SPRING PRACTICE IN THE YARD OF WINTER QUARTERS.
THE ELEPHANT TURNS NATURALLY TO CLOWNING.
No matter what natural science may have to say about it, an elephant has a dual personality. The sage is intermittently present, with his nervousness, his concentration which makes him hysterically responsive to the slightest untoward happening, and his deliberate, carefully conceived actions which show a slow-working but delicately perfect brain mechanism; while opposed to all this is a school kid, just crawling out the window of the class-room, mouth drawn down at one corner, eyes twinkling, and two fingers wiggling in temptation to his playmates for a session at “hookey” and a dip in the old swimmin’ pool. It is this side of the elephant nature that the ordinary person seldom sees, and the one which the circus doesn’t advertise. For it comes forth at about the same time that the mischievousness of the freckled-faced kid makes its appearance, when nobody’s looking, and when there’s a hole in the hedge that leads to the watermelon patch.
Speaking of watermelons, it was in Oklahoma, and late summer. Night. Out on the show grounds, a mile or so away, the audience still was packed uncomfortably upon the “fourteen-highs,” watching the last half of the performance, while down in the railroad yards teams were tangled about the loading runs, the pull-up horses were working ceaselessly, workmen were shouting and straining, and the first section was fighting against time for its get-away, that it might hurry on to the next town, bearing the parade paraphernalia, the menagerie tent, tableau wagons, dens, cages, led stock, elephants and whatever was possible to be taken from the show-lot without actually affecting the main performance itself.
Perhaps you’ve noticed sometimes, on coming from the “big top” or main tent of a circus at night, that things seem strange, and that you reach freedom from the dense, massing throngs much sooner than you had believed possible? It is simply because half the circus has departed while you have been in the main tent; while the big show has been in progress, the menagerie, midway, horse tents, blacksmith shop, cookhouse and practically everything except the big top itself has been dismantled, loaded, and already is rushing on toward the next show stand.
So, on this night, while performers worked in the big top, the first section crew labored in the carbide-illumined stretches of the railroad yards, struggling to save every minute that the first section might “high-ball out.” The steel runways shrieked protestingly to their places aboard the flat cars. The loading was finished, and from the head of the train to the great, shadowy bulk of the stock and “bull cars,” far down the tracks, the first section awaited the orders that would send it jolting and bumping upon its journey of the night. The conductor gave a command, a lantern raised, the “high-ball” whistle piped from the engine, and the train began slowly to move.
Only to halt at the command of swift-working emergencies, as quick-winking lanterns flashed in a hysterical sequence of “wash-out” signals. A car-knocker had run yelping forth from the depths of the shadows, his face a conglomeration of pinkish red, his shoulders damp and his eyes staring.
“Robbers!” he gasped. “Robbers down there in one of those cars! They hit me on the head!”
“Hit you?” The conductor stared. “What with?”