She appeared one morning as the horse tents were being erected, one of the innumerable dog waifs which always are about the show grounds. A sorrel team seemed to attract her; she sat by it while the horses fed, then when they were taken forth to parade, she went with them, trotting beside them as though she had done it all her life. A queer, misshapen little thing she was, of Skye terrier origin, and with an ingratiating, “doggy” manner, which caused the driver to grin at her more than once and call a word of encouragement as the team started back to the circus grounds. Not that Ragsy needed it; she had turned with the team and when they rested again in the big horse tents, there was Ragsy beside them. That night, when the wagons were loaded and the big team had made its two trips to the runs, Ragsy was there also, at last to brush against the leg of the driver as he watched the loading of his stock and prepared to crawl into the deck of the horse car above them, his usual place of nightly abode. He started away, the plea of the dog unnoticed, only to halt again. For she had whined and pawed at him. The big “skinner” paused in contemplation.
“All right,” came at last. “Guess that there bunk’s big enough for me’n you.”
That night Ragsy snoozed contentedly; she had joined the circus along with her beloved sorrels. When dawn came, she was there beside them again, not to leave them all day. Weeks passed. At last there came an inspiration to the driver, and he lifted the little Skye to the back of one of the sorrels, balancing her there for a time until she gained a footing.
“I’ll just make a parade feature outen her,” he grinned to his fellow skinners, and the idea worked! Ragsy fell off, but she was willing to try again and again and again, until at last there came the time when bugle call for parade meant as much to the dog as to the performers. A jump to the double-trees, then to the tongue; another leap, and she was on the back of the wheel sorrel, there to balance herself during parade, while the crowds along the street gave credit to some circus trainer, and the skinner, high atop his seat on the band wagon, grinned in satisfaction. For he and Ragsy knew!
It became a matter of interest throughout the circus, that affection of Ragsy for those sorrels. When the big eight-horse team was taken to water, there was Ragsy. When the night hauls came, Ragsy was there too, at last to augment her parade performance by riding wherever the big team went. In mud or in rain, in storm or in sunshine, she never left the big team. Those horses belonged to Ragsy as much as to the circus!
One day there came a break in Ragsy’s usual routine, that of watching the horses wherever they went, even if only across a street. The show was making a long jump; the stop for feeding and watering was to be a short one, and the skinner, fearful lest Ragsy be left behind when the “high-ball signal” sounded, decided that she must stay in the horse cars. The dog objected. There was only one thing to do and with a halter rope the skinner tied her in a manger, then hurried forth to his work.
A half-hour later he returned with the horses, started up the runway, halted, stared within, then rushed forward to come forth a moment later, eyes averted, hands slowly knitting a picture of mute sorrow. Another driver halted him. A nod over the shoulder, a voice gruffened to hide the choke of it:
“I killed her. Dead—in there. Strangled tryin’ t’ get out o’ that manger.”
They gathered from every part of the train, a community rallying to a tragedy commensurate to the size of its little world. An actor took off his hat, tossed a dollar into it and began to make the rounds. Within the car, the skinner had wrapped the silent form of Ragsy in his coat and laid it tenderly in his bunk on the deck above, to rest there until such time as the labors of the circus might give him a chance to bury her. That night, the show at last placed upon the lot, the skinners gathered, silent, hesitant men, talking in a low tone as though they were in the presence of human death instead of that of only an animal. Some one fashioned a coffin. From the wardrobe wagon came silken and soft materials, overflow from the making of costumes; performers hurried from town with flowers—even to a blanket of roses—and beside the horse tents they put Ragsy away. And unless it has been destroyed by some one who does not know the circus heart, there still stands on a circus lot in Southern Texas a heavy bit of yellow pine, with rough words carved with a jackknife:
RaGsy
KiLLed Sep. 12-19.
SHe suRe Was Faithfull.