Side Show Studies Part 1

Side Show Studies.

by Francis Metcalfe.

THE LIBERTY OF FRANZ AND THE REBELLION OF FUZZY WUZZY

Madame Morelli, the pretty little Frenchwoman who makes a half-score of leopards, panthers and jaguars do things which nature never intended them to do, had finished her act and driven the snarling performers through the narrow runway to their separate cages, fastening each one, as she thought, securely. Two French clowns were filling in the time and making the audience of Coney Island pleasure seekers laugh by their antics with a performing dog, while the stage hands were bringing in the properties for the next trained animal act, when the Proprietor came from behind the scenes and strolled, apparently unconcerned, to the back of the Arena, where he could command a clear view of the performance, the audience and the cages. He said a few words to each of the trainers and keepers whom he pa.s.sed, and the Stranger, who knew the clock-like regularity with which each one of them went through his allotted duties, noticed an unwonted haste and suppressed excitement among them.

As he joined the Proprietor the sound of hammering mingled with the noise of the blatant bra.s.s band and the cries of the ballyhoo spielers for the other Dreamland attractions, which came in through the open windows, and he saw that Stevenson, the mild eyed quiet man who is always on hand to rescue imperiled trainers and keepers when their own carelessness, or unexpected revolt on the part of the animals, leads to a fight, was rapidly nailing boards over the ventilating s.p.a.ces above the cages. Madam Morelli, whip and training rod in hand, hurried from her dressing room to the runway, and every keeper and trainer seemed to be loitering in the s.p.a.ce between the leopards' den and the audience.

He looked at the Proprietor inquiringly, but the little trickle of blood which ran down his cheek from under his cap answered the question he would have asked, an animal was loose and the Proprietor had encountered it in his rounds. A crash of weird music from the band drowned the sound of a cracking whip and sharp commands which came from the runway, and announced the appearance of Brandu, the snake charmer, in the exhibition cage, and the audience watched him play with a cobra, all unconscious that Franz, the jaguar, which a few minutes before had desisted from his attempt to tear the fair shoulders of Morelli only after a dozen blank cartridges had been fired in his face, was a gentleman-at-large in Dreamland. The Proprietor gave a sigh of relief as the jaguar backed into his cage from the runway, snarling and striking at the little woman who forced him backward with the whip until she was able to slam the door and make him once more a prisoner. When she pa.s.sed them on her way back to the dressing-room, her dress was torn, and her eyes were flashing from the excitement of the encounter and anger at the carelessness of the carpenter who had left a board loose at the top of the den.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The table in front of the Arena._]

"Of course, that might have been a serious thing for the jaguar and for my pocket book," said the Proprietor as three deep scratches in his head were being plastered up. "I couldn't afford to take any chances of an accident, and he would have been shot if he had attempted to come through a ventilator into the Arena, but a trained animal like that is worth a goodish bit of money. He let me know he was loose by giving me his love pat when I was walking through the runway, and as Morelli is the only one who can do anything with him I sent for her. She can whip considerably more than her own weight in wild-cats, and there was not the slightest danger to the audience, but not many men would have relished her task of going into that pa.s.sage with the beast loose on top of the cages." He negatived the Press Agent's suggestion to make a scare-head story of the escape for the papers, and suggested that they should go up and hear Madam Morelli's account of it. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, mending a rip which the jaguar's sharp claws had made in her gown, and she shrugged her shoulders when the Stranger inquired if she had been hurt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Two French clowns and a performing dog._]

"It was nothing," she said laughing. "He jumped at me from the top of a cage when I came in, but I beat him off and whipped him back into his cage. It was only the close quarters which made it bad, for I am used to fighting them." She was interrupted by a yapping and caterwauling in the doorway, and sprang on the bed, her face white with terror, as a small terrier and the menagerie cat rolled into the room in a clawing, biting mix-up. The terrier was raising a litter of puppies in the next room, and the cat had transformed the s.p.a.ce back of Morelli's bed into a feline nursery, and a meeting of the two anxious mothers in the hall had led to trouble. Madam Morelli always goes through her performance in an evening dress, and she stood on the bed, her long train gathered closely about her, trembling like a leaf, when the Proprietor finally separated the combatants and restored peace.

"You wouldn't think that a woman who had just come from a fight with a two hundred pound jaguar, which could easily tear her to pieces, would be scared at a sc.r.a.p between a toy terrier and a mongrel cat," said the Proprietor, laughing, as he led the way to the cafe table. "But she makes a specialty of the larger species."

"This matter of specialties seems to run through every branch of the show business," said the Press Agent as they took their seats at the table. "I ran a dime museum in St. Louis a few years ago--in those days there was lots of money in it--and the freaks would never stand for any change in their billing. We used to have a fresh lot sent on by our New York agent every two weeks, and one Monday morning when I went down to look over the new arrivals, I knew that he had been up against the demon Rum, when he engaged such a tough looking bunch. The alleged fat woman looked as if she was wasting away with consumption, and the bearded lady had a way of absentmindedly humming the popular airs in a ba.s.s voice which gave the whole snap away. There was one likely looking girl and when I asked her what she was she told me she was the web-footed lady and showed me her feet, which had little pieces of skin growing between the toes.

"I knew that wasn't good enough, so I told her she was mistaken; that she was a Circa.s.sian beauty, and I gave her a wig and the fixings and put her on the platform. But say, would you believe it? She was so mad and embarra.s.sed by the change in her stunt that when the lecturer was calling attention to her blond beauty, she would blush until she looked like an Indian Princess, and every time he turned his back she would take off her shoes and wiggle her toes at the audience to show what she really was.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Things which Nature never intended them to do."_]

"It was up to us to get some real attraction to tide over the time until our agent should get sober and send us another bunch of freaks, so Merritt, who was my partner, and myself hunted up a big buck n.i.g.g.e.r and made a deal with him to go on as a 'Wild Man.' We ripped up a hair mattress and glued the contents onto him, and wired a couple of big tusks to his teeth, and with an iron collar around his neck and a log chain around his waist he was as good an imitation as was ever faked. We put him in a big cage which we had used the week before for a mangy old lion; one of the five hundred or so 'Wallace the Untamables' which were touring the country, and Merritt taught him to howl like a steam calliope.

"We called him 'Fuzzy Wuzzy, the Terrible Man-Eating Cannibal,' which was a waste of words, but Merritt had language to burn. He had got hold of a phony five hundred dollar bill, and when he was giving his spiel about how Fuzzy Wuzzy was captured upon a desert island, where he was found chewing a human leg, and how he couldn't eat anything but raw meat, and was always trying to get at his keeper for dessert, he would wave his phony five hundred spot over his head and give it to 'em good.

"'Five hundred dollars, ladies and gents, I will give to any man who will remain for the short s.p.a.ce of two minutes in the cage with Fuzzy Wuzzy! Five hundred dollars to any man who is brave enough to run the risk of letting this terrible man-eating cannibal get his hinder limbs about him, for then all would be lost and Fuzzy Wuzzy would fasten his terrible fangs in his victim's throat and suck his ber-lud.'

"Well, it was a good spiel, all right, all right, and when Merritt struck that part one of the supers would prod up old Fuzzy, who would rattle his chains and howl for fair, and the audience would get cold chills down their backs. We were playing to the S. R. O., and giving so many shows a day that Merritt pretty nearly lost his voice, and Fuzzy had been prodded so much that he had to take his meals standing up. We ran 'em through pretty fast, and one afternoon Merritt was just going to give the 'All out' signal, which cleared the exhibition hall for the next performance, when up steps a big husky black roustabout from the levee and commences to strip off his coat.

"'Jes' a minit, boss,' says he. 'Ah reckon ah needs dat five hundred in mah bizness,' and Merritt looks at him in astonishment.

"'My deluded colored brother,' says he, 'Do you appreciate the fact that you are going to a certain and horrible death? If this terrible Fuzzy Wuzzy gets his hinder limbs about you he will suck your ber-lud.'

"'Ah doan reckon he'll git me, an' ah suttenly needs de money,' answers the c.o.o.n, and continues to strip, and Merritt sizes him up and sees the finish of Fuzzy Wuzzy, who was shaking the bars and trying to get away from the super who was prodding him; but everybody thought he was trying to get at the c.o.o.n to make a meal of him, and some of the women folks were getting hysterics. One of the boys had put me wise, and I broke through the crowd and called a halt in the proceedings.

"'Ladies and gentlemen,' says I, 'I didn't believe that a man existed who was foolhardy enough to be tempted to certain death by the lure of a paltry five hundred dollars. But although this man is so reckless of his own life, I must insist that he get a permit from the mayor, relieving us from all responsibility, before we allow him to be torn limb from limb. Return to-morrow at two o'clock, and if this man's courage still keeps up, you will see before your shuddering eyes an encounter which will make the historical gladiatorial combats of ancient Rome pale into insignificance.' I could sling a few language myself, those days, and the mayor was a friend of mine--or I thought he was--so I figured we could catch the suckers for an admission and then call it off, because he would refuse a permit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Blank cartridges fired in his face."_]

"But he was onto the game and he was one of those blame fools who thought he had a sense of humor, so he gives him a doc.u.ment with a big red seal on it which looks like a doctor's diploma, which says that Thomas Jefferson is allowed to go in and win our five hundred, and the next day the c.o.o.n shows up smiling and ready, and I knew we had to make good somehow. I pa.s.sed the word to Merritt to delay the game and make a last grand effort to throw a scare into the c.o.o.n, and he put up a spiel to beat the band.

"'This terrible Fuzzy Wuzzy has none of the attributes of a human being,' says he. 'He lives upon raw meat and would prefer human flesh if he could get it. Observe the expression of ghoulish glee in his eyes as he regards the foolhardy man who will soon furnish him such a meal as he formerly enjoyed in his native jungle. He sleeps at night suspended from the top bars of his cage by his claw-like hands and feet, which will soon be tearing the flesh of this man who stands before you now, a picture of perfect health and strength. He speaks no intelligible language, but he utters howls and yells, which will be more horrible than ever before when he is sucking the warm heart's be-lud of the figure which you see before you for the last time in human shape.' Just then the super gives Fuzzy a prod and he howls like Balaam's a.s.s, but the c.o.o.n stands there smiling and not feazed a bit.

"'It's a sad sight,' continues Merritt, 'to see a fine man in the prime of life, like our colored brother here, crushed into an unrecognizable ma.s.s by the terrible hinder limbs of this man-eating cannibal and then torn to shreds by his horrible fangs. The management of this highly moral and intellectual show will provide a funeral for the remains, if there are any, and now, ladies and gents, I call upon you to witness that we are not responsible for the terrible end which awaits this reckless man.'

"I had taken the precaution to b.u.t.ton up the box office 'take' in my inside pocket, and while Merritt was making a bluff at looking for the key to the cage door I looked around to see that there was a free exit, for the c.o.o.n was standing there swelling out his chest and grinning as if he had the five hundred already in his jeans, and I knew he couldn't be bluffed out. Just then a typical antebellum Missourian, one of the kind that has to be shown, steps up in front. He was tanked up until his safety valve would have blown off if it hadn't been wired down, but he was pretty steady on his pins when he held onto the railing in front of the cage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Five hundred dollars to any one who will enter the cage."_]

"'Professah,' says he, 'did I undahstand yo' all correctly to say that this yeah object in the cage has none of the attributes of the human race?'

"'Correct!' says Merritt, glad of an excuse to delay things. 'He is lower than the beasts of the field.'

"'Well, he suttenly aint much to look at,' says the Southerner, looking him over carefully. 'He won't eat like folks--he can't talk--an' he sleeps like a bat. I dunno why such a pusillanimous critter should c.u.mber the yearth,' and with that he puts his hand to his hip and pulls out a forty-five from under the tails of his coat. Fuzzy takes one look at it, and it didn't need any prodding to make him holler, and he tries to tear off the false tusks.

"'Foh Gawd's sake, mistah, doan shoot!' he yells. 'Dat white mahn's been tellin' a pa.s.sel ob lies about me until ah's sartain suah somefing gwine fer to git me. Ah can eat an' talk like any one, an' mos' ebery one knows me about yeah wen ah ain't got dese yeah contraptions on.'

"'Shut up, you blame fool!' says Merritt. 'He won't shoot you.'

"'Mebbe he knows dat, mebbe you knows dat; but how does I know dat?'

yells Fuzzy. 'Dat gun suttenly looks big to me.'

"About this time the other c.o.o.n got wise and saw the five hundred vanishing, and the last I saw of Merritt he was trying to break a half-Nelson that the c.o.o.n had got on him and dodge the rest of the crowd at the same time. I left St. Louis on a freight that night, wearing a few lumps where some stray brickbats landed, and the next time I saw Merritt was in Chicago, and he was on crutches and had his head covered with plaster."

No thunderbolt dropped from the blue dome over the Dreamland tower, and the Proprietor, with a childlike and bland smile on his face, motioned to the waiter to refill the gla.s.ses.

THE BITE OF A RATTLER AND THE SAD FATE OF BIG PETE

THE BITE OF A RATTLER AND THE SAD FATE OF BIG PETE

Like the pitcher which went to the well until it met the proverbial fate, the trainer entered the lion's den once too often, and what remained of him was placed in an ambulance and taken to the hospital.

After the performance for the evening was over, Baltimore, the bad lion, who had suddenly developed a craving for human flesh, had been dealt with by the Proprietor of the menagerie in a manner which would spoil his appet.i.te for many a day to come and make him remember that trainers cannot be mangled with impunity.

Most of the lights were extinguished at Dreamland, but two men sat at the table in front of the Arena with the Proprietor, discussing the accident and listening to stories of former encounters which he related. His own body bears the scars of many a battle with his savage charges, but he has discontinued giving personal exhibitions with them in the large cage, because his wife has developed a prejudice against having him brought to her in fragments, and he has found that the training of trainers is a far more difficult task than the education of wild animals.

"Yes, any man who follows this business carries his life in his hands,"

he said in answer to a question from the Stranger within the gates. "You helped to care for poor Bonavita to-night, after Baltimore finished with him, so you know what a lion's jaws can do. I've seen 'em chewed up as bad as that and get over it, but they never get quite the same again.

Leave the business? No; it is like the sea: a man who takes to it keeps it up until the time comes when he doesn't recover, but after a bad accident he usually takes another breed of animals.

"The worst sight I ever saw was about five years ago, when one of our performing bears turned on its trainer and seized his arm. He worried it as a terrier would a bone for a good twenty minutes before we could drive him off, and the bear died from the punishment we gave him. The man's arm isn't much use to him now, but he is crazy for me to give him another group of animals to train, which I can't do because a man needs two good pairs of limbs when he gets into the exhibition cage." He told of many accidents which had happened to himself and his employees, most of them through their own carelessness, born of constant a.s.sociation with their charges who never miss the opportunity which the shortest instant of forgetfulness gives them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"A constant procession of small animals moving down his throat."_]

"I said that bear attack was the worst sight I ever saw, and it was; but something happened here last year which impressed me more because it was so mysterious. A friend of mine in Florida shipped me a box of rattlers, which he wrote had been 'attended to,' and I supposed that their poison fangs had been extracted. They were delivered just before the performance started and I ripped a board off the box and stuck my hand in, grabbing them one by one and throwing them into the den as if they were garter snakes.