Careers of Danger and Daring

by Cleveland Moffett

"Tell you where it's hard on an acrobat," put in Zorella—"that's where he can't quit on account of his family—where he needs the money. I remember a young fellow joined the show out west to leap over elephants. He got along well enough over two elephants, but when it came to three, why, we could all see he was shaky. Some of the boys told him he'd better stop, but he said he'd try to learn, and he was such a nice, modest fellow and worked so hard that everybody wished him luck. But it wasn't any use. One day he tackled a double over three elephants, and came down all in sections, with his right foot on the mattress and his left foot on the ground. That was his last leap, poor fellow, for the ankle bones snapped as his left foot struck, and a few hours later he lay in the dressing-room tent, pretty white, with the doctors over him. I'll never forget the way he looked up at us when we came in. He was game all right, but his eyes were awful pathetic. 'Well, boys' said he, 'here I am. I did the best I could.' Turned out he'd done it for a sick wife and a little baby. Pretty tough, wasn't it?"

Speaking of leaps over elephants brings to my mind an afternoon when I watched a circus rehearsal in the open air. That is a thing better worth seeing, to my mind, than the regular performance; the acrobats and riders in their every-day clothes are more like ordinary men and women, and their feats seem the more difficult for occasional slips and failures.

Here, for instance, are a mother and daughter, in shirt-waists, watching the trick monkey ride a pony, when suddenly a whistle sounds, and off goes the mother to drive three plunging horses in a chariot-race, while the daughter hurries to her part in an equestrian quadrille. And now these children playing near the drilling elephants trot into the ring and do wonderful things on bicycles. And yonder sleepy-looking man is a lion-tamer; and those three are the famous Potters, aërial leapers; and this thick-set fellow in his shirt-sleeves is Artressi, the best jumper in the circus. He's going to practise now; see, they are putting up the spring-board and the long downward run that leads to it. These other men are jumpers, too, but Artressi is the star; he draws the big salary.

"FOUR ELEPHANTS WAS ENOUGH FOR ANY MAN TO LEAP OVER."

Now they start and spring off rather clumsily, one after another, in straight leaps to the mattress. They won't work into good form for some days yet. Here they come again, a little faster, and two of them try singles. Here comes Artressi. Ah! a double forward, and prettily taken. The crowd applauds. Now a tall man tries a double. Gradually the practice gets hotter until every man is doing his best. There will be stiff joints here in the morning, but never mind!

In a resting-spell I sat down by Artressi and talked with him about leaping. It was hard, he said, going off a spring-board into empty air. Didn't know how it was, but he could always do better with something to leap over, say elephants or horses. He could judge the mattress easier; wasn't so apt to miss it. What was his biggest leap? Well, four elephants and three camels was about his best, with a pyramid of men on top. He'd cleared that twice a day for weeks some years ago, but he wouldn't do it now. No, sir; four elephants was enough for any man to leap over if he had a wife and child. That made a flight of thirty feet, anyhow, from the spring-board to the ground. Oh, yes, he turned two somersaults on the way—forward somersaults. It wasn't possible for anybody to clear four elephants and turn backward somersaults.

I asked Artressi (his real name is Artress) about a leap with three somersaults, and found him positive that such a feat will never become part of a regular circus program. A man can turn the three somersaults all right, but he loses control of himself, and doesn't know whether he is coming down right or wrong. In fact, he is sure to come down wrong if he does it often. Then he mentioned the one case where he himself had made a leap with three somersaults. It was down in Kentucky, at the home of his boyhood. Years had passed since he had seen the town, and in that time he had risen from nothing to a blaze of circus glory. He had become the "Great Artressi" instead of little Joe Artress, and now he was to appear before the people who knew him.

It was perhaps the most exciting moment of his life, and as he came down the run toward the spring-board he nerved himself to so fine an effort that instead of doing two somersaults over the horses and elephants, as he intended, he did three, and, by a miracle of fortune, landed safely. That was his first and last triple; he wasn't taking chances of a broken neck or a twisted spine, which had been the end of more than one ambitious leaper. No, sir; he would stick to doubles, where a man knows exactly what he's doing.