Clover and Blue Grass

by Eliza Calvert Hall

"I reckon you know, child, how it is when a circus comes to town. Country folks has their own ways o' passin' the time and makin' pleasure for themselves, and town folks theirs, but a circus is one thing that brings all the country folks and all the town folks together. The country folks come to see the town and the circus, and the town folks, they turn out to see the circus and the country folks, and I reckon they got as much fun out of us as they did out o' the show, lookin' at our old-fashioned dresses and bonnets and laughin' at our old-fashioned ways.

"Well, the time I'm tellin' about, the country folks turned out as they never had before, and there was people in town from all over the county. Some of 'em, they said, had traveled half the night to git in town bright and early. I ricollect the weather was more like June than May. It hadn't rained for a long time, and when the folks begun rollin' into town, the dust rose till you couldn't see the road before you, and there was so many carriages and buggies and two-horse wagons hitched around the streets it looked like there wouldn't be room for the procession to pass. Sam Amos was standin' on the drug-store corner with me and Abram when the music begun playin' 'way down by the depot, and all the boys and young folks broke and run down Main Street to meet the band-wagon, and Sam said he didn't believe they could run any faster if they was to hear the cry, 'Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!'

"The procession reached clean from the depot to the Presbyterian church corner, and it was worth comin' to town jest to see the horses that pulled the chariots, some of 'em as white as milk and some coal black and holdin' their heads so high, and steppin' like fine ladies and lookin' so proud and so gentle, too, and so different from the horses that we drove to our own wagons and plows that you wouldn't know they was any kin to each other. Why, that night when I shut my eyes to go to sleep I could see the big gold chariot and the white horses, and all night long they went steppin' through my dreams.

"Well, after the procession'd gone by, we went over in the courthouse yard and eat our dinner under the old locust trees, and then we went down toward the river where the tents was spread. There's some shows, honey, where there's more on the bills than there is under the tent. I've heard Sam Amos say that, and there was one show that he used to say was so blame bad it was right good. But Mr. Barnum's show was the kind where there was more under the tent than there was on the bills, and the sights us country folks saw that day give us somethin' to talk about for a long time to come. But jest as the animal show was about over, and people begun leavin', a big storm come up. I thought I heard the thunder rollin' while me and Abram and the children was lookin' at the fat woman, but of course we couldn't go home till we'd seen everything, and the first thing we knew the wind was blowin' a hurricane, and it got under the tent and lifted some o' the pegs out o' the ground, and somebody hollered out that the tent was about to fall down, and such a scatteration you never did see. We got out o' that tent a good deal quicker'n we got in, and started for town as fast as we could go, carryin' little children and draggin' 'em along by the hand; and the rain begun pourin' down, and everybody was wet to the skin before they could git to the drug store or the dry goods store or any place where folks'd take us in.

"I ricollect Silas Petty said he reckoned it was a judgment on us church members for goin' to worldly amusements, and Abram said that couldn't be, because we'd prayed for rain the Sunday before. And—bless your life!—while the rest of us Goshen folks was standin' around in wet clothes and wishin' we could go home, Parson Page and Mis' Page was sittin' high and dry in the circus tent.

"Parson Page said he never could tell how he got inside that circus tent. He said he set out to make a bee-line for town, intendin' to stop at the drug store till the rain was over, but the wind was blowin' and raisin' such clouds o' dust you couldn't keep your eyes open, and he was holdin' his hat on with one hand and tryin' to help Mis' Page with the other, and the crowd was kind o' carryin' 'em along, and all at once, he said, he found he was makin' straight for the door o' the big tent where the band was playin' and the circus was about to begin."

Here Aunt Jane paused and laughed until laughter almost turned to tears. "There's three ways o' tellin' this story, child," she said, as she regained her breath. "Parson Page used to tell it his way, and Sam Amos would tell it his way, and Mis' Page had her way o' tellin' it. She used to laugh fit to kill over Parson Page sayin' he didn't know how he got into the circus tent. Says she: 'Lemuel may not know how he got into the circus, but I know, I had hold of his arm, and the wind was blowin' the dust in my eyes, too, but I knew exactly which way I was goin', and I was guidin' him.' Says she: 'I had on my best silk dress, and I'd jest turned it and made it over, and I didn't intend to have that dress ruined for lack of a little shelter.' She said she never once thought about tickets, and there was such a crowd, and the wind was blowin' things every which way and there was lightnin' and the noise o' thunder, and while the folks in front of her was givin' up their tickets, the folks behind was pressin' and pushin', and between the two there wasn't anything for her to do but go into the tent, whether she wanted to or not. And she said for her part she didn't mind it a bit, for that circus tent was the cheerfulest, happiest place she ever was in. She said the music made you feel like laughin' and steppin' lively, and folks was eatin' peanuts and drinkin' lemonade, and the bareback riders was tearin' around the ring, and jest as they got fairly inside, the rain begun beatin' down on the tent, and she thanked her stars she wasn't outside. She said it took Parson Page some little time to find out where he was, and when he did find it out, he wanted to start right home in the rain, and she told him he could go if he wanted to, but she was goin' to stay there till the rain was over. And while they was arguin' the matter, Sam Amos come along, and Parson Page begun explainin' how he got in by accident and wanted to git out. Sam said nobody but a frog or a fish or a Presbyterian minister would object to stayin' under a circus tent in such a rain as that, and he might as well make himself comfortable. So he found a seat for Mis' Page and the parson, and he used to say he got more fun out o' Parson Page than he did out o' the circus, and he couldn't hardly see what was goin' on in the ring for watchin' the parson's face. He had his gold-headed cane between his knees and his hands on top o' the cane and his head bowed over his hands like he was engaged in prayer, and he set there as solemn as if he was at a funeral, while everybody around was laughin' and hollerin' at the clown's jokes.

"But Mis' Page she took things fair and easy. She said she knew the Presbytery couldn't do anything with her, and she made up her mind, as she was in there and couldn't git out, she'd see all there was to be seen. The next meetin' o' the Mite Society she told us all about it, and she said if the gyirls' skyirts had jest been a little longer, there wouldn't 'a' been a thing amiss with that circus. But she said what they lacked in length they made up in width, and the jumpin' and ridin' was so amazin' that you forgot all about the skyirts bein' short.

"Parson Page said that circus seemed as long to him as a Sunday service used to seem when he was a boy. His conscience hurt him so, and he kept thinkin' what on earth he would say, if the Presbytery heard about it, and he felt like everybody in the tent was lookin' at him, and he never was as glad in his life as he was when Sam told him the show was over and he got up to leave.

"Mis' Page said they was edgin' their way out through the crowd, and all at once Parson Page stopped and threw up his hands like he always did when somethin' struck him all at once, and says he: 'Bless my soul! I've been to this circus and didn't pay my way in.' Says he: 'That makes a bad matter worse, and I can't leave this tent till I've paid for myself and my wife.' And Sam Amos he laughed fit to kill, and says he: 'It looks to me like you'll be makin' a bad matter worse if you do pay, for,' says he, 'as long as you don't pay for seein' the show, you can say it was an accident, but if folks know you paid your way, you can't make 'em believe it was accidental.'