Hints to Pilgrims

by Charles S. Brooks

It was by mere coincidence that last night on my way home I stopped at a news-stand for a daily paper, and saw a periodical by the name of the Paste-Brush. On a gay cover was the picture of another blonde—a sister, maybe, of the lady of the billboard. She was held by an ankle over a sea of up-turned faces, but by her happy, inverted smile she seemed unconscious of her danger.

The Paste-Brush is new to me. I bought a copy, folded its scandalous cover out of sight and took it home. It proves to be the trade journal of the circus and amusement-park interests. It announces a circulation of seventy thousand, which I assume is largely among acrobats, magicians, fat ladies, clowns, liniment-venders, lion-tamers, Caucasian Beauties and actors on obscure circuits.

Now it happens that among a fairly wide acquaintance I cannot boast a single acrobat or liniment-vender. Nor even a professional fat man. A friend of mine, it is true, swells in that direction as an amateur, but he rolls night and morning as a corrective. I did once, also, pass an agreeable hour at a County Fair with a strong man who bends iron bars in his teeth. He had picked me from his audience as one of convincing weight to hang across the bar while he performed his trick. When the show was done, he introduced me to the Bearded Beauty and a talkative Mermaid from Chicago. One of my friends, also, has told me that she is acquainted with a lady—a former pupil of her Sunday school—who leaps on holidays in the park from a parachute. The bantam champion, too, many years ago, lived behind us around the corner; but he was a distant hero, sated with fame, unconscious of our youthful worship. But these meetings are exceptional and accidental. Most of us, let us assume, find our acquaintance in the usual walks of life. Last night, therefore, having laid by the letters of Madame d'Arblay, on whose seven volumes I have been engaged for a month, I took up the Paste-Brush and was carried at once into another and unfamiliar world.

The frontispiece is the big tent of the circus with side-shows in the foreground. There is a great wheel with its swinging baskets, a merry-go-round, a Funny Castle, and a sword-swallower's booth. By a dense crowd around a wagon I am of opinion that here nothing less than red lemonade is sold. Certainly Jolly Maude, "that mountain of flesh," holds a distant, surging crowd against the ropes.

An article entitled "Freaks I Have Known" is worth the reading. You may care to know that a celebrated missing-link—I withhold the lady's name—plays solitaire in her tent as she waits her turn. Bearded ladies, it is asserted, are mostly married and have a fondness for crocheting out of hours. A certain three-legged boy, "the favorite of applauding thousands," tried to enlist for the war, but was rejected because he broke up a pair of shoes. The Wild Man of Borneo lived and died in Waltham, Massachusetts. If the street and number were given, it would tempt me to a pilgrimage. Have I not journeyed to Concord and to Plymouth? Perhaps an old inhabitant—an antique spinster or rheumatic grocer—can still remember the pranks of the Wild Man's childhood.

But in the Paste-Brush the pages of advertisement are best. Slot machines for chewing-gum are offered for sale—Merry-Widow swings, beach babies (a kind of doll), genuine Tiffany rings that defy the expert, second-hand saxophones, fountain pens at eight cents each and sofa pillows with pictures of Turkish beauties.

But let us suppose that you, my dear sir, are one of those seventy thousand subscribers and are by profession a tattooer. On the day of publication with what eagerness you scan its columns! Here is your opportunity to pick up an improved outfit—"stencils and supplies complete, with twelve chest designs and a picture of a tattooed lady in colors, twelve by eighteen, for display. Send for price list." Or if you have skill in charming snakes and your stock of vipers is running low, write to the Snake King of Florida for his catalogue. "He treats you right." Here is an advertisement of an alligator farm. Alligator-wrestlers, it is said, make big money at popular resorts on the southern circuit. You take off your shoes and stockings, when the crowd has gathered, and wade into the slimy pool. It needs only a moderate skill to seize the fierce creature by his tail and haul him to the shore. A deft movement throws him on his back. Then you tickle him under the ear to calm him and pass the hat.

Here in the Paste-Brush is an announcement of a ship-load of monkeys from Brazil. Would you care to buy a walrus? A crocodile is easy money on the Public Square in old-home week. Or perhaps you are a glass-blower with your own outfit, a ventriloquist, a diving beauty, a lyric tenor or a nail-eater. If so, here is an agent who will book you through the West. The small cities and large towns of Kansas yearn for you. Or if you, my dear madam, are of good figure, the Alamo Beauties, touring in Mississippi, want your services. Long season. No back pay.

Would you like to play a tuba in a ladies' orchestra? You are wanted in Oklahoma. The Sunshine Girls—famous on western circuits—are looking to augment their number. "Wanted: Woman for Eliza and Ophelia. Also a child for Eva. Must double as a pony. State salary. Canada theatres."

It is affirmed that there is money in box-ball, that hoop-la yields a fortune, that "you mop up the tin" with a huckley-buck. It sounds easy. I wonder what a huckley-buck is like. I wonder if I have ever seen one. It must be common knowledge to the readers of the Paste-Brush, for the term is not explained. Perhaps one puts a huckley-buck in a wagon and drives from town to town. Doubtless it returns a fortune in a County Fair. Is this not an opportunity for an underpaid school-teacher or slim seamstress? No longer must she subsist upon a pittance. Here is rest for her blue, old fingers. Let her write today for a catalogue. She should choose a huckley-buck of gaudy color, with a Persian princess on the side, to draw the crowd. Let her stop by the village pump and sound a stirring blast upon her megaphone.