“‘Might git the band,’ sez one of the boys.
“‘But the band is way ahead.’ We is all studyin’ like, when over the hills comes the whistling wagon.
“‘Here is the calliope,’ sez one of the stakemen.
“So we stops it, and ‘Reddy’ Cavenaugh, who played the whistles, besides doublin’ for Peter the Great in the street parade, sez he has enough steam on to play a little. We backs the calliope around, an’ three of the boys holds the hosses. Then Reddy played soft like, jes’ as soft as he could, on the whistles, an’ we all lifts our hats.”
“What did he play?” asked the Candy Butcher, as he wiped away a tear with his red cuff.
“Well,” said the Boss Canvasman, “he only knowed two tunes, ‘When Johnny Comes Marchin’ Home’ and ‘The Blue Danube,’ but we planted Jim to both.”
THE SIDE SHOW SPIELER SPEAKS.
The Side Show Spieler was a tall dark man with a sad face. He was clean shaven, wore his hair slightly long and looked like William Jennings Bryan, after the vote was in and counted and the telegraph operators had gone home. He had a deep baritone voice and a vocabulary that was always It. The Spieler carried more education than any man on the pay-roll and it was said that he was the only man in the outfit that could read the Latin names on the animal cages. It was generally supposed that he was one of the better days’ boys, but he never told the story of his past life to any of the gang.