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.
He kept on sneezing, and looking so astounded, 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 bellowed and cried and sneezed all at once, and pawed pa. He got up and told me I was overdoing this waking up act on the animals.
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 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, because 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 I laid about half a pound of snuff on the side of 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 coming, for just as pa got to the tank the water flew into the air like a torpedo had exploded 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 complimented me by saying I had saved the show from becoming 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 performers and freaks, ’cause they were getting to be dead ones.
Well, before the day was over at Wilmington, Del., pa was scared worse than he ever was in all his life before. The state of Delaware 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 horsewhipped. 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 whipping 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 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 Delaware 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 Mormon, in Utah, with 40 wives, and several hundred children, and long whiskers. I am a changed man, Hennery, and afraid of my shadow.”
CHAPTER XVI
A Senator’s Son Bets the Bad Boy That Elephants 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 envied 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 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 in on me. I got to liking the senator’s son and had him come in the tent, and we put in the
afternoon 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 senator’s son said elephants 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 elephants 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 for mushrooms.”
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 afternoon 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 elephants 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 turning 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 ministers, negroes, society people and clerks. That senator’s son and the whole family, and the neighbors, must have been up all night catching 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 the elephant stunt, and when the thing was ripe we were to empty the whole mess of vermin 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 Japanese 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 outside 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 middle ring, and the great audience leaned forward to catch every trick the elephants did.
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 mistake. Finally the trainer formed the whole herd into a grand pyramid, with old Bolivar in the center, each elephant holding an American 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 reserved seats.
Oh, dear, what a time we had. The elephants got down off that pyramid so quick it would make your head swim, and old Bolivar 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 pyramid and hold them there till the bell rung for them to cease their stunt. The trainer couldn’t do anything with them, and they bellowed 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 circus 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 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 something, 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. Everybody 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 afternoon, and wondering what the young senator’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 elephants and wondering if they were cowards by nature, or had acquired cowardice by associating 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 business, 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 far 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. Wherever you go, I will go, and I will keep you awake, don’t fear. Now that we are going 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.
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 pyrami
d. 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 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 elephants 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 possession 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 animals, or insects, or whatever they are, you ought to come down off your perch and take them to a Keeley cure, because they are intoxicated.”
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