THE CONCERT MANAGER TELLS THE BOYS AN ELEPHANT YARN.
The concert manager looked like a corn doctor who had dressed up to go to the City Hall for his license. He always wore a long black coat, and when a healthy ray of sunshine hit it square in the back it threw off a glare like a locomotive reflector. He had a smooth face, wore his hair long, and it was his proudest boast that once down in Texarkana he had been asked if he was William Jennings Bryan. As the question was put by a swarthy Democrat who wanted to buy “sumthin’,” he said he was, and they both liquored up the rest of the afternoon, and no discoveries.
The Concert Manager had sifted the English language down to about nine five-syllable words, and the rest of his talk was only ordinary. His voice was his big hit. He could stand on the elevated stage between Ring One and Ring Two, and no matter what was going on hit every ear drum with his gag about “directly after the performance,” “you need not leave your seats,” and that “the gentlemanly ushers would soon pass along selling tickets.” His voice got him all of the announcing, and he had a shape that always cast him for some big guy with fake whiskers when they were doing anything spectacular for the entree.
He loved to address the multitude. Let the gang sit down on the ring bank for a chat before the night show, and it was he to cut in with a talk—something he knew all about and which had the rest of the boys winging before he hit the end of the first chapter. He had more different kinds of talk than any man in the outfit, and he always yearned to be handing it out. In the winter he ran a hall show with a company that would take a fall out of anything from “Hamlet” to a melodrama with three big effects and a wholesale killing in each act. The gang was telling hard luck stories when he came across the track, and he was ready with one at the first cue.
“‘Say, boys,’ he said with one of those back platform gestures, ‘I’ll tell you the star hard luck story—say, the best, and no appeal. Me, a long time ago playing the little towns in Ohio with a merry-go-round. Think of it, yes, but don’t laugh, for it was a good game in them days and I was turnin’ coin. We put up on a lot for four days for a county fair, an’ business is so good that I stops sleepin’ back of the tent an’ goes to the inn. Well, say, the barkeeper of that tavern was a pass fiend for fair, an’ he keeps strikin’ me for free rides on the wooden horses. I laughs him off, but he keeps at it. So one day I gets mad an’ throws him hard. He looks at me over the black bottle an’ sez: ‘Say, you give a free ride ev’ry time they gets the brass ring, don’t ye?’
“I says ‘yes,’ an’ he shuts up like a law abider, an’ that ends it. But what do you suppose that glass rubber does? Say, he comes out to the lot with his gang, an’ while he wasn’t lookin’ he pours a hole bottle of gildin’ fluid into the ring slide, an’ say, everybody on the lot was gettin’ gold rings an’ ridin’ free all night. It hit me so hard I had to fold up and to the wagons an’ do the sneak without settlin’ me last payment on the privilege to the fair folks.”
This seemed to please the ring bank crowd and the Concert Manager was full of loose gab. Finally the talk drifted to animals, and then to elephants, and up speaks the Concert Manager.
“I never comes through the animal tent and sees the elephant herd,” he says, “but it has me rememberin’ sumthin’ that happens when I’m with the John Robinson show doin’ the talkin’ from the ring an’ makin’ me extra with a couple of blackface turns, a singin’ act an’ a knockabout after the Big Show.
“Say, for real heart them elephants has got all humanity beat to a standstill. Seems to me that the worst weakness that is in the breast of man is the feelin’ that pulls him away from another man when they ought to be stickin’ together. Say, it ain’t many a man that remembers a good turn, and kind acts is forgotten as quick as money that’s owin’. But them big boys with the trunks, say, they ain’t forgettin’ nothin’. Youse can do a good turn for a man an’ he’ll throw you the next day, but the elephant ain’t forgettin’ the one what has done him sumthin’ good, be he man or beast.
“Well, in them days we was carryin’ six big fellows, an’ part of my game was to let their backs out to the storekeepers for banners. I’d lay it out with some drygoods dealer that was enterprisin’ enough to do some real sensational advertisin’. Then we’d have the banners painted, swing ’em over the backs, an’ Mr. Mann has a good showin’ when we makes the parade down the street. I was payin’ the trainer a little extry to see that the banners got on, and, say, that boy for liquor was the original reservoir. It seems that the money I’m givin’ him allus buys a drink. He keeps it up right along an’ gits many a warnin’. There wasn’t a guy with the outfit that could handle the beasts like he could, an’ the Boss was allus afeerd sumthin’ would happen.
“And it did by and by. The trainer don’t pay attention to the warnin’, and one matinee he queers the act. He gets his elephants all mixed up in his ring, an’ there comes near bein’ a breakaway but for a lot of spearin’. The Boss sees it all, an’ he gets the trainer out without any talk. The boys gets the elephants back to their stable, but ev’ry one is looking for trouble.
“Well, say, the Big Show is started an’ about halfway through when the Boss Canvasman is ready to strike the animal tent an’ make for the cars. The horses is put to the dens, an’ they is all soon on the road, with the walkin’ stock followin’. Then the boys gets to the elephants an’ tries to start ’em, but not a one will move. They gives them the spear, but not a move. They gets to hollerin’ an’ more spearin’, but they might as well tried to move mountains. The Boss come in, an’ he tries it, but no go. They moves a lot of hay down the lot, thinkin’ it will make ’em look for another feedin’, but no go. Then one of the trainers what had been helpin’ the head trainer stan’s out an’ calls ’em by name. They flaps their big ears, but not a move. It’s time for the section to be pullin’ out, an’ we all hands is up against it.
“Well, I sez to myself, here’s your chance to be smart an’ redeem it all for Jed,—the trainer what was fired for drinkin’. I hustles over to the tavern an’ finds Jed puttin’ away the juice like he was loadin’ a train. I gives him a long talk an’ tells him about the elephants. He calls ’em his darlings an’ wants to buy more drink. I begs him to come over an’ help us out, but he’s sore on the Boss an’ won’t make a move. After awhile I gets him to thinkin’, an’ he sez he’ll do it. Jed was pretty full an’ was staggerin’, but I gets him to the lot where ev’ry animal man in the outfit is a spearin’ them beasts, while the Boss is cussin’, an’ the whole town roostin’ on the sidewalk an’ givin’ us the laugh. I gets Jed in an’ right in front of the Boss.
“The Boss is still sore, and sez, ‘Take that loafer away.’
“‘Wait,’ sez I.
“Then afore there could be any argument Jed staggers out in front of the herd, and, leaning heavy-like on the bale of hay, begins callin’:
“‘King,’ he yells.
“The biggest bull in the herd lifts his ear, then holds up his trunk an’ gives a shriek that scares the crowd white.
“‘Stop that spearin’!’ sez Jed, an’ every animal man gits out of the way.
“‘King!’ yells Jed again, an’ with that he walks over an’ touches the elephant on the trunk. The big bull wheels around and starts away.
“‘Sam, Dick, Boss, Frank!’ keeps yellin’ Jed, an’ the whole herd is turnin’ an’ takin’ the road to the depot.
“The crowd on the lot is cheerin’, an’ the animal men walk along by the beasts, but there’s no more spearin’. Jed jes’ leans against the hay an’ keeps callin’. He finishes, an’ as the last elephant comes along he loops down with his trunk, an’ pickin’ Jed up sits him on his trunk an’ walks away proud like jes, as he does in Ring Three at the finish of the act.
“Say, the Boss is almost wild about it, an’ the whole town follows the herd to the train. The Boss had Jed put in the sleeper, but Jed won’t have it, and crawls out to sleep in the elephant car, where he was most at home.
“Say, that’s what I call havin’ a heart. Them elephants knew that voice. Jed had been leadin’ ’em up hill and down hill, from sea to sea, an’ they wasn’t goin’ to have it any other way.”
“Well, did they take him back for good?” asked the Saw Dust Spreader.
“Take him back,” said the Concert Manager. “Well, I should say, an’ the Boss gives him a gold watch with elephant engravin’ on it, with a fancy band with some wordin’ about bein’ a faithful servant.
“An’, say, Jed was sober after that durin’ the season, but when we got into quarters the tavern for Jed all the time.”