,
at Lynchburg, Va., and get a couple of wash-
tubs full of ground turnips, and have the stuff
sent in to the menagerie tent in time for the
afternoon performance. I got a boy to go
with me. We hunted all the groceries and
couldn't find turnips enough to make a first
payment, but we found a place where they
grate horseradish and bottle it for the market,
and I ordered two washtubs full of horserad-
ish grated nicely, and sent to the tent, but I
made the man bill it as ground turnips.
The boy and I played all the forenoon, and
when the man started with the ground horse-
radish for the tent, we went along, and I intro-
duced the man to pa, and pa O. K.'d the bill,
and sent him to the treasurer after the money.
I was going to get on a back seat and watch
241
PECK'S BAD BOY
the animals eat, but pa said: "Here, you boys,
get out those pans and portion out the turnips
and pass 'em around just as the crowd comes
in, 'cause after the animals have had a mess of
cut feed they are better natured, and show off
better."
I was pretty leary about feeding the ani-
mals horseradish, and would have preferred
to have some one else do it, who did not care
to live any longer, but I said: "Yes, sir," just
like that, and touched my hat to pa, and he
said to the boss canvasman: "There's a boy
you can swear by."
The boss canvasman said: "You are right,
old man, but if he was mine, I would kill him
so quick it would make your head swim," and
he and pa went off laughing, but I think they
laughed too soon.
Well, we took a spud and put about a quart
of horseradish in each pan, and put the pans in
front of each animal, and you ought to have
seen them rush for the supposed turnips, like
a drove of cattle after salt.
The boy and I got up on the platform with
the freaks, to be in a safe place, and watch the
animals, and see how they digested their food.
The first animal to open up the chorus, was the
242
The Camel Kicked an Arab Off a Rug,
PECK'S BAD BOY
hippopotamus, 'cause we gave him about four
quarts of horseradish on account of his mouth,
and he swallowed it at one mouthful. First he
looked as though he felt hurt, and stopped
chewing, and seemed to be thinking, like a
horse that wakes up in the night with colic, and
raises the whole family to sit up with him all
night and pour things down his neck out of a
long-neck bottle. The hippo held his breath
for about a minute, and then he opened his
mouth so you could drive a wagon in, and gave
the grand hailing sign of distress, and said:
"Wow, wow, wow," as plain as a man could.
Then he rolled over into his tank and yelled
"murder," and wallowed around, and stood on
his head, till one of the keepers went in the
cage to try to soothe him. He chased the
keeper out, and the crowd that had just begun
to come in fell back in terror.
There was quite a crowd around the camels
watching them peacefully chew their cuds, as
they do at evening on the dessert, and the
Arabs who had charge of the camels were
standing around, posing as though they were
the whole thing, when the old black, double-
hump camel got his quart of horseradish down
into one of his stomachs, as he was kneeling
244
WITH THE CIRCUS
down on all fours. He yelled : "O, mamma,"
and got up on all his feet, and kicked an Arab
off a prayer rug, and bellowed and groaned.
Then the rest of the herd of camels seemed to
have swallowed their dose, and they made
Rome howl. This scared the people over to
where the sacred cattle were trying to set a
pious example to the rest of the animals by
their meek and lowlv conduct.
The sacred cow got her horseradish first,
and I could see she was trying to hold it with-
out giving the snap away, till her husband, the
bull, got his. Well, it was pitiful, and I made
up my mind I would never play a joke on the
sacred cattle again, 'cause it seems like sacri-
lege. The bull finally got his horseradish
down, and he was the most astonished animal
I ever saw. He swelled up, and then bellowed
until the cow looked as though she would sink
through the ground, saying:- "Excuse me,
dear, but I am not to blame, because I, too,
have a hot box." The bull acted just as hu-
man as could be, 'cause he looked mad at her,
and was going to gore her to death, when pa
and some of the hands came up and hit him
with a tent stake, and swore at him, and he
quit fighting his wife, just like a man. Pa
"45
PECK'S BAD BOY
wanted to know what in thunder was the mat'
ter with the animals, and wanted to know if I
had fed them the turnips, and I told him they
had all been fed, and just then the giraffe,whose
neck was so long the horseradish did not reach
a vital spot as quick as it did with the hippo,
began to yell for the police and dance around.
Finally he stood on his head and neck, with
his heels against a cage, and coughed like he
had caught pneumonia. Pa said to the boss
canvasman: ''Well, what do you think of
that?"
The zebras had their inning next, and after
they had swallowed their rations of horse-
radish, they never said a word, but began to
run around like dancing the lancers, and when
they got to going it looked like a kaleidoscope,
and the six zebras looked like a million. Pa
said: "I never saw such a sight since I used
to drink, but I have either got the jim-jams,
or something awful has happened to this
menagerie/'
The educated hog got a double dose, and
he squealed and couldn't pick out the right
card, and then the llamas got busy on their
portion of horseradish, and they cried in Span-
ish, and stood on their hind legs and shed tears.
246
Pa Tasted of It
PECK'S BAD BOY
Pa got so rattled he looked ten years older
than he did when the afternoon performance
opened. The manager of the big show came
in to know why the elephants had not been
sent into the dressing-room, to be got ready
for the grand entree. Just then the elephants
began to eat their horseradish, and when they
were driven into the big tent they were com-
plaining about something being wrong inside
of them, and as they came by the lemonade
stand they seemed to be yelling "Fire!" Then
they all stopped at the stand and began to
drink the lemonade out of the barrels, which
seemed to put out the fire.
The animals quieted down a little, and pa
went into the big tent to consult the manager,
and I thought it was a shame that the lions
and hyenas and tigers couldn't have any fun,
so I went to the table where the meat was laid
out ready to feed them, and cut a hole in each
piece of meat and put in a double handful of
horseradish, and just then the feeder came
along and began to throw the meat in the
cages. Gee, but those carnivorous animals are
bad enough even if you give them nice boiled
sirloin steak, and they fight enough over it, at
any time, but when they began to chew and
248
WITH THE CIRCUS
tear the meat, and get horseradish hot from
the griddle, they didn't do a thing. The audi-
ence thought the animals would kill every-
body. The big lion got his meat down, but it
didn't set well, and he turned a somersault,
and snarled, and pulled the bars of the cage,
while the grizzly bear rolled up in a ball and
rolled over in his cage till the men had to hold
on to the wheels to keep the shebang from
going over. The hyenas, who are always mad,
went on a tear that could be heard in all the
tents.
Pa and the managers came back into the
menagerie tent with the animal keeper, who
had been sent for, and they began to try to find
out what ailed the animals, and the animal
keeper asked what pa had been feeding them,
and pa said he had given them their ground
turnips.
'Turnips, indeed," said the keeper, as he
took up some of the turnip and tasted of it, and
he handed a handful to pa. Pa tasted it, and pa
had a hot box, and the managers tasted of it,
and they said: "No wonder." Then they
asked pa where he got it, and pa said he sent
me to order it, and then they all said: "That
settles it."
249
PECK'S BAD BOY
I thought I would go 'way and jump in the
river, but pa said: "Hennery, come here, my
angel," and he spit on his hands and picked up
a barrel stave. I went right up to pa, as inno-
cent as could be, just as any dutiful son should,
and right there before the animals and freaks
pa — well, that's the reason I am not sitting
down very much these days. So long.
\«5o
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER XXI.
The Bad Boy and His Pa Inject a Little Poli-
tics Into the Show — Rival Bands of Atlanta
Citizens Meet in the Circus Tent — A Bunch
of Angry Hornets Causes Much Bitter Feel-
ing.
I expect that next year I shall be one of the
managers of this show, 'cause they tell me I
have got the greatest head of any boy that has
ever traveled with the show.
We haven't been having a very big business
in the south, because the negroes haven't mon-
ey enough to patronize shows, and a lot of the
white people are either too high-toned or else
they are politicians and want a pars. The
managers and heads of departments held a
meeting to devise some way to get both
classes interested, and everybody was asked
to state their views. After they all got through
talking pa asked me what I thought would be
the best way to get the people excited about
the show, and I told him there was no way ex-
cept to inject a little politics into it. I said if
251
PECK'S BAD BOY
they would give me $50 or so, to buy Chinese
lanterns, and about a hundred complimentary
tickets to give away, pa and I could go to At-
lanta a couple of days ahead of the show and
we could organize a Roosevelt club among the
negroes, and a Bryan club among the white
fellows, and at the evening performance we
could have the two clubs march into the main
tent, one from the main entrance, and one
from the dressing room, with Chinese lan-
terns, and one could yell for Roosevelt and the
other for Bryan, and advertise that a great
sensation would be sprung at the evening per-
formance. I said the tent wouldn't begin to
hold the people.
Every one of the managers and heads of de-
partments said it would be great stuff. Pa was
the only one that kicked. He said the two
processions might get into a fight, but I said
what if they did, we wouldn't be to blame. Let
'em fight if they want to, and we can see fair
play.
So they all agreed that pa and I should go
to Atlanta ahead, and organize the political
processions, and, say, we had such a time that
the circus came near never getting out of the
252
WITH THE CIRCUS
town alive. We overdid the thing, so they
wanted to lynch me, and pa wanted to help.
The way it was was this way: Pa was to
organize the white men for Bryan, and I was
to organize the negroes for Roosevelt, and we
went to work and bought 600 Chinese lanterns,
and pa stored his half of the lanterns in a barn
on the circus lot and I stored mine in another
barn owned by a negro that I gave five dollars
to be my assistant, with a promise that he
should have a job traveling with the show, to
milk the sacred cow. I told this negro what
the program was, and that I wanted 200 ne-
groes who had an ambition to be politicians,
and hold office, and I would not only pass them
into the show free, but see that they got a per-
manent office. What we had got to do, I said,
was to stampede the white procession, that
would be led by pa, and the way to do it was
for every negro in my party to skirmish around
in the woods and find a hornet's nest, and
bring it to our barn, and fit it into one of the
Chinese lanterns, and fix a candle on top of
the nest, while the hornets were asleep. Then
when we met the Bryan procession we were to
shout and wave our lanterns, and if necessary
to whack the white men over the head with
253
PECK'S BAD BOY
the lantern with the hornets' nest, and the hor-
nets would wake up and do the rest.
The negro wanted to know how I could
prevent the hornets from stinging our own
men, and I told him that we had been in the
hornet business all the season and never had
one of our own men stung. I said we took
some assofoedita and rubbed it on our clothes
and faces, and the hornets wouldn't touch us,
but just went for the other fellows to beat the
band. Say, negroes are easy marks. You can
make them believe anything. But if I ever
get to be president I am going to appoint my
negro assistant to a position in my cabinet,
'cause he is the greatest political organizer I
ever saw. He rounded up over 200 cotton
pickers and negro men who work in the freight
depots once in a while and started them out
after hornets' nests. He gave them some
change to get a drink, and promised them free
passes into the show next night, and the next
morning they showed up with hornets' nests
enough to scare you. They put them In a dark
place in the barn, so the hornets wouldn't get
curious and want to come out of the nests be-
fore they got their cue.
That afternoon we fitted them into the
254
WITH THE CIRCUS
Chinese lanterns, and tied sticks on the lan-
terns and fixed the candles, and when night
came there were more negroes than I could
use. But I told them to follow along, and the
door tender would let them in, and all they
need to do was to yell for Teddy when I did>
and so we marched to the main tent about the
time the performance got to going. I saw pa
with his gang of white men go into the dress-
ing room at about the same time. The mana-
ger had timed it for us to come in about 8:30,
into the main tent, when the elephants were in
their pyramid act, so my crowd of negroes
stopped in the menagerie tent half an hour
waiting to be called.
I wish I wasn't so confounded curious, but
I suppose I was born that way. I took one
of the Chinese lanterns that was not lighted
and just thought I would like to see what the
hyenas and the big lion, who were in the same
cage, with an iron partition between them,
would do if a Chinese lantern was put in the
cage, so I got the fellow that watches the cage
to open up the top trap door, and I dropped a
Chinese lantern with a hornets' nest in it right
between the two hyenas. Gee, but you ought
to have seen them pounce on it, and bite it and
255
PECK'S BAD BOY
tear it up, and then the hornets woke up, z&d
thef didn't do a thing to that mess of hywnas.
The hyenas set up a grand hailing sign of dis-
tress, and howled pitiful, and the lion raised
up his head and looked at them through the
bars as though he was saying, in a snarling
way, "What you grave robbers howling about?
Can't you keep still and let the czar of all the
animals enjoy his after dinner nap?"
Just then the hyenas kicked what was left
of the hornets' nest under the bars into his
side of the cage, and he put his foot on it and
growled, and about a hundred hornets gave
him his. He gave an Abyssinian cough that
woke all the animals, and then the hornets
scattered and before I knew it the zebras were
dancing a snake dance and all of them were,
howling as though they were in the ark, hun-
gry, and the ark had landed on Mount Ararat.
Just then one of the assistant managers
beckoned to me to lead in my procession and
we lighted the candles in our Chinese lanterns.
I didn't stop to see how the animals got along
with the hornets, but I couldn't help thinking
that if one hornets' nest could raise such a row,
what would a hundred or so do when we got
to going in the other tent?
256
He Hit Pa Over the Head with His Chinese Lanterns.
PECK'S BAD BOY
Oh, if I had only died when I was young, I
never would have witnessed that sight. The
band played, "There'll be a Hot Time in the
Old Town To-night," and pa's crowd of white
trash marched around the big outside ring
shouting, "Bryan! Bryan! What's the matter
with Bryan!" and the audience got up on its
hind legs and yelled — that is the white folks
did — and then we marched around the other
way, and yelled, "Teddy is the stuff! Teddy
is the stuff!" and the negroes in the audience
yelled. Then my crowd met pa's crowd right
by the middle ring, where the elephants had
formed the pyramid that closes their act, and
the Japanese jugglers were in the right-hand
ring, and a party of female tumblers, with low-
necked stockings, were standing at attention
in the left-hand ring.
There was no intention of having a riot,
but when pa yelled, "What's the matter with
Bryan?" a negro in my crowd yelled, "That's
what's the matter with Bryan," and he hit pa
over the head with his Chinese lantern, loaded
with a warm hornets' nest as big as a football,
which had taken fire from the candle. Pa
dropped his lantern and began to fight hor-
nets, and then all the white trash in pa's bunch
258
The 8tampeded Like They Never Met a Hornet Before.
PECK'S BAD BOY
rushed up and began to whack my poor down-
trodden negroes with their Chinese lanterns.
Of course, my fellows couldn't stand still and
be mauled, and the candles had warmed our
hornets' nests so the hornets were crawling
out to see what was the trouble. Then every
negro whacked a white man with a hornets'
nest and the audience fairly went wild with
excitement.
The hornets got busy and went for the ele-
phants and the Japanese jugglers, and they
stampeded like they never met a hornet be-
fore.
The female tumblers found hornets on their
stockings, and everywhere, and they gave a
female war whoop and rushed for the dressing
room. The elephants got stung and they came
down off their pyramid and went out to the
menagerie tent trumpeting, and switching
their trunks. The negroes and the white poli-
ticians were getting into a race war, so the
circus hands rushed in and separated them,
and my negroes found that the fetty I had
them rub on themselves did not keep the
hornets from stinging them, so they stam-
peded.
Then the hornets began to go for the audi-
260
WITH THE CIRCUS
ence, and the women yelled murder and pulled
down their dresses to cover their shoes, and the
men got stung and the whole audience stam-
peded into the open air.
Then I met pa, and he was a sight, and I
never got stung once. The managers tried to
get the band to play some tune that would
soothe and hold the audience till an explana-
tion could be made, but somebody had thrown
a hornets' nest under the band seats and the
horn players got stung on the lips so they
couldn't play, and the band all lit out for a
beer garden. Before I realized it the show was
over, and a detective that detects for the show
had me collared and brought me up before a
meeting of the managers. Pa was the prose-
cuting attorney, and told them that I didn't
run my politics fair, 'cause I had brought in a
lot of ringers. The managers asked me how
the hornets' nests came to be in the Chinese
lanterns. I told them they would have to ask
the negroes for how was I to know what
weapons they had concealed about their per-
sons, any more than pa was responsible if his
politicians carried revolvers.
They said that looked reasonable, but they
believed I knew more about it than anybody,
261
PECK'S BAD BOY
but as we had to pack up the show and make
the next town they wouldn't lynch me till the
next day. Pa got me to put cold cream on his
stings, and then he said, "Hennery, you are
the limit."
262
WITH THE CIRCUS
CHAPTER XXII.
The Show Does Poor Business in the South —
Pa Side Tracks a Circus Car Filled with
Creditors — A Performance Given "For the
Poor," Fills the Treasury— A Wild West
Man Buncoes the Show.
Gee, but this show has been up against it the
last week. We haven't made a paying stand
anywhere. The show business is all right
when you have to turn people away, or let
them in on standing room. Then you can snap
your fingers at fate, and drink foolish water
out of four-dollar bottles of fizz that has the
cork trained so it will pop out clear to the top
of the tent, and make a noise that makes you
think you own the earth, but when you strike
the southern country where the white men
have not sold their cotton and the negroes
have not been paid for picking it, the audience
looks like a political caucus in an off year,
when there is nobody with money enough to
stimulate the voters. When the audiences are
small, and half the people in attendance get in
on bill-sticker's passes, and you can't pay the
263
PECK'S BAD BOY
help regularly, but have to stand them off with
promises, you are liable to have a strike any
minute. The people you owe for hotel bills,
and horse feed, and supplies, follow you from
one town to another, threatening to attach the
ticket wagon and levy on the animals. It takes
diplomacy and unadulterated gall to run a
show.
We are playing now to get back into the
northern states, but we have to leave an ani-
mal of some kind in the hands of a sheriff
every day, which has been all right so far,
'cause we have steered the sheriffs on to ele-
phants that have corns so they are no good
except to eat, one zebra that was made up by
a painter, who painted stripes on a white mule,
and one lion that was so old he will never sell
at forced sale for enough to pay for the beef
tea the sheriff will have to feed him.
When creditors in a town get too mad and
threaten to attach things, we invite them to
go along with us for a few days, and get their
money when we strike a paying stand, and we
agree to furnish them a Pullman car and all
they can eat. That is rather tempting to
country people, so we had a full car load of
creditors with us for a week, and we gave
264
The Sacred Cow Chased Pa Up Into the Rafters of the Car.
PECK"S BAD BOY
them plenty to drink, so they had the
time of their lives, but they didn't get their
money. After going with us all through
Georgia, they held an indignation meeting in
the car, and between high balls and cheese
sandwiches they got sleepy, and we side
tracked their car in the woods at a station in
Mississippi, where there was a post office, saw
mill and a cotton gin. I guess they are there
yet unless Mr. Pullman's lost car experts have
found the car and driven them out with fire
extinguishers.
Pa came pretty near being left in that car
with the creditors in Mississippi. He was
helping to entertain the guests, and jollying
them up to believe they would get their money
when we got to Memphis the next day, when
he noticed the car had been sidetracked, and
he knew that was the way we were going to
dispose of the creditors. He thought some one
would tell him when to get off, but he was sit-
ting up with a landlady from some place in
Georgia that we owed a lot of money for feed-
ing the freaks, and she was threatening that if
she didn't get her money she would have the
heart's blood of some one. So pa was afraid
to leave for fear she would stab him.
266
WITH THE CIRCUS
But when the car stopped on the siding, pa
took off his coat and hat and yawned, and said
he guessed he would turn in, and she let him
go to his berth, and he got out on the platform,
and just then the second section of our train
came along, and stopped for water, and pa
crawled into an animal car and laid down in
the straw with the sacred cow. She bellowed
all night 'cause the sacred bull, her husband,
had been attached for debt at Vicksburg, but
when pa got in the car in his shirt sleeves and
humped his shoulders up on account of the
cold, the cow thought maybe she had been un-
necessarily alarmed, and maybe pa was her
husband.
So she quit bellowing, and laid down and
chewed her cud till daylight. Then when she
saw that pa was another person she got mad
and chased him up into the rafters of the car,
and he had to ride there until the train got to
Memphis. The hands rescued pa, but he got
away from the creditors all right.
We made a new lot of creditors at Memphis,
and they proposed to go along with us, but
we shook them off.
Gee, but we made a killing in Memphis, and
don't you forget it. We had handbills on all
267
PECK'S BAD BOY
the wagons in the parade, telling the people
that the proceeds of the afternoon and even-
ing performance would be given to deserving
persons, in charity, and the intention was to
use the money to pay off the hands. My, but
how the people turned out. The tents were
all full, and we had more money than we have
had in a month before, and after the perform-
ance at night the mayor and some prominent
citizens waited on the management and asked
when and where we were going to distribute
the money to the deserving persons.
The managers appointed pa to stand off the
committee. Pa said he had noticed, in walk-
ing about the city, a beautiful park in the cen-
ter of the town, and he told the committee that
his idea was to have the deserving people
gather at the park the next morning, which
was Sunday, and wait there until the managers
of the show could count the money, and pre-
pare to distribute it, honestly and impartially,
with the advice of the local committee. That
seemed all right, and the committee notified
the citizens to meet in the park at nine o'clock
the next morning, and receive the money the
citizens had so kindly contributed to such a
noble cause, and they went away.
268
WITH THE CIRCUS
Our show has got out of a good many tight
places, but we never got out of a town so quiet-
ly and unostentatiously as we got out of Mem-
phis during that early Sunday morning. There
was not noise enough made getting our stuff
to the train to wake up a policeman, and be-
fore daylight the different sections of the train
had crossed the big bridge into Arkansas, and
were on the way to the Indian Territory. Pa
and the other managers were on the platform
of the last car of the last section, as it pulled
out across the river, at daylight, and even that
early it seemed as though the whole colored
population of Memphis was on the way to the
park, to secure good positions, so they could
receive their share of the money. As the train
got to the middle of the river, and safe into
Arkansas, the whole management breathed a
sigh of relief. The boss canvasman said: "It
is like getting money from home," and pa said:
"It is like taking money from the tin cup of a
blind organ grinder," and the treasurer of the
show said, as he put the day's receipts in the
safe in the business car: "It looks good to
me." Then they all turned in to sleep the happy
hours away, that beautiful Sunday on the way
to Indian Territory and Oklahoma.
269
PECK'S BAD BOY
Well, sir, you can never make me believe
that money obtained dishonestly will stay by
a person, or do him any good, and that was
demonstrated in the case of our show the next
day. We got acquainted with an old show-
man who was out of luck, who used to run a
wild west show, but got busted up, and as he
didn't care where he went, we took him with
us on the train, and all day Sunday he talked
about his show experiences, and finally he said
if we had any horses with our show that could
run races, we could make a barrel of money at
Guthrie, where we were to make our next
stand. He said the Indians and half breeds
all had Indian ponies that they thought could
beat any horses that ever wore shoes, and that
they would bet every cent they had on their
ponies, and as they had just been paid their
annuities by the government, they had money
in bales, and we could get it all, if we had
horses that were any good, and money to back
them. His idea was to give out that owing to
some accident we could not give an afternoon
performance, and just get out the horses and
bet the Indians to a standstill, and win all their
money, and give a free evening show as a sort
of consolation to the Indians.
270
WITH THE CIRCUS
Well, it looked good to pa, and he talked to
the other managers, and the result was when
we got to Guthrie we had made up our minds
that as money was what we were after, the
easiest wray was to get it by racing our horses.
So when we got settled in Guthrie, and got
the tent up, we announced that part of the
show was in a wreck down the road in Arka-
sas, and we should have to abandon the after-
noon performance, but in the meantime there
would be a little horse racing on the side, if
anybody in Oklahoma had any horses they
thought could run some.
Well, I thought there were Indians and
ponies and squaws enough before the an-
nouncement was made, but in less than two
hours more than a thousand ponies were be-
ing brought in, and we got our chariot racers,
and our bareback hippodrome horses, and they
were being led around and admired, and we
all laughed at the little runts of Indian ponies,
and the Indians got mad and backed their
ponies.
Pretty soon the races began in the vacant
lot just outside the town. The old showman
we had brought up from Memphis was made
master of ceremonies, 'cause he could talk
271
PECK'S BAD BOY
Choctaw, and Comanche, and other Indian
jargon, and things got busy. The Indians
wouldn't run their ponies more than an eighth
of a mile, or a quarter, and we consented, be-
cause the poor little things didn't look as
though they could run a block, they were so
thin, and sleepy. Pa was afraid the humane
society would have us arrested for cruelty to
animals. All our fellows were provided with
money, and they flashed rolls of bills in the
faces of the Indians, and finally Mr. Indian
would reach down under his clothes and pull
out a roll, and wet his thumb and peel off big
bills, and before we knew it we were investing
a fortune in the racing game. Then the rac-
ing began, and the horses were sent off at the
drop of a hat, or the firing of a pistol.
I was given some money to bet with the lit-
tle Indians, 'cause pa said we wanted to get
every dollar in the tribe, for if we didn't get it
the Indians would spend it for fire water. The
first race was between one of our best runners
and a sleepy little spotted pony, and when the
hat was dropped the pony made a few jumps
and was off like a rabbit, and our horse
cpuldn't see him for the dust, and our horse
was distanced. The next race resulted the
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The Pony Was Off Like a Rabbit
PECK'S BAD BOY
same, and all day long we never won a race,
and the Indians took our money and
put it in their pants and never smiled. The
old showman we had befriended seemed
crushed.
When our money was nearly all gone to the
confounded Indians, and the sun was going
down, he went up to pa and said: "Uncle,
what does this all mean? I thought your
horses could run."
Pa said: "Damfino, I never was no horse
racer, nohow."
When our money was all gone, and our
horses were nearly dead from fatigue, the
managers all got together in the big tent for
a consultation on finances, and it was the sad-
dest sight I ever saw. Pa tried to be cheerful,
and he said: "Well, we will give the evening
performance, and when the Indians are all in
the tent we can turn out the lights and turn
the boys loose on them, and maybe they will
find some of the money in their breech clouts."
"You don't mean to rob them, do you?" said
the boss canvasman, and pa said: "No, no;
far from it. We will borrow it of them. It is
no harm to borrow from an Indian."
Just then the treasurer came in with an
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WITH THE CIRCUS
empty tin box he had carried the money out in,
and he said there would be no use of having
an evening- performance, 'cause the Indians
had taken their ponies and squaws and money
and gone towards the setting sun, and pa
said: ''Where is that old showman?" and the
treasurer said: "He has gone with them. He
is their legal adviser, and went down to Mem-
phis to rope us into the game."
m
PECK'S BAD BOY
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Circus Has Bad Luck in Indian Terri-
tory— A Herd of Animals Turned Out to
Graze Is Stampeded by Indians — They Go
Dashing Over the Plains, and the Circus
Tent Follows, Picked Up by a Cyclone.
No more horse racing for this circus.
The managers held a meeting at Guthrie,
Okla., after we had lost our money horse rac-
ing with the Indians, and pa said the consen-
sus of opinion was that we better stick to the
legitimate show business, and not try to work
in any side lines. Pa says he made a speech
at the managers' meeting, in which he showed
that the business man who attended strictly
to the business which he knew all about, would
make money, while the man who knew about
dry goods, but worked in a millinery store or
a stock of tinware, got it in the neck. He
would either get stuck on the head milliner,
or buy a stock of tinware that would not hold
water.
So a resolution was passed to the effect
that hereafter no temptation could be great
276
WITH THE CIRCUS
enough to get our show to go into anything
outside of the business, no matter how good it
looked as a get-rich-quick affair. So we gath-
ered up our show and played a whole week in
Oklahoma, and had full houses all the time,
and made money enough to redeem our ani-
mals that had been attached by creditors. We
have paid up our debts, and we got out of Ok-
lahoma with flying colors.
If we had gone right on to Kansas we would
have shown sense, but some cowboys from the
Indian Territory told pa and the other man-
agers that if we would take the show to the
Indian Territory we couldn't get cars enough
to haul the money away, as the Indians had
got round-shouldered and bow-legged carry-
ing the money they had made grazing cattle,
and the territory was full of cowboys that had
money to burn, and they hadn't seen a cir-
cus since the war.
Well, it seemed a shame to go by the Indian
Territory, and allow those poor Indians to
break their backs carrying money around, and
so we sent a carload of bill pasters into the
territory and billed towns that would hold vr
about a week, and we figured that we would
clean up enough money to last us all a life-
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PECK'S BAD BOY
time. I wish I didn't have to write about the
result, 'cause we are broke up so we can't look
pleasant to have our pictures taken.
It was a bright, beautiful Sunday morning
that we arrived at Muskoka, and soon after
daylight we had our tents pitched. As we had
all day Sunday to rest, pa suggested that it
would be a good idea to t^ke all our animals
that eat grass out on the grazing ground on
the edge of the town and let them fill up on
the nice blue grass that was knee-high all
over the country. So after breakfast we de-
tailed men to take charge of the different an-
imals, and herd them out in the tall grass. It
was a beautiful sight to see those rare animals,
gathered from all over the world, eating grass
together, in perfect peace, in this new country.
The animals that wc thought would stand
without hitching, like the elephants, were
cared for by their attendants, but the animals
that might wander from their own fire-
side, were picketed out, or held by long ropes,
the deer, the buffalo, the zebras, the sacred
cattle, the elk, the yaks, the camels and that
kind, were tied with long lariats, and held by
the men detailed by the managers. For a
couple of hours the animals just gorged them-
278
'. Wi
The Boss Canvasman Went Into a Cactus.
PECK'S BAD BOY
selves, after they had kicked up their heels a
spell and rolled in the grass. Then one of the
elephants got up on his hind feet and held up
two toes, like boys in school hold up two fin-
gers when they want to go in swimming, and
the elephant started for a creek and went in
the water, and the whole herd followed, and
they spattered each other, and ducked and
rolled around just like school boys. The
whole population of the town, whites and In-
dians, came to the bank of the river to watch
the fun.
Pa was holding his elk by a rope and one
of the managers had a rope around the neck
of a giraffe ; the treasurer and the ticket taker
was leading the zebras, and everybody was
busy with some kind of animal, and I had a
rope around an antelope, and some of our men
on horseback were herding the buffaloes. It
didn't seem as though anything wrong could
happen. The elephants wouldn't come out of
the creek, so the boss canvasman went over
to where there were about 500 cowboys and
Indians on horseback, and asked them to ride
into the creek and drive the elephants out
where the rest of the animals were, on the
prairie.
280
Dad Was Only Hitting the High Places.
PECK'S BAD BOY
Gee, but that was the greatest mistake he
could have made. The men on horseback
didn't want any better fun, so they made a
charge, in line of battle, just like Sheridan's
cavalry, down the bank, into the creek, yelling
and waving lariat ropes, and snapping whips
and the elephants got out of that creek in a
hurry. The cowboys threw lassoes over the
hind feet of the elephants, and tried to hold
them, and the elephants bellowed, and
dragged the cowboys and their ponies right
amongst the other animals, and in about a
minute, as the boss canvasman said when he
came to, and they were picking the cactus
thorns out of him: "Hell was just plumb out
for noon."
The buffaloes smelled the Indians, and they
started to stampede, like they used to do
when they lived on the plains, and all the an-
imals followed, dragging the men who had
hold of their ropes, and away we all went over a
rise of ground, the zebras in the lead and the
elephants fetching up the rear, the cowboys
and Indians behind, yelling and ki-i-ing, and
more than 500 Indian dogs barking.
Well, pa was the foolishest man in the lot,
'cause he had tied the lariat rope that he held
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WITH THE CIRCUS
his elk by, around his belt, and when the elk
went over the hill pa was only hitting the
high places, and he was yelling for me to head
off his elk. But I was busy trying to keep up
with my antelope, which was scared worse
than any animal in the race. When the ante-
lope and I overtook the boss canvasman, who
was digging his heels into the ground trying
to hold his zebra, I thought it was a good time
to say something pleasant, so I said: "This is
a lovely country we are passing through," but
I never heard his reply, 'cause just then the
zebra jumped over a big cactus and the boss
canvasman went into it, and stayed there,
yelling for a piece of ice, while the zebras that
were dragging the treasurer and the ticket
taker passed us. I yelled to the treasurer and
told him I should have to have my salary
raised if I was expected to keep up with my
antelope, but he told me where to go to get an
increase of salary, some place in Arkansas — ■
maybe Hot Springs.
Then my antelope heard the Indians and
cowboys coming behind, and he got his sec-
ond wind, and I never did touch the ground
no more, and I must have looked like a buz-
zard sailing through the air. When my ante-
283
PECK'S BAD BOY
lope got up to where pa was trying to keep
up with his elk. I told pa he better let go his
elk and get the cowboys and Indians to ride
around ahead of the stampede and head them
off.
Pa said he couldn't let go of his elk 'cause
the rope was tied to his belt, but for me to hit
the ground somewhere ahead and let go of
that jack rabbit I was chasing, and tell the
cowboys to head off the stampede. So when
I lit again I let go the rope, and the antelope
got ahead of everything, and I wished I had
bet on him.
When the cowboys and Indians got up to
me I delivered the message from pa, and they
divided and went around the flanks of the
stampeders, and in another mile they headed
them off in a nice pasture, and kept riding
around the animals so they couldn't get away.
They soon had the whole bunch under control,
and we all got together to see if anybody was
hurt.
Well, pa was the worst sight of all. If his
belt had broke he never would have lost his
pants, 'cause more than a million cactus
thorns had gone through and pinned them on.
We had to cut them off, and pull out the
284
WITH THE CIRCUS
thorns with pincers, one at a time, and pa yell-
ing murder for every thorn. The boss can-
vasman was in the same fix, and everybody
that tried to hold an animal was pinned to-
gether with thorns, and they had gravel up
their trousers from sticking their heels into
the soil.
Everybody was mad and they threatened
to lynch pa when they got back to the tent for
suggesting letting the animals out to graze.
We started back to town, the cowboys and In-
dians driving the animals, and the zebras and
giraffes kicking up and acting as though they
had got out of school on account of the death
of a dear teacher, like schoolboys.
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 grass, were having an in-
dignation 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
*85
PECK'S BAD BOY
sticking out of him, like the father of all porcu-
pines. 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.
286
WITH THE CIRCUS
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 Hye-
nas 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 "Jonnmes 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 en-
try into Missouri.
I wonder how the show will get along with-
out 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 cac-
tus 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
287
PECK'S BAD BOY
a railroad brakeman got busted at Topeka,
and they had an order book printed, and went
all over Kansas taking orders for Osier wil-
lows, 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 everv
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 rail-
road man canvassed 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 "pussy willow" cuttings, delivered
them to the farmers and got their money,
and went away. When the pussy willow cut-
tings died in their tracks, or grew up just plain
pussy willows that never got high enough to
hide a jack rabbit, the farmers of Kansas load-
ed their guns and waited for pa and the brake-
288
WITH THE CIRCUS
man 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 regret-
ting 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 nobody took the
289
PECK'S BAD BOY
papers, and the people were not on to me.
Pa says as long as your conscience is dear,
and your pores open, life is one glad, sweet
song. Well, I don't know, but if pa's con-
science 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 hundreds 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
290
WITH THE CIRCUS
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 water-
ing 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
took to fill up a camel, anyway. I would tell
them that if they kept right at work, the cam-
els 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
291
PECK'S BAD BOY
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 priv-
ilege. 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 buffa-
loes, that were scratching themselves against
the tent poles so much that I felt they had
something alive concealed about their per-
sons. That boy started in with his can of in-
sect 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,
292
The Bull Tossed the Boy Through the Tent.
PECK'S BAD BOY
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
chores for his mother both before and after
school.
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 tell-
ing 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.
294
WITH THE CIRCUS
Well, it would kill you dead to see a fool
boy side up to a hyena cage and try to hypno-
tize a hyena by kind words and a pious ex-
ample, saying soothing words like: "Soo,
boss," or "O, come off now, and be a good fel-
low," and see the hyena snarl and show his
teeth like an anarchist that a multi-million-
aire 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 hy-
enas, and occasionally the hyenas would for-
get to snarl and the boy would think the ani-
mals were beginning to weaken, and the boy
would work up closer to the cage, and say:
"Pretty pussy," and hold out his hand and
say: "Good fellow." Then the whole cageful
of hyenas would make a rush for him, howl-
ing, snapping and scratching, with their bris-
tles 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
295
PECK'S BAD BOY
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, '£ause
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 di-
vert pa's mind from his suffering.
So I got some telegraph blanks and envel-
opes, 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 recep-
tion," or "About 200 farmers at Parsons think
we ought to let them in free, on account of be-
ing 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
296
Pa Jumped Like a Box Car«
PECK'S BAD BOY
Kansas City to confer with you on an old mat-
ter 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 doc-
tors 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, Hen-
nery, that's the trouble; it ain't clear. Well,
let us have peace, at any price."
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WITH THE CIRCUS
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
wall paper effects of his exterior decoration
that should make a man leave all the other an-
imals 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 go-
ing 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 art-
299
PECK'S BAD BOY
ists 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 eld-
est 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 Al-
kali 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 man-
agement was scared at what pa had adver-
tised to do, and they all wanted to call off the
zebra stunt, but pa said if they cut it out the
300
There Never Was Such a Runaway Since the Days of Ben-Hur.
PECK'S BAD BOY
people would mob the show, so all day Sun-
day 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 ze-
bra 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 ze-
bra team, his freaks and reporters, and pa han-
dled 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 thev 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
302
WITH THE CIRCUS
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 be-
gan 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 wo-
man 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 cal-
liope 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 es-
caped 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 behe*
303
PECK'S BAD BOY
moth 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 Circassian 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.
When we passed 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 nobody was drowned, though we had to
bail out the fat woman, she swallowed so
much of the muddy river. The giant was
304
The Zebras Turned Short and Tipped the Tally-ho Over Into
the Water.
PECK'S BAD BOY
senseless and two reporters got astride of him,
thinking it was a rail, and drifted ashore, 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.
When pa came into the main tent with the
zebras, in the grand parade around the ring,
the crowd gave him three cheers, which prob-
ably 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 ze-
bras 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.
306
WITH THE CIRCUS
Well, I'm glad to be back in the showr
'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 feath-
ers out of pa that grew out on him in Indian
Territory. Gee, but if I had to leave the cir-
cus 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 bank-
ers, 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 mon-
ey, and a picnic, I wouldn't have any menag-
erie 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
2P7
PECK'S BAD BOY
them, to teach them morals, though when
meal time comes the reform school boys and
the menagerie animals eat like tramps, be-
cause the food is so good, and then kick be-
cause it isn't better. If your performers in
the circus proper do not suit you can dis-
charge 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 an-
imal 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 buttons the collar of
his shirt, 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 hold-
up man will linger by the grizzly bear, the
prize-fighter will haunt the lions' den, the gar-
roter will gaze lovingly at the tigers, the sneak
thief seems to love the hyenas, and the big
308
WITH THE CIRCUS
game hunters watch the deer and elk. Some
of us who have brains love the monkeys, they
are so human.
301;
PECK'S BAD BOY
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
Washington 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.
310
WITH THE CIRCUS
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.
Pa has been wild ever since we struck Mis-
souri, and no wonder, 'cause everybody seems
to lay everything in the way of weather on
him. Every place we show the lot is one sea
of mud, and when we get the rings made they
seem like a chain of lakes, and in .galloping
around the rings the horses splash mud and
water clear to the reserved seats. The riders
of the horses have to come out in rubber hunt-
ing boots and when they get on the horses
we have to pull their boots off and hold them
until the act is over, then the riders sit on the
horses and pull the boots on and get down in
the mud of the ring and bow to the audience.
The woman riders are the worst to wear
rubber boots, 'cause they fall down in the mud
and spoil their dresses and kick scandalous.
The trapeze performers have to be carried out
of the dressing room on stretchers, and hoist-
ed up to the net, 'cause they can't do stunts up
on the trapeze with wet feet, and we have
worked ourselves to death getting things in
shape.
The confounded elephants just glory in the
3ii
PECK'S BAD BOY
mud, and the minute they get in the ring they
all lay down and roll in the mud and water, so
when they are ready to do their act they look
like walking mud pies. The freaks are awful
to handle, the giant being the only one that can
wade through and look pleasant, and the fat
woman would make you weary, she has to be
carried back and forth to the platform by half
a force of hands. Pa has had shawl straps
and coffin handles fastened to her clothes, so
there will be something to grab hold of to
move her around. I don't think that another
year we will have any fat woman, 'cause pa
says it costs more to get this 500-pound fe-
male from one place to another than all the
rest of the show. He thinks that people who
visit the show don't care much about a fat
woman anyway, but just guy her and ask her
what kind of breakfast food she lives on. He
thinks if we had three reasonably fat women
that weighed about 200 pounds apiece, it
would give better satisfaction and they would
be easier to handle; but when she heard what
pa said and felt that she was going to be shook
next year she began to cry, and it was like
turning on water in a bathtub. Pa had to
312
J Will Search for the Wildest of Red Met*
PECK'S BAD BOY
pet her and then the bearded woman got
jealous.
At Jefferson City there came a cold wave
and everything was froze stiff, and you could
skate in the rings, and the management de-
cided to get to St. Louis and send the show to
winter quarters, and organize for next sea-
son. So we have had a time closing up for
the season, and sending the animals to the
barns on our farm up north, and discharging
and paying off the performers and bidding
everybody good-by. We have bought pres-
ents for everybody, and it has been a picnic.
Pa had a big heart, with roses all around
it, made of a horse collar, covered with flow-
ers, which came from the freaks, and
the performers remembered him with pres-
ents, and pa gave everybody something,
and everybody got together in the main tent
and made speeches.
The manager thanked everybody and
promised that next year we would have the
greatest show on earth. He said the man-
agement had decided that what we lacked
this year was a wild west show, as the people
everywhere seemed to dote on busting bron-
cos, and roping cattle, and chasing buffaloes
314
WITH THE CIRCUS
and seeing Indians and rough riders chase up
and down the arena. He felt that in justice
to our rough-riding president, it was proper
to have a wild west show that would make
things hum next year. He said he took
pleasure in informing the people of the show
that pa had been commissioned to go out west
at once and secure the Indians and cowboys,
horses that buck and bounce off the riders,
cattle that would stand it to be lassoed and
thrown down for the amusement of the pub-
lic, buffaloes that would bellow and act like
old times on the plains, stage coaches and
robbers, and he promised that next year they
would have no cause to be ashamed of the
show. He said pa was authorized to spare
no expense to round up a wild west show sec-
ond to none. The performers and hands
cheered the manager, and then they yelled for
pa for a speech.
Pa got up on the tub that the elephants
stand on, and said that it was true what the
manager said about a wild west show, and
that he was proud of the confidence reposed in
him. He should be glad to take an expedi-
tion and go out into the far west and beard
the wild west Indian in his tepee and engage
315
PECK'S BAD BOY
Indians by the hundred to come with us next
year. He would pierce the wilderness of the
west in search of the wildest red men and
would hunt the cowboy in his lair and secure
those who could make the most trouble for
cattle and horses and shoot up an audience if
necessary to keep the peace, and he would buy
buffaloes enough so every performer could
ride one if he wanted to. He said while we
had this year had some attempts at a wild
west department in our show, it was only a
tame imitation of what we would have next
year, and he wanted them all to pray for him,
that he might come out of the wild far west
without being killed. He said he should take
Hennery along with him as a mascot, and if
the worst came he could trade me to an Indian
tribe for ponies, or leave me as a hostage with
some tribe until he returned the Indians at
the close of next season. Pa closed his re-
marks by hoping that nothing had occurred
during the past season that would cause any-
body to have it in for him, 'cause he had tried
to be impartial in his cussedness, and while
he felt that he had been considered an inter-
loper in the profession at first, he had found
that everybody looked upon him later in the
316
They Tossed Pa Up in the Blanket.
PECK'S BAD BOY
season as the main guy in the show, and that
all had felt at liberty to give it to him in the
neck on every proper occasion and he felt that
he had taken his medicine like a thorough-
bred.
They gave three cheers for pa, and then they
brought in the blankets and tossed everybody
up until they lost everything out of their
pockets and yelled that they had enough, and
they wound up by tossing pa up in the blan-
ket until he could see stars. They were going
to give the fat woman a hoist, when the boss
canvasman gave the signal to take down the
tents, and all was in a hubbub for about 15
minutes.
When everything was down and everybody
went to the train, after joining hands around
the middle ring and singing "Old Lang Sine,"
pa and I and the managers went to a hotel to
organize our expedition to the far west in
search of talent for a wild west show that shall
be the greatest ever put under canvas. After
all had gone away, and only pa and I and the
managers were left, it seemed, as we thought
over the incidents of the past season, as though
there had been an earthquake and the whole
show had been blotted out of existence.
3i8
WITH THE CIRCUS
Pa choked up and was going to cry, and I
got my throat full of something so I could not
speak, and the managers began to wipe their
eyes, and pa saved the day by saying: "Oh,
what's the use, let's order up some highballs,"
and when they came, with a red lemonade for
me, pa said: "Well, here's to the people that
crowd around the ticket wagon and fight to
get the first ticket when the window is open,
and go away after the show and say it is the
greatest show ever."
"Hey Rube!" said the manager, and we
drank standing, and pa went out and bought
tickets for Cheyenne, and some beads to give
to the Indians we shall visit in the west.
319
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