“You’re crazy!”
“Am I? Well, take a look for yourself; your brakeman’s still at it!”
The conductor looked back along the train. Far in the rear, atop a car, a big piece of canvas was being waved wildly, frantically. Still wondering, the conductor retraced his steps.
The train had passed through a small town a short time before. On the next track had been a flat car loaded with a new automobile, which, in turn was covered by a tarpaulin. The opportunity had been too good to miss. Old Mom had reached out between the bars of the bull car, yanked the tarpaulin off on the fly, dragged it within the car, played tug-of-war with it for a time with the rest of the elephants, distributing pieces to the remainder of the herd as the tarpaulin was torn to shreds, then, in an ecstasy of play, had looked about for a place high enough in which she might wave what was left over her head. This had been provided in a ventilator, which she had shoved open, and through which she had extended her trunk, with the canvas waving to the winds. But up ahead the engineer had known nothing of the nature of elephants. He had seen only trouble, and he had clamped on those emergencies.
To tell the truth, clamping on the emergencies is about the most frequent thing about the circus when the elephants are concerned. No one ever is able to tell what they’re going to do, or when they’re going to do it. Their prankishness runs the whole gamut of everything that ever entered the head of a ten-year-old boy; their curiosity is worse than that of a monkey; and their uncertainty is as widespread as that of the proverbial flighty woman. Which leads to the adventure of Alice and the tin can.
Alice was a bulbous young lady of some forty-five seasons under the big tops, and carrying seven tons of avoirdupois. As sometimes happens when the feminine goes to bulk, she enjoyed dainty things and light exercises, such as smashing tin cans. If there was anything that Alice loved, it was a city junk heap, where the universe was one vast expense of cans, to do with as she chose. When Alice became “logy” during the hot days, or afflicted with colic, or dumpy and ill-at-ease and down on the world in general, the bull-keeper gave her none of the restoratives which he applied to the rest of the herd. He merely asked the route to the city dump and led Alice there. That night she would be her own bulbous self again, happy and serene, while the tin-can section of the dump heap resembled the path of a steam roller.
The elephant seemed to gain a strange delight from the sensation of applying her weight to a can and squashing it, and the more cans, the more happiness. I have even seen the elephant deliberately drop the tail of her predecessor in parade, walk out of line, apply one massive hoof to a can in a gutter, squeal with delight, and then trot back to her work. But Alice mashes tin cans no longer. She is cured.
It happened about five years ago on the circus grounds in a small town in California. Alice had been working. At least, she had been pretending that she was working. In company with a male elephant who really was doing all the labor, Alice had been carefully placing her bulky head about an eighth of an inch from the back ends of circus wagons; then, snorting, squealing and apparently straining every muscle, she had allowed the other elephant to do all the work while she, in turn, kept her eye out for a stray can.
It was the noon hour. The parade had returned, the cookhouse was in full swing, crowded by performers and workingmen. At one side was a collection of four or five five-gallon cans, which once had contained pie apples and which had been opened only enough to allow their contents to be poured forth by the rushing cookhouse crew. Alice spotted them. Then Alice looked toward the bull-man. He was fifty feet away, talking to the boss of the herd. Quietly—and an elephant can move so softly that it is almost impossible to hear it—Alice veered away from the wagon she had been pretending to push, smashed a can or two, then halted with a marvelous discovery. There was something sweet-smelling inside, the remains of the apple contents. Alice moved to the next can and investigated. In went the trunk, its “fingers” working in investigative fashion. The elephant scooped up a part of the residue, tasted it, liked it and reached for more, the work this time being a bit difficult, owing to the fact that there wasn’t much left. And as Alice pushed the end of her trunk about inside that can, she allowed a catastrophe to plump upon her. Absent-mindedly she forgot that her trunk was inside, and allowed the old smashing urge to return. Up went a heavy foot, poised over the can, and then came down!
The next thing the circus knew, one end of the cookhouse had departed, while performers were scattering, tables were overturned, canvas fluttered in the breeze, and a screeching elephant ran wildly for the free and open country, her trunk waving wildly in a vain effort to rid itself of a five-gallon can which had clamped upon it with the tightness of a vise. A small tree got in the way, then got out, roots, branches and all. Whistles shrilled on the circus lot, bull-men ran for fast horses, animal attendants rushed wildly from their work in the menagerie to scurry forth upon a path of broken fences, disabled back yards, uprooted saplings and what-not, while far in the distance Alice still plunged on, the can still clinging to its victim, like a cream pitcher on the head of a cat. A half-hour later they caught her, chained her and removed the can, while Alice squealed and trumpeted her delight. Then, free at last, she looked at the thing which had distressed her, jumped on it with swift-moving forefeet and crushed it to a flat mass, gingerly examined it, pronounced it safe, then raised it and threw it as far as the sweep of her trunk permitted. After which, a bit saddened, still grunting and “talking” to herself, she returned to the show grounds. Now Alice passes up tin cans. There’s a sort of disdain about her action. No more does the city dump resemble a sort of heaven to her. Once was too much. She’s on the wagon.