Finally we persuaded George to go over into Wyoming, as he intended to do if the girl married him; where he fell in love with a Western girl and was happily married in less than a year. Emma married young Lane, and deserted him in less than two years, and we never saw her again.
And the poor showman came likewise to me and told his tale of sorrow and financial troubles. A relative of mine was organizing a little circus in the town, and proposed going on the road after the summer fair. I secured a situation for my new friend, but when the opening day came the poor fellow had not gained sufficient strength to perform on the bars, or ride bareback, as he had been doing before he was taken down with fever.
But he could sing a song, so on the first night he came out before an unappreciative and unsympathetic audience and tried to sing. He did not know that weakness of the body interfered with the voice. The audience laughed at first, for they thought he was imitating an old man; but when they discovered that the poor emaciated fellow was giving them the best he had, they hooted him and hissed him, and called to him to take the frog out of his throat, and to get more wind, and to go and hire out as a nurse and sing to the baby.
Oh, how I pitied the poor fellow. The refrain of his song was: “But I will say nothing, not I!” I went around to the dressing room to console the poor man, for there was a look on his face when he left the ring which I did not like to see. He had been despondent and dejected before, but when he left the ring there was a look of desperation on his thin face. I found him sitting on a trunk taking a fond look at the photo of his absent wife. I tried to start a conversation with him, but he only looked at me and asked: “Did you catch the refrain of the song I tried to sing? Well ‘I will say nothing—not I’ tonight. You have been kind to me, and some day it will come back to you, like bread cast upon the waters, but nothing will ever come back to me. My heart is broken—I am no good. I am deserted and alone. The woman I loved has left me, and my luck will go with her—good bye—I’m going out.”
He shook hands and I said, “Wayne, I will see you in the morning.”
“Yes, in the morning,” he replied, as he lifted the flap of the tent and passed out into the night, while I returned to the big tent and tried to become interested in the performance.
Next morning the body of my despondent friend was found in the Grand river, just below the bridge, lodged on the middle island.
When the ringmaster announced to the audience that the man who had been hissed from the ring on the previous night had drowned himself, there were a few “Oh’s!” from the women, but the men who hissed him were not there. One man said if they had known the real facts, they would not have hissed; but when people do not know the real facts, is when they should be merciful—always.
THE WAR WITH SELF
