CHAPTER VII
OUR FIRST SHOW
In line with our leader’s plans, we had a rehearsal that afternoon, running the show boat a short distance out of town, so that we could do our rehearsing undisturbed.
Of course, we couldn’t put on the regular show, as it had to be dark to do that. But Scoop dressed in his magician’s suit of white cloth and Peg and I, who worked on the stage as unseen assistants, put on our black suits.
The reason why we were invisible to the audience was because everything back of us on the stage was black. Scoop could be seen because he was dressed in white, with his face and hair powdered white. Lights arranged up and down the sides of the stage, reflected into the audience, dazzled the spectators. Looking into these lights, they could see nothing on the stage that wasn’t white. Dressed in black, a black veil over our faces, Peg and I could move here and there without detection.
The trick consisted of making tables, pitchers, cups and white things like that appear and disappear in a most surprising way. It was an easy trick to perform when one had the necessary stuff. We would have a white table behind a black screen and when we wanted the table to “appear,” Scoop, as the magician, would wave his wand and Peg or I, whoever had hold of the screen, would jerk it away, thus bringing the table, in a flash, into sight of the audience.
Scoop would make pitchers and cups appear and disappear on the white table. To do this, Peg or I would bring the necessary pitcher on the stage, keeping the white article out of sight behind a small black screen. Then we would rest the screen on the table top, with the white pitcher behind it, jerking the screen away at Scoop’s signal, thus making the pitcher “appear.” In the same way we could make cups and saucers appear and disappear—any number of times. We could make white flowers grow out of white flower pots; produce white rabbits from small white cups. By dangling a white ball on the end of a black string, we could make it do many surprising things.
Probably the best trick of all was what we called the “Living Head.” We had a wooden platter, painted white, made so that I could slide my chin over the back edge. To the audience it appeared that my head was resting on the platter. Scoop would carry the platter across the stage, and, of course, I would walk under the platter, for I had to go wherever my head went. To do this trick I had to powder my face white, like Scoop’s, and in the trick, to get a laugh, I was supposed to wink and yawn, sort of droll-like. By keeping my black suit on from my neck down, the audience couldn’t see anything of me except my white head.
Following our rehearsal we ran the Sally Ann to the dock at the central bridge. A lot of kids gathered on the bridge, among them the Striker gang. When we started our hand organ, practically all of Main Street came running to see what was going on.
Red’s big sister came along with some stylish girl friends. But she didn’t stay very long. I guess the sight of Red hurt her pride. Seated on the edge of the ticket stand, megaphone in hand, he was having the time of his life.
“La-adies and gents,” he yipped, “don’t forget the bi-ig show to-night. See Kermann, the great hoodoo magician, who has appeared before all of the crowned heads of Europe. Remember the bi-ig show to-night at eight-thirty. O-only fifteen cents admission. Ten cents for kids.”
“That’s the kind of stuff to hand them,” grinned Scoop, “only don’t call me a ‘hoodoo’ magician. It’s ‘Hindu’ and not ‘hoodoo.’ ”
We could see that the Strickers were jealous of us. They had their heads together, whispering and pointing. I could imagine how cheap they felt. They had tried to bust up our show, but we had been too smart for them.
That evening at the supper table I inquired of Dad if he and Mother were planning to attend our show.
“I should snicker,” he winked. “We wouldn’t miss it for a panful of pickled pretzels.”
“Thirty cents,” I checked off in my mind. A hundred families at thirty cents apiece would be thirty dollars. Hot dog! I could see where we were going to make a barrel of money, all right.
Hurrying back to the boat, where Peg was on guard, I met Scoop, whose arms were full of packages and paper bags.
“Stuff to eat,” he told me.
“Are you going to serve refreshments during the show?” I grinned.
“Hardly. But if we expect to go to Ashton with our show, we might as well start living on the boat first as last. It’ll be fun. To-morrow Pa is going to send down a boiled ham and a bag of potatoes. This is stuff I got at the store for breakfast.”
It began to get dark shortly after eight o’clock, so we lit the big lamp near the ticket stand and the dazzle lamps on the sides of the stage. Red had five dollars’ worth of change handy. He was impatient to begin selling tickets. We were impatient to have him begin—we wanted to see the money pile up in the change box. But, of course, we had to wait with our ticket selling until it was dark enough to go ahead with our show.
People began to gather on the dock, talking and laughing. Scoop’s father and mother were there and so was Peg’s folks. I could see a number of our neighbors in Dad’s party. There was a lot of jolly talk. Dad was cutting up. He was a whole show in himself. Golly Ned! The older I grow the bigger my love gets for my swell dad.
Well, about eight-fifteen Red opened the gate and the waiting kids and the grown people filed past the ticket stand, handing the ticket seller their money. In no time at all the seats were all filled. Dad and Mother were up in front with Red’s mother. Mr. Meyers couldn’t come, because, as owner of the Lyric theater, he had to work.
Selling his last ticket, Red shut the gate, setting the boat free of its tie ropes. Pretty soon the scow was moving slowly down the canal.
Scoop was behind the big black screen, and at his signal we jerked the screen away, making him “appear.” He bowed and everybody clapped their hands.
Having carefully rehearsed our parts we knew just what to do and when to do it. Everything went off fine. We made two tables appear, one on each side of the stage. Then we made a pitcher appear on one table and a flower pot on the other. In the course of the performance I went back of the curtain to prepare myself for the “Living Head” trick.
Scoop told the audience that he would now perform his greatest feat. That was my cue. Putting a black screen in front of my powdered head, so that I wouldn’t be seen, I slipped my chin over the edge of the white wooden platter. Scoop waved his wand and Peg jerked away the screen.
There was a ripple of laughter.
“Hi, Jerry!” some kid in the audience called out.
“Who cut your head off, Jerry?” another yelled.
“It can’t be Jerry,” I heard Dad say, “because it looks too clean.”
I grinned.
“Cut it out,” Scoop hissed. “You aren’t supposed to be alive yet.”
So I shut my eyes and drew down my face, sober-like, which set everybody to laughing again. You can see I was good.
Scoop went on with his performance. And at the proper time, at his command, I slowly opened my eyes. As I did so I felt something touring around on the back of my neck. I hadn’t any doubt what it was, for the air was full of pinch bugs. Not small ones, but the big kind, that sort of swoop down on a fellow and grab a hunk of skin and start gnawing. I tried to wriggle my neck, to make the bug fly away. But it hung on like a plaster.
“Ouch!” I screeched, when the hungry skin eater had started in on his supper.
The audience roared. It probably did look funny to them; but, let me tell you, it wasn’t funny to me.
Scoop stepped to the front of the stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he grinned, “our ‘Living Head’ has been punctured by a pinch bug, so we will have to end the show and send for a plumber.”
We had carefully instructed Red that he was to reverse the propeller at a certain point in the show, timing our excursion so that we would get back to the dock at nine o’clock, a few minutes after the show came to an end.
So, as I left the stage, rubbing the back of my neck, I had no other thought than that we were within sight of the dock. Consider my surprise, therefore, to learn that we were still a half mile in the country.
Getting out of my suit I hurried to the rear deck to see if Red needed help.
“Something’s wrong,” he told me, turning a pair of anxious eyes on me.
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t move. See?” and he pointed to the trees that grew along the canal bank.
He was right. The engine was working; the propeller was churning; but the boat wasn’t moving a hair.
“Everything was working slick,” he said. “Then, all of a sudden, the boat stopped dead still. That was five—ten minutes ago. Since then we haven’t moved an inch.”
“Maybe we’re on a sand bar.”
“It acts to me as though the blamed boat is bewitched.”
He was thinking of the whispering ghost.
“When do we go home?” a voice in the audience called out good-naturedly.
“Pretty quick,” I called back.
“What’s the matter?” Scoop inquired, appearing at my elbow.
I told him that we weren’t moving.
“The propeller’s turning,” he said, looking into the water.
“Sure thing. But the boat is standing still.”
“Something’s got hold of it,” spoke up Red.
“What do you mean?” Scoop inquired sharply.
“He thinks it’s the ghost,” I put in.
“Bunk! I’d sooner think it’s a trick of the Strickers.”
“But how——” I began.
My words broke off sharply as something struck me on the leg and rattled to the deck. Stooping, I picked up a small metal washer. There was a rolled-up note in the disc’s bore.
Here is what I read:
There is a rope stretched across the canal.
THE FRIENDLY GHOST.
Well, when we got back to town, after having cut the Strickers’ rope, we tried to figure out among ourselves who the friendly ghost was. That it was a man, we could not doubt. The note had been tossed to us out of the darkness. Obviously the “ghost” had been close to our boat, probably in a boat of his own. Yet we had seen no small boat in the canal.
Who was he? Why was he taking sides with us against the Strickers? Was he constantly keeping near us? It would seem so. Even as we discussed the mystery, he probably was within hearing of our voices.
But why had he, a man, signed himself “The Friendly Ghost”? Did he intend that we should believe that he was a ghost?
In a vague way we had the feeling that there was a hidden connection between our show and the unknown man’s visit to the boat the night the Strickers had sought to destroy our stuff. It was because of our show that he was keeping near us … watching us.
What we didn’t suspect was the startling adventure that lay ahead of us as showmen. We realized that we were involved in a mystery; but, for the most part, it seemed to be a rather commonplace affair. It puzzled us but didn’t excite us. We little dreamed, as I say, of what was coming.
After a while we gave our attention to other things of importance to us, for we seemed to make no progress in our discussion of the “ghost.”
Red had sold thirty fifteen-cent tickets and twenty-five ten-cent tickets. As a result, we were richer by seven dollars. I had expected to make more. But I wasn’t dissatisfied. For I realized now that I had been too enthusiastic. As a matter of fact, seven dollars was good pay for our work.
“If we can do this well all through vacation,” Red said, looking ahead, “we’ll take in four or five hundred dollars. Whoopee!”
“Let’s send up town and get some ice cream and celebrate,” suggested Peg.
“I second the motion,” laughed Scoop. “Hey, Jerry, ol’ money bag, separate yourself from fifty cents. We’re going to have a party.”
The ice cream put away inside of our stomachs, we went to bed, between ten and eleven o’clock, three of us sleeping and the fourth standing guard. I was a long time getting to sleep. I kept thinking of the money that we were going to earn and the good time that we were going to have. When I finally got to sleep I dreamt that I was sitting on an ice cream cone a mile high. Five-dollar bills were flying around my head like birds.
“Cut it out!” Scoop growled, giving me a dig in the ribs.
In grabbing at the flying greenbacks, I had pinched his nose!