“SAY, ain’t this bully!” exclaimed Ferd, as the procession which begins each circus performance wound slowly around the arena. “It’s immense! I wouldn’t ’a’ missed it fer a lot. I’m glad I met you. Now I’ve got half a dollar more to spend on stuff to eat. Besides, this is a better seat than I would ’a’ got.”
“Yes, the seats are all right,” admitted Jack.
“Ain’t you hungry?” went on Ferd, though he did not take his eyes off the procession of animals, chariots and performers. “I am,” he continued, not waiting for an answer. “Let’s have some hot frankfurter sandwiches.”
A man with a basket of them was passing among the audience. Jack eyed the brown sausages, in between the white rolls, with a hungry eye. The crackers, cheese, and pie had not been very “filling.”
“Hey, there! Give us some of them,” called Ferd to the man.
“How many? Speak quick. I’ve got to get out of here in a hurry, before the performance begins,” replied the vender.
“Four,” replied the farmer boy. “Ye can eat two, can’t ye?” he inquired of Jack, who nodded his head in assent.
“Say, these are all right,” remarked the runaway lad, as he munched the meat and bread, on which had been spread a liberal quantity of mustard. “I’m glad I met you, Ferd.”
“Then we’re even. But here comes the acrobats. I like to watch ’em,” he added, as the procession came to an end, amid a blare of trumpets, and the show proper began.
It was like any other traveling circus, better than some, but not as good as the large ones, even though the gaudy posters did announce that the “Combined Bower & Brewster Aggregation of Monster Menagerie, Hippodrome, Amphitheatre and Colossal Exhibition challenged comparison with any similar amusement enterprise in the entire world.”
“Look at that clown!” exclaimed Ferd. “Why, there’s a whole lot of ’em,” he added. “Gosh! but this is great! I never saw such a good show! I don’t know which way to look!”
In fact, so many things were going on at the same time that it was difficult to select any particular feature for observation.
There were men and women on high trapezes, others doing balancing feats on elevated platforms, still others performing on the backs of horses, while in a ring near the two boys ten elephants were being put through their paces.
Jack had often been to a circus before, and now, from a reason for which he could hardly account, he paid particular attention to the antics of the clowns.
“I believe I could do as good as some of them, with a little practice,” he thought. “What is needed is some sort of funny stunt to make the people laugh. It doesn’t much matter what it is, as long as it’s funny.”
The clowns did seem to cause considerable laughter. Some of them had trained dogs, pigs or roosters which they used in their act. Others had a partner who aided them in provoking smiles or shouts of glee. Some did acrobatic stunts, some sang or danced, and one, with the help of a companion, acted as a barber using a whitewash brush to spread the lather on his partner’s face.
“This is the kind of life that would suit me for a while,” said Jack to himself. “I’d like to travel with a circus, and I believe I could do as good as some of those clowns, if I had a chance. What’s more, I’m going to try for a job here. I’ll ask the boss canvasman if there isn’t a chance. I’d just like to be with the show, and maybe I could earn enough money in the season to pay my way to China, and see what has happened to my folks.”
This thought so occupied Jack that he paid little attention to the performance. He made up his mind he would seek out one of the managers, as soon as the show was over, and make his request.
“Say! Look at that! Did ye see it?” suddenly exclaimed Ferd.
“See what?”
“Why, that man jumped over ten elephants in a line!”
“That’s pretty good,” remarked Jack indifferently.
“Pretty good? I should say it was. I’d like to see you do it.”
“I think I’ll do it,” spoke Jack, who had just arrived at a certain decision.
“What? Jump over ten elephants?” asked his companion, in astonishment. “Say, are you dreamin’?”
“That’s right; I guess I was,” admitted Jack, with a laugh. “I was thinking about something else.”
“Guess you don’t care much about a circus,” said Ferd.
“I’m thinking too much of getting a job,” replied Jack.
Ferd shook his head as if he could not understand Jack’s indifference. After the performance the farm boy wanted to treat Jack to popcorn, soda, and more frankfurters. Jack declined everything but the sausage sandwiches.
“I can save them to eat when I’m hungry,” he said in explanation. “I may need a meal to-night.”
“Why don’t you come home and stay with me a few days?” suggested Ferd. “My folks wouldn’t care, and maybe you could get a job somewhere in the neighborhood.”
Jack thanked his new friend, but said he had other plans. A little later he parted from Ferd, and, by inquiring, he found the boss canvasman, who was taking a rest after his labors in superintending the erection of the tents.
Jack explained what he wanted—an introduction to the manager, who had charge of hiring the performers.
“Sure I’ll take you to him,” replied Ike Landon, “only I don’t believe you can do anything he’d want. Circus performers have to train for a good while.”
“Well, maybe I can do something to earn a little,” replied Jack. “Where will I find the manager? What’s his name?”
“His name is Jim Paine, and he’s a strict manager, let me tell you. But if you make good, why, he’s all right. Come on over and I’ll introduce you to him.”
Jack followed the canvasman across the circus grounds, from which most of the audience had gone. Preparations were already under way for the evening performance.
“Mr. Paine, here’s a lad who wants to join our circus,” remarked Landon, with a grin, as he presented Jack. “He did me a good turn this morning, and I’d like to help him if I could.”
“Ha! Hum!” exclaimed the manager, looking at Jack sharply. The runaway noticed that Mr. Paine was a very pompous sort of person. He wore a red vest, with yellow spots on it, a big red tie, in which sparkled a large stone, and he had an immense watch chain.
Jack wondered if the manager was not going to say anything more than “Ha! Hum!” But presently the big man made another remark.
“What can you do?” he asked.
“Well, not very much, perhaps,” replied Jack. “I’d like to learn to be a clown, but I’d be willing to knock around and do almost anything for a while, until I learned the business.”
“Run away from home?” asked the manager snappily.
“Yes,” replied Jack quickly, determined to tell as much as was necessary of what had happened.
“Ha! Hum! First time I ever knew a boy who had run away from home to admit it,” spoke the manager. “You deserve credit for that, anyway. What’s the trouble?”
Thereupon Jack told of the unjust accusation of the old professor, and what had happened to him since he had left Westville.
“So you want to be a clown, eh?” said the manager when Jack’s story was finished. “Had any training?”
“I used to take the part in amateur shows me and my chums got up, and I did a stunt on a vaudeville stage one night.”
“Let’s see what you can do?”
Jack’s heart beat fast. Here was the very chance he wanted. Could he “make good?” So much depended on the first impression.
“Is there a place where I can make-up?” he asked.
“Make-up? Do you know how to make-up?”
“A little bit.”
“Well, if Ike Landon says you helped him, you must be all right, for he’s a hard man to please. If you’re going to have a try-out, you might as well do it proper. You can go to the dressing-tent.”
“Where is it?”
“Right over there,” and the manager pointed. “Ike will show you. Tell Sam Kyle to give him a hand,” the manager called after the boss canvasman. “I’ll wait here for him,” he added.
“Say, you’re in luck,” said Ike. “It ain’t many he’d give such a chance to. Do you know what you’re going to do?”
“A little.”
Jack was introduced to a small, fat man, who, in the men’s dressing-tent, was busy washing the red and white paint off his face.
“Sam is the head clown,” explained the canvasman. “He’s been in the business—let’s see, how long is it now, Sam?”
“Forty years this season. I was one of the first clowns that Barnum ever hired. You’ll find some grease paint over there,” he added to Jack; and then he and the canvasman began to talk about matters connected with the circus, paying no more attention to the runaway lad.
Jack was quite nervous, but he made-up after an original idea of his own. He turned his coat and vest wrongside out, and, with the aid of Ike, put them on backwards. Then, feeling rather foolish over what he was about to do, he stepped from the dressing-tent and walked over to where the manager had said he would wait for him.
Several of the performers who saw Jack emerge laughed at his curious costume and “make-up.”
“Well, I must look funny, no matter how I feel,” he said. “I hope I can do my funny dance.”
“Ha! Hum!” exclaimed the manager, when he saw Jack. “That’s not so bad. Let’s see what you can do.”
A crowd of performers, and some of the circus helpers, gathered in a ring about the boy. Then Jack began. He repeated some of the things he had done in the theatre at home, but added to them. He sang, he danced, and cut all sorts of capers, gaining more and more confidence in himself as he heard the crowd laughing. He even detected a smile on the rather grim face of the manager.
Then, to cap his performance, Jack caught up a couple of paper-covered hoops, or rings, similar to those through which some of the performers jumped from the backs of running horses. Holding these under his arms, like a pair of wings, he began to imitate a clumsy bird. He hopped up on a board that rested across a saw-horse, and, from that elevation, pretended to fly to the ground, but doing it so grotesquely that he stepped through both hoops and was all tangled up in them.
This produced some hearty laughs, and one or two of the women performers applauded, for Ike had whispered to them what Jack’s trial meant.
“Ha! Hum! Not so bad,” remarked the manager, though his voice was not very cordial. “That imitation flying was well done. That might be worked up. I think we can use another clown, as I’m one short. I’ll engage you, young man. You’ll get ten dollars a week, and your board, of course. Can you come right on the road?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ha! Hum! Well, perhaps we can work you into shape. You need some practice, but it’s not so bad; it’s not so bad. You can consider yourself engaged. Report to Sam Kyle.”
Jack could hardly believe his good luck. An hour before he had not known where his next meal was coming from. Now he was engaged as a clown in a large circus.