On the Road With a Circus

by William Carter Thompson

At night, after the performance, she presides over the performers’ luncheon of sandwiches and tea, which the circus women enjoy in the sleeping car. In short, she is a general chaperon, hospital nurse, friend and counsellor in one. Our “mother’s” long experience in circus life has made her familiar with every detail of the business and she knows what to do, without any prompting, whenever any emergency arises. Men and women alike come to her with the petty troubles that are bound to occur in the uncertain and strenuous existence they lead. She is cheery, sympathetic or admonitory as the occasion may require, and no one leaves her presence without being the better for having come into contact with the motherly matron. It is an axiom among circus people that the good-will of the “mother” is equivalent to lasting favor with the management, and that to incur her ill-will is to stand an imminent risk of losing an engagement.

A large part of her duty is the care of the circus wardrobe, and during the winter she devotes her entire time to it. With her deft fingers and the judicious use of naphtha she makes old circus costumes look like new. Trappings which are worn by the animals in the grand entry are all made by the “mother” and her assistants during the idle winter season. She is as expert at cutting a pattern for the costumes of the animals as a Fifth avenue modiste is at cutting those for her smart clientele. She is, in short, the Worth of circusland. Although nearly sixty years old, she is as lively as a woman half her age.

The domestic instinct is very strong among the circus women for the reason that they are deprived of home life, a great part of every year. It finds an outlet in many little ways, one of which is an appeal to the chef in charge of the dining car to be allowed to bake a cake. If he is in a mood to give them permission they are pleased as children, and begin a hunt for eggs and milk. The train may be standing just outside of some village, and they run out and buy the things and come back and cook as though it were the greatest fun in the world. When their cake or pie is done, it is passed through the car, and no matter how small it may be, there is always a bit for everyone. Sometimes the cook is ill-tempered and won’t let them fuss around, but that doesn’t always stop them. It isn’t at all unusual for them to go to one of the houses along near the track and ask the woman who lives there to let them use her kitchen. Almost always they get permission and afterwards pay for it.

They sew, too, and many do exceedingly pretty fancy work. They don’t have to keep their circus clothes in order. The “circus mother” does that, but they do all the mending of personal garments, and besides keep some sort of pickup work on hand. There isn’t a home of a circus woman that is not furnished with the covers of some sort she has made during the season. One seldom sees a circus woman in a city after the season is over. She flees from it. She detests the noise and bustle, and, almost without exception, they all live in little country towns, where they practise during the winter, go early to bed and are in fine condition when the season opens.

I know that it is a common thing to believe that a circus woman has no modesty, but the impression is a mistaken one. She can dress as she does and perform, and still be a perfectly good, pure woman. That is because no town has any identity to her, nor any person any individuality. It makes no difference to her whether the show is in New York City or Kalamazoo. There is simply a performance to be given, and she is not playing to any one person. There is no “he” in the audience who may be attracted to take her out to supper afterwards. He wouldn’t have the chance to speak to her, if he wanted to, and if she seems to him an earth-born fairy, she never knows it. No women could live more protected lives. The performance isn’t over until eleven o’clock, and all must be in the cars of the circus train by midnight, when the cars are usually locked for the night; and when one remembers that a circus woman is almost invariably married, and that her husband is with her, it can be appreciated that the moral standard of the profession is high. Most of the circus women support families, and their leisure between performances is spent in sewing—perhaps garments for younger children at home, or, as a matter of economy, for themselves; for they save every possible penny, finding incentive and practical aid in the fact that they need not consider the expense of living in the necessary outlay.

After the night performance, they return to their private cars, which are by that time prepared to start for another town as soon as the tents and other paraphernalia are aboard. Week after week of this routine, as regularly carried out as the work of a factory, requires physical stamina as well as the actual gymnastic or acrobatic circus faculty, for which a clear brain is the most requisite. These things are not maintained except by regular living. The motto of the circus acrobat, therefore, might be “plain living and high jumping.” Beneath the white canvas, as under the brick and iron of city office buildings, there is no room for those who complain. “Headaches” and similar excuses for a non-appearance must for disciplinary reasons be frowned upon by the equestrian director—the stage manager of the circus. It is the “circus mother” who pleads with him to excuse the women who are not able to appear. She it is to whom they go with griefs and complaints and upon whose sympathy in their concern they may rely.

Frivolity, even in the innocuous guise of a waiting maid, is discouraged in circus life, and no woman performer, be she ever so celebrated, is allowed to carry a handmaiden to aid in dressing her. “No room for ’em,” is the terse but eloquent excuse of the management.

Circuses of the better class look after the welfare of their woman performers with a surprising regard to detail. They are provided with a special car in which they live while on the road, except when the show plays a three-night or week’s stand; in that case they are quartered in a hotel. How very comfortable their travelling quarters may be they are nevertheless pleased when an opportunity is had to spend a few days in a room which affords sufficient space to allow of unpacking and repacking trunks, for in one-night stands the trunk containing personal belongings is never moved except from car to lot. Woman riders frequently own their own horses. It is indeed considered a breach of circus etiquette, or more particularly speaking a lowering of one’s “caste” to be content to ride an animal owned by some one else. The sharp little vibrant “clucks,” with which the equestrienne commands her horse in the ring, are “cues” which he understands as well as he does the swaying of the ringmaster’s whip from left to right, or the pressure of his rider’s satin slipper. Each of these is a suggestion to his memory that brings instant response in some change of movement.

The disadvantage under which a circus woman “makes up” would drive an actress to despair. She sits upon a small stool before the stationary mirror in the upraised lid of the trunk, and “makes up” as best she can in the big dressing tent. There are perhaps thirty other women in the tent, and a wardrobe mistress in charge, prepared to mend suddenly acquired rents in emergencies. The use of alcohol for spirit lamps is not allowed unless with a special permit from the “mother.” Many of the woman acrobats, gymnasts and jugglers are foreign. They have homes abroad, perhaps, and work industriously in leisure hours to beautify them. One woman who travelled last season with us completed during the tour an entire bed set of renaissance lace, cover and pillow shams. This same woman who is one of a troupe of acrobats, when twitted for her “stinginess,” was wont to reply: “Well, it is another brick in my house—very dollar I save.” She was buying a home for her mother and sister.