Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus Part 9

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. Everything 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 Washington 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 performers 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 n.i.g.g.e.rs the game laws were not very strict about it, 'cause the open season on n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 traveling 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 whole population, princ.i.p.ally n.i.g.g.e.rs, 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 Dennis smoking cigarettes with a dress suit on, and eating with a knife and fork and a napkin tucked under his chin, were surrounded by crowds. It was plain that all the people cared for was to see the monk.

The managers held a council of war and decided 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 performance.

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 gloves, and had a tail fastened with a safety pin, that would deceive the oldest showman in the business. When the crowd was the biggest, in the middle ring, the keeper led me out of the dressing room with a chain. The announcement was made by the barker that Dennis, 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 entertain the most select audience that had ever been under the tent. Then I was dragged into the ring and put on the platform.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Keeper Who Trained the Ourang outang Took Me in Hand.]

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 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 suspicious, 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 the attention of the audience and told them not to be unreasonable. He 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 hospital, and while we always carry the tail along, it was only used when a critical audience demanded it, but if this refined audience so desired the tail would be attached to the intelligent animal.

The crowd yelled: "Pin 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 Virginia 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 patting 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 word. The attendant brought in the coffee and I took a couple of swallows, when I realized 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 filled 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 n.i.g.g.e.r," 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: He Hit Me Right in the Eye.]

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, 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 pepper 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 run over a lot of negroes, which pleased the audience, and they let us off without killing us. They got me back to the dressing-room 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 you for wanting to punch that boy who called you a little n.i.g.g.e.r, 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 business was the feature of the show to-day."

We went out and found a boy that looked like the one that sa.s.sed 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 lawyer we met on the cars came to the show, and said we would all be arrested for not performing 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 constrictor 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 n.o.body was arrested, except the negroes that got run over in the chariot race.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Circus People Visit a Southern Plantation--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 disgusted 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 account of a freshet.

It was all on account of our taking an afternoon 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 nutting for chestnuts and hickory nuts, pick apples and run them through a cider mill and drink self-made cider, and have a good time.

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 100 negroes, pa.s.sed things around. They all seemed to be interested 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 sa.s.sy 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 swear that at the time the crime was committed 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 committed, 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.

n.i.g.g.e.r, 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 confesses 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 anybody 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.

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 paralyzed a pack of hounds. She wanted to hug me and let me kiss her, but I said I pa.s.sed, 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 Tresspa.s.sing," 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 bloodhounds that would eat people alive, and if he heard hounds barking to run like a whitehead 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 attack 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 squirreling up among the limbs, when suddenly, in the distance came the bay of the pack of bloodhounds, 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 n.i.g.g.e.rs, 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 entering the woods, and the planter cut a club to beat off the dogs. Pa looked as innocent as John Wanamaker's picture addressing a Sunday 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 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 trembled 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 intelligent 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 cloth of pa's clothes right below where his suspenders b.u.t.ton on and held on, and shook pa real hard, but the cloth was tough and didn't tear. Pa suddenly seemed to be endowed with superhuman strength, for he drew himself up on the limb and raised the dog from the ground, and all the pack came around the tree and set up a howl that scared pa so the perspiration 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. Confederate, 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 suspenders much longer. If this is southern hospitality, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Here, Mr. Confederate, I Am Not a Union Prisoner."]

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 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 gauntlet. 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 between 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I Yelled Murder and Ran Between the Giant's Legs.]