The gang was sitting on a carpet roll under the big top when the Candy Butcher came across the track and sat down on the ring bank. He was looking sad, but his pants were creased and the Montana boy was shining like a frozen hunk of Kennebec water. He rolled himself a cigarette and the gang being silent he edged in with this bunch of talk:
“I’m bluer this evenin’ than the paste boards they’re passin’ out of the ticket wagon an’ if it wasn’t for gettin’ the dock at the pay off I’d be up against some boozery workin’ the syphon like an engine at a tenement fire. I ain’t got no life in me ’t all an’ I won’t have until we leaves the east an’ strikes the west country. B’lieve me, me boys, the east is all right for business, for I can pass out the sour juice at five a throw right here as well as any where, but it’s myself an’ not the place. It was too much of a feather bed las’ season an’ I was fool enough not to remember that I had to wake up. There ain’t no use talkin’, whenever a guy gets a good dream in this here life some sucker has got to give him the alarm clock finish an’ he wakes up with a yell.
“Say, I can call the turn on the folks on the blue boards an’ have ’em all drinkin’ lemon juice and shellin’ peanuts an’ I likes to do it, but me heart ain’t in the work, this season and that’s no lithograph josh either. I’ll tell you and some of youse may give me the grin, but it’s ten to one you’ve had the soft spot yourselves, so I ain’t a-carin’. Remember the Congress of Nations gag they was workin’ las’ season? Well right back of me lay out there was a lot of maidens that was doin’ the gypsy village and fakin’ a lot of beads and fortune tellin’. There was one little fairy in the outfit that had me dead, an’ I don’t mind tellin’ you that she had me soft from the start. She wasn’t none of these city pick ups but a nice little gal that talked quiet and minded her own. She didn’t mix with the rest of the push an’ we got thick the first day the canvass went up. She tells me her story confidential like an’ I give her me sympathy, for her people was dead agin her for troopin’. You see she had been working in a New York hash house, where they had Bible talk on the wall an’ where they gave a splash of beans and a draw for a dime. She gets tired an’ a guy what has been eatin’ at the place gives her a job in a boardin’ house waitin’ on the table. Here she meets the man what has the Congress get up to put on an’ he tells her gilt edge stories about the circus business and to cut the talk down she joins out with the show. Well, say, she was the real thing to me. In two months she had me stoppin’ the booze an sendin’ money home to the folks, an’ it was a center shot to get that out of me. She was allus lookin’ for a chance to do me somethin’ kind an’ one day she did a little turn that I wont forget long after I’ve past the old man’ home.
“We had struck a rough run of one nighters in Ohio and was looking for bright things across the river in the West Virginney townships. I had to do the German Emperor in the parade an’ when we got back to the lot I begins to get me stand ready for the sale. I’d packed up careful on the last stand and thought it was sunny for the next. But when I got me chest open I finds the citric acid jug missing, and the floaters I’d saved to throw on the top of the tub was gone too. I had a cussin’ spell for a brief and then I goes on a still hunt for lemons—the real yellow. But bless me I couldn’t find one in the village an’ there was nothin’ doin’ with the barkeeper what had ’em. Comin’ back I see’s a dago doin’ the shaker across from the lot. He has ’bout a dozen lemons and I offers him a good price, but the brown boy wouldn’t sell an’ I was sorer than a doped lion. I goes into the tent and meets Maggie, that was the name of me fairy, an’ she was sewin’ silvers on her little coat. She sees me sad like an’ I unloads me woes. The gal didn’t say much, but she rubs her hand across me frowner an’ sez, never mind, John, I’ll help ye out, an’ goes ’way. Say, youse may give me the laugh, but durn me if that lass didn’t come back in ’bout an hour carryin’ a bucket an’ I mos’ had a fit when I see’s it full of gooseberries? What’s the game? sez I.
“Watch me?” sez Maggie, “an’ I’ll keep you in the business.”
“Durn me, boys, if that little maiden didn’t mash them berries to a pulp, strain ’em through the Hoochie Coochie gal’s veil and have the tub full of sour juice in seven minutes. I pours in the water, finds me floaters and puts them on the ice bank an’ before the gang is passin’ once ’roun’ I’m sellin’ the juice as if lemons was growin’ on locust trees. Gooseberries too an’ the yaps couldn’t git enough of it. It was better than any graft ever in the one ring days an’ the little gal had done it all. Ain’t no use tellin’ you that I gives her a new shirt waist an’ she gives me a squeeze that makes me top spin like a merry-go-round.
“An’ say I fixed that dago that wouldn’t give up. I tipped off one of the drivers and when the first pole wagon leaves the lot with the eight grays a pullin’ it, the leads shies into the shaker stand an’ gives it the apple cart finish.
“But the little fairy I lost her an’ that’s why I’m sad. It was this way. The gal what did the twistin’ for the Turks had the fever an’ they shipped her home. The guy what had the Congress comes to Maggie, gives her the jersey and the gauzy pants and sez she must do the part. Maggie kicked an’ said she was engaged for the gypsie village. The guy says “not at all” and Maggie pulls off the spangles an’ goes home. An’ say I ain’t been right since, an’ some days I feels like playin’ quits myself.”