David Lannarck, Midget Part 1

David Lannarck, Midget.

by George S. Harney.

_It is very true, that the small things in life are sometimes the most important._ --CHURCHILL

PART ONE

1

In all her days of presenting the spectacular, Cheyenne had never witnessed a more even contest than was now being staged this day in the early autumn of 1932, at the circus grounds in the city's suburbs.

It was a race between a midget and a lout.

The little man ducked under the garish banners portraying the wonders of the Kid Show, raced the interval to the "big top" of the Great International, then back again, closely followed by a lanky oaf whose longer strides evened the contest.

"I'll cut yer ears off," the pursuer snarled, as the midget swung around the pole supporting the snake banner, thus gaining a distance on his enemy. "En I'll cut yer heart out," the big one yelled as he stumbled and almost fell.

As evidence that he would make good his terrifying threat, the lout flourished a clasp-knife in his right hand; with his left, he made futile grabs at the midget's coat tail.

The crowd that watched this contest was not of the circus. It was a gathering of those who came to the lot at an early hour to watch the Circus City set up shop for the one-day stand in this western metropolis. Some of the onlookers were railroad men, off duty; some were cow hands from nearby ranches; a few Indians from the reservation beyond the willow-fringed Lodgepole Creek, lent their stoical presence, while several soldiers from the newly christened Fort Warren with or without official sanction, were on hand to witness the setup.

It was the accepted judgment of those present that the midget and the lout were staging a ballyhoo--a "come-on"--preliminary to the opening of the Kid Show. There was no applause as the little man outwitted his follower by an adroit dodge under the ticket wagon. No one tripped the lout as the race led through the a.s.sembled crowd. If the contest was a part of the day's program, no spectator seemed willing to play "stooge" in this preliminary performance.

Some distance to the north where the two great tents of the main show came together, a group of workmen were operating a stake driver. In this gang the midget knew he would find understanding friends. If he could gain sufficient distance to undertake this straightaway, he would find help. He dived between a spectator's legs, turned to the right, and ran for this haven of hope.

Two things interrupted his plans. A ramshackle auto moved across his path. To avoid collision, the midget veered his course to step in a hole and fall sprawling at the feet of the man clambering out of the machine. His pursuer was on him in an instant. "I tole ye I would cut yer heart out," he panted as he brandished the knife. But before he could execute the threat, the knife was struck from his uplifted hand.

The lout screamed with pain as he grabbed his wrist. "Yu've broke my arm," he shouted as he danced around the big man. "Why don't ye pick on one of yer size?" The stranger took in the situation at a glance.

The slanting forehead and the evil though childish face revealed a moron with whom words of reason would have little effect. He said nothing.

It was the midget who took charge. He scrambled to his feet, took a few deep breaths, brushed the dust off his coat, and ordered the moron back to the side show. "Go back to your mother," he commanded. "Go right back to Mamie and tell her what you've been doing, and tell her all of it. Don't look for your knife; I'll get that for you when you get over your tantrum."

The midget watched the retreating figure. "His mother is a fine woman," he explained to the stranger. "Has charge of costumes and a.s.sists in makeup. That dunce is with her on a few days vacation from a school for the feeble-minded.

"And now, Mister, I want to thank you for your timely help. You probably saved my life, for you can't tell what a half-wit will do, when in a tantrum and armed with a knife. All my life I've had the enmity of half-wits. The big ones tease 'em and they take it out on the little fellow.

"Well, that's that, as dear Marie Dressler says. I certainly am indebted to you, Mister. What's your name, Mister? I surely ought to know the name of the man that probably saved my life."

"My name is Welborn, Sam Welborn. I live quite a distance back in the hills."

"And my name is David Lannarck, and I've got a score of other names besides, to include Shorty, Prince, Runt, Half-Pint, and others. I'm with the Kid Show. I was getting my stuff in shape for the opening when Alfred decided to work on me with that knife. And he about got it done, because there were none of the show people around to take him off me. The spectators thought it was some sort of a pre-exhibition.

"And now, Mr. Welborn, let's go down to the cook tent and get a cup of coffee, and then you can look around the lot until the shows open. I want you to be my guest for the day. I feel that I can never repay you for what you have done. If you ever want any help or aid that a little fellow like me can give, call on me; there are a few things that I can do."

"Well I do need some help, right now," said Welborn. "I want to dispose of a couple of bears."

"Bears? What kind of bears?"

"Two black bear cubs, fat and fine and just ready to be trained. I caught them up in the hills, and find that I have about as much use for them as I would have for a yacht, or a case of smallpox. I've tried turning them loose, but they won't go. Knowing that the show was to be here today, I brought them down in the trailer, hoping some one wanted two healthy cubs to fit into an act or exhibition."

"Bears, bears," mused the midget. "Truth is, Mr. Welborn, I'm not posted on the bear market. Offhand, I would say that they were not worth much to a show that was losing money by the bale. You see, this good old year of '32 is a bust. A depression hits a circus first and hardest. Just now, we are cutting the season and have planned a straightaway back to winter quarters. Instead of going down through Fort Collins, Greeley, Denver, Pueblo, with a swing through Texas, we have canceled everything. We play this Union Pacific right through to Omaha and thence back home by direct rails. So a pair of bear cubs wouldn't be much of an a.s.set right now."

"Anyhow, let's look 'em over while I think up a plan." The midget recovered Alfred's knife from the dust and walked over to the trailer that he noted had a wooden coop of slats aboard. He climbed up on the wheel where he could see two black, wooly objects, scarcely a foot high, and nearly that size in length and breadth.

"They do look fat and in good fur," he commented, "and from the way they are working on the slat on yon side, you won't have them long.

They would be out of the pen in another half-hour."

"That's the point to the whole matter. You just can't keep 'em penned in, and you can't keep 'em barred out. They have reached the pest stage and are incorrigible. Now I didn't expect to get much out of them anyhow," continued Welborn. "If I could find a home for them, where they would earn their keep, I would be willing to give them to such a party. Oh, I know it sounds sort of mushy," he hastened to explain as he noted the questioning look on David's countenance, "but I killed their mother for raiding our truckpatch and hogpen and I found these little fellows up near the den, starving and unable to fend for themselves. I took them home, fed them milk and bread and sugar and brought them up to where they are. But they have reached the stage where something must be done. As you see, they are hard to pen up and it's worse to turn them loose. Life to them is one continuous round of wrestling, sc.r.a.pping, knocking over anything that's loose, and tearing up anything in reach. Whipping them does no good. They cry and beg until you are sorry and then it's to do all over again. I just couldn't kill them; it would be like killing a pet dog. So I just thought that if I could find someone to take them and care for them, it would be good riddance and give me time to go back to my work."

"Well, that solves the problem," said the midget, gleefully. "I've got your party. He's old Fisheye Gleason right here with the show. We can deal with that old buzzard as freely and as profitably as if we were in a cutthroat p.a.w.nshop. Hey, you fellows," he called to some pa.s.sing laborers, "have any of you seen old Fisheye in the last hour?"

"Fisheye is linin' up the wagons in the menag," said one of the men.

"Er he may be up at the marquee tellin' the boss where to route the show," said another. "Maybe he's got Beatty cornered, tellin' him a new plan fer workin' the cats this afternoon," leered another. The leader pointed to the far end of the big animal tent.

"I've got him located," said David. "Now you fix that slat so the bears won't leave for the next hour and we'll work on Fisheye. He has been with this plant ever since Uncle Ben took it out as a wagon show.

Hear him tell it, he set Barnum up in business and loaned the Ringling boys their first money. Fisheye is a romancer, unhampered by facts.

But he's a wise old man at that.

"Fisheye Gleason still has his first dollar. He wears the same corduroy pants that Uncle Ben gave him on his twenty-first birthday.

If we had the time he would tell us his personal experiences with every celebrity in the circus world. We haven't the time, and we've got to work fast and cautious.

"Now Fisheye would balk and walk away on us if we offered him these bears for nothing; he just wouldn't understand it. He d.i.c.kers in animals a little; trains 'em and has 'em doing things right away. He likes 'em and they like old Fisheye. Why, he can take these little bears and have 'em turning somersaults, dancing, and climbing to their perches in no time. Then he sells 'em into some big act.

"Fisheye is our meat for this play, but don't sell out too quick."

Leaving the cubs to the further destruction of their cage, the prospective salesmen wended their way through a maze of sidewalls, poles, unplaced wagons, cages. On past the refreshment booth that was setting up in the central area; past a score of elephants, swaying in contentment over the morning hay; past camels, llamas, zebras, and other luminaries, to the far end of the big tent where a group of laborers were aiding two elephants to line up the last of the cages and vans in a proper circle around the enclosure.

It was all confusing enough to the big Westerner, but the little man knew where to go. He pressed forward to where a little, old, dried up "razorback" was regaling two of the workmen with words of experience if not wisdom.

"'En I told Shako," he declared with emphasis, "that he never could win back old Mom's confidence, till he got a big armload of sugarcane en doled hit out to her. En sh.o.r.e enough when we got to Little Rock and Shako got holt of some sugarcane, he win that old elephant's respect instanter. En that ain't all! When we got to Memphis en hit into that big storm, why ole Mom--" But the audience died away to one man as the midget's voice interrupted.

"Say, Fisheye, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Mr. Welborn. Meet Mr. Welborn, Mr. Gleason. Mr. Welborn here d.i.c.kers a little in native animals and has a couple of the slickest, fattest, neatest bear cubs I've seen in years. He's got too much business to give any time to training them and I told him of your success with animals and he wants to make a deal with you."

"What kind of a deal? And where's yer bars?" Fisheye was alert to the business up to knowing the full import of the deal.

"They are out here in a coop--on a trailer. He brought them down out of the mountains this morning."

"Did ye ketch 'em this mornin'?" queried Fisheye as he followed the two salesmen to the truck.

"Naw, he's had 'em in training for two months. Best of all, he knows how to take care of their hair, how to feed 'em. Look, there they are, alike as two peas and ready to climb a pole or turn a somersault."

Fisheye was peering through the slats. "I wish we had 'em out whar I could see 'em better. Now what's yer deal, Prince? Ye said somethin'

about a deal?"

"Well, it's like this, Fisheye. Mr. Welborn could go right on training these bruins and peddle them through an ad in _Billboard_ for a sure two hundred smackers, surely by Thanksgiving--"