Part 9

“Judge Priest, sir,” said the sick boy, panting with weak eagerness, “I want to see the grand free street parade. I've been sick a right smart while, and I can't go to the circus; but I do want mightily to see the grand free street parade. And I want you, please, sir, to have 'em come up by this house.”

There was a world of confidence in the plea. Unnoticed by the boy, his mother, who had been fanning him, dropped the fan and put her apron over her face and leaned against the window-jamb, sobbing silently. The father, silent too, leaned against the fence, looking fixedly at nothing and wiping his eyes with the butt of his hand. Yes, it is possible for a man to wipe his eyes on his bare hand without seeming either grotesque or vulgar--even when the man who does it is a little inconsequential man--if his child is dying and his sight is blurred and his heart is fit to burst inside of him. The judge bent across the fence, and his face muscles were working but his voice held steady.

“Well, now, Lemmy,” he said, “I'd like to do it for you the best in the world; but, you see, boy, I don't own this here circus--I don't even know the gentleman that does own it.”

“His name is Silver,” supplied the sick child--“Daniel P. Silver, owner of Silver's Mammoth United Railroad Shows, Roman Hippodrome and Noah's Ark Menagerie--that's the man! I kin show you his picture on one of the showbills my paw brought home to me, and then you kin go right and find him.”

“I'm afraid it wouldn't do much good if I did know him, Lemmy,” said the old judge very gently. “You see--”

“But ain't you the judge at the big cote-house?” demanded the child; “and can't you put people in jail if they don't do what you tell 'em? That's what my grandpop says. He's always tellin' me stories about how you and him fought the Yankees, and he always votes for you too--my grandpop talks like he thought you could do anything. And, judge, please, sir, if you went to Mister Daniel P. Silver and told him that you was the big judge--and told him there was a little sick boy livin' right up the road a piece in a little brown house--don't you reckin he'd do it? It ain't so very far out of the way if they go down Jefferson Street--it's only a little ways Judge, you'll make 'em do it, won't you--for me?”

“I'll try, boy, I'll shorely try to do what I can,” said the old judge; “but if I can't make 'em do it you won't be disappointed, will you, Lemmy?” He fumbled in his pocket. “Here's four bits for you--you tell your daddy to buy you something with it. I know your maw and daddy wouldn't want you to take money from strangers, but of course it's different with old friends like you and me. Here, you take it. And there's something else,” he went on. “I'll bet you there's one of those dagoes or somebody like that downtown with a lot of these here big toy rubber balloons--red and green and blue. You tell me which color you like the best and I'll see that it's sent right up here to you--the biggest balloon the man's got--”

“I don't want any balloon,” said the little voice fretfully, “and I don't want any four bits. I want to see the grand free street parade, and the herd of elephants, and the down, and the man-eatin' tigers, and everything. I want that parade to come by this house.”

The judge looked hopelessly from the child to the mother and then to the father--they both had their faces averted still--and back into the sick child's face again. The four-bit piece lay shining on the porch floor where it had fallen. The judge backed away, searching his mind for the right words to say.

“Well, I'll do what I can, Lemmy,” he repeated, as though he could find no other phrase--“I'll do what I can.”

The child rolled his head back against the pillow, satisfied. “Then it'll be all right, sir,” he said with a joyful confidence. “My grand-pop he said you could do 'most anything. You tell 'em, Mister Judge Priest, that I'll be a-waitin' right here in this very window for 'em when they pass.”

Walking with his head down and his steps lagging, the old judge, turning into the main thoroughfare, was almost run over by a mare that came briskly along, drawing a light buggy with a tall man in it. The tall man pulled up the mare just in time. His name was Settle.

“By gum, judge,” he said apologetically, “I came mighty near gettin' you that time!”

“Hello, son,” said the judge absently; “which way are you headed?”

“Downtown, same as everybody else,” said Settle. “Jump in and I'll take you right down, sir.”

“Much obliged,” assented the old judge, as he heaved himself heavily up between the skewed wheels and settled himself so solidly at Settle's left that the seat springs whined; “but I wish't, if you're not in too big a hurry, that you'd drive me up by the showgrounds first.”

“Glad to,” said Settle, as he swung the mare round. “I just come from there myself--been up lookin' at the stock. 'Tain't much. Goin' up to look their stock over yourself, judge?” he asked, taking it for granted that any man would naturally be interested in horseflesh, as indeed would be a true guess so far as any man in that community was concerned.

“Stock?” said the judge. “No, I want to see the proprietor of this here show. I won't keep you waitin' but a minute or two.”

“The proprietor!” echoed Settle, surprised. “What's a circuit judge goin' to see a circus man for--is it something about their license?”

“No,” said the judge--“no, just some business--a little private business matter I want to see him on.”

He offered no further explanation and Settle asked for none. At the grounds the smaller tents were all up--there was quite a little dirty-white encampment of them--and just as they drove up the roof of the main tent rose to the tops of its center poles, bellying and billowing like a stage sea in the second act of Monte Cristo. Along the near edge of the common, negro men were rigging booths with planks for counters and sheets for awnings, and negro women were unpacking the wares that would presently be spread forth temptingly against the coming of the show crowds--fried chicken and slabs of fried fish, and ham and pies and fried apple turnovers. Leaving Settle checking the restive mare, the old judge made his way across the sod, already scuffed and dented by countless feet. A collarless, redfaced man, plainly a functionary of some sort, hurried toward him, and the judge put himself in this man's path.

“Are you connected with this institution, suh?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the man shortly, but slowing his gait.

“So I judged from your manner and deportment, suh,” said the judge. “I'm lookin',” he went on, “for your proprietor.”

“Silver? He's over yonder by the cookhouse.”

“The which?” asked the judge.

“The cookhouse--the dining tent,” explained the other, pointing. “Right round yonder beyond that second stake wagon--where you see smoke rising. But he's likely to be pretty busy.”

Behind the second stake wagon the judge found a blocky, authoritative man, with a brown derby hat tilted back on his head and heavy-lidded eyes like a frog's, and knew him at once for the owner; but one look at the face made the judge hesitate. He felt that his was a lost cause already; and then the other opened his mouth and spoke, and Judge Priest turned on his heel and came away. The judge was reasonably well seasoned to sounds of ordinary profanity, but not to blasphemy that seemed to loose an evil black smudge upon the clean air. He came back to the buggy and climbed in.

“See your man?” asked Settle.

“Yes,” said the judge slowly, “I saw him.”

Especially downtown things had a holidaying look to them. Wall-eyed teams of country horses were tethered to hitching-racks in the short by-streets, flinching their flanks and setting themselves for abortive stampedes later on. Pedlers of toy balloons circulated; a vender with a fascinating line of patter sold to the same customers, in rapid succession, odorous hamburger and flat slabs of a heat-resisting variety of striped ice cream. At a main crossing, catercornered across from each other, the highpitch man and his brother of the flat joint were at work, one selling electric belts from the back of a buggy, the other down in the dust manipulating a spindle game. The same group of shillabers were constantly circulating from one faker to the other, and as constantly investing. Even the clerks couldn't stay inside the stores--they kept darting out and darting back in again. A group of darkies would find a desirable point of observation along the sidewalk and hold it for a minute or two, and then on a sudden unaccountable impulse would desert it and go streaking off down the middle of the street to find another that was in no way better. In front of the wagon yard country rigs were parked three deep. Every small boy who wasn't at the showground was swarming round underfoot somewhere, filled with a most delicious nervousness that kept him moving. But Judge Priest, who would have joyed in these things ordinarily, had an absent eye for it all. There was another picture persisting in his mind, a picture with a little brown house and a ragged catalpa tree for a background.

In front of Soule's drug store his weekday cronies sat--the elder statesmen of the town--tilted back in hard-bottomed chairs, with their legs drawn up under them out of the tides of foot travel. But he passed them by, only nodding an answer to their choraled greeting, and went inside back behind the prescription case and sat down there alone, smoking his pipe soberly.

“Wonder what ails Judge Priest?” said Sergeant Jimmy Bagby. “He looks sort of dauncy and low in his mind, don't he?”

“He certainly does,” some one agreed.

Half an hour later, when the sheriff came in looking for him, Judge Priest was still sitting alone behind the prescription case. With the sheriff was a middle-aged man, a stranger, in a wrinkled check suit and a somewhat soiled fancy vest. An upper pocket of this vest was bulged outward by such frank articles of personal use as a red celluloid toothbrush, carried bristle-end up, a rubber mustache-comb and a carpenter's flat pencil. The stranger had a longish mustache, iron-gray at the roots and of a greenish, blue-black color elsewhere, and he walked with a perceptible limp. He had a way, it at once developed, of taking his comb out and running it through his mustache while in conversation, doing so without seeming to affect the flow or the volume of his language.

“Mornin', Judge Priest,” said the sheriff. “This here gentleman wants to see you a minute about gittin' out an attachment. I taken him first to the county judge's office, but it seems like Judge Landis went up to Louisville last night, and the magistrates' offices air closed--both of them, in fact; and so seein' as this gentleman is in a kind of a hurry, I taken the liberty of bringin' him round to you.”

Before the judge could open his mouth, he of the dyed mustache was breaking in.

“Yes, sirree,” he began briskly. “If you're the judge here I want an attachment. I've got a good claim against Dan Silver, and blame me if I don't push it. I'll fix him--red-lighting me off my own privilege car!” He puffed up with rage and injury.

“What appears to be the main trouble?” asked the judge, studying this belligerent one from under his hatbrim.

“Well, it's simple enough,” explained the man. “Stanton is my name--here's my card--and I'm the fixer for this show--the legal adjuster, see? Or, anyhow, I was until last night. And I likewise am--or was--half partner with Dan Silver in the privilege car and in the speculative interests of this show--the flat joints and the rackets and all. You make me now, I guess? Well, last night, coming up here from the last stand, me and Silver fell out over the split-up, over dividing the day's profits--you understand, the money is cut up two ways every night--and I ketched him trying to trim me. I called him down good and hard then, and blame if he didn't have the nerve to call in that big boss razor-back of his, named Saginaw, and a couple more rousters, and red-light me right off my own privilege car! Now what do you know about that?”

“Only what you tell me,” replied Judge Priest calmly. “Might I ask you what is the process of red-lightin' a person of your callin' in life?”

“Chucking you off of a train without waiting for the train to stop, that's what,” expounded the aggrieved Mr. Stanton. “It was pretty soft for me that I lit on the side of a dirt bank and we wasn't moving very fast, else I'd a been killed. As 'twas I about ruined a suit of clothes and scraped most of the meat off of one leg.” He indicated the denuded limb by raising it stiffly a couple of times and then felt for his comb. Use of it appeared to have a somewhat soothing effect upon his feelings, and he continued: “So I limped up to the next station, two of the longest miles in the world, and caught a freight coming through, and here I am. And now I want to file against him--the dirty, red-lighting dog!

“Why, he owes me money--plenty of it. Just like I told you, I'm the half owner of that privilege car, and besides he borrowed money off of me at the beginning of the season and never offered to pay it back. I've got his personal notes right here to prove it.” He felt for the documents and spread them, soiled and thumbed, upon the prescription shelf under the judge's nose. “He's sure got to settle with me before he gets out of this town. Don't worry about me--I'll put up cash bond to prove I'm on the level,” fishing out from his trousers pocket a bundle of bills with a rubber band on it. “Pretty lucky for me they didn't know I had my bankroll with me last night!”

“I suppose the attachment may issue,” said the judge preparing to get up.

“Fine,” said Stanton, with deep gratification in his bearing. “But here, wait a minute,” he warned. “Don't make no mistake and try to attach the whole works, because if you do you'll sure fall down on your face, judge. That's all been provided for. The wagons and horses are all in Silver's name and the cage animals are all in his wife's name. And so when a hick constable or somebody comes round with an attachment, Dan says to him, 'All right,' he says, 'go on and attach, but you can't touch them animals,' he says; and then friend wife flashes a bill of sale to show they are hers. The rube says 'What'll I do?' and Silver says, 'Why, let the animals out and take the wagons; but of course,' he says, 'you're responsible for the lions and that pair of ferocious man-eating tigers and the rest of 'em. Go right ahead,' he says, 'and help yourself,' 'Yes,' his wife says, 'go ahead; but if you let any of my wild animals get away I'll hold you liable, and also if you let any of 'em chew up anybody you'll pay the damages and not me,' she says. 'You'll have to be specially careful about Wallace the Ontamable,' she says; 'he's et up two trainers already this season and crippled two-three more of the hands.'

“Well, if that don't bluff the rube they take him round and give him a flash at Wallace. Wallace is old and feeble and he ain't really much more dangerous than a kitten, but he looks rough; and Dan sidles up 'longside the wagon and touches a button that's there to use during the ballyhoo, and then Wallace jumps up and down and roars a mile. D'ye make me there? Well, the floor of the cage is all iron strips, and when Dan touches that button it shoots about fifty volts of the real juice--electricity, you know--into Wallace's feet and he acts ontamable. So of course that stumps the rube, and Dan like as not gets away with it without ever settling. Oh, it's a foxy trick! And to think it was me myself that first put Silver on to it!” he added lamentingly, with a sidelong look at the sheriff to see how that official was taking the disclosure of these professional secrets. As well as one might judge by a glance the sheriff was taking it unmoved. He was cutting off a chew of tobacco from a black plug. Stowing the morsel in his jaw, he advanced an idea of his own:

“How about attachin' the receipts in the ticket wagon?”

“I don't know about that either,” said the sophisticated Stanton. “Dan Silver is one of the wisest guys in this business. He had to be a wise guy to slip one over on an old big-leaguer like yours truly, and that's no sidewalk banter either. You might attach the wagon and put a constable or somebody inside of it, and then like as not Dan'd find some way to flimflam him and make his getaway with the kale intact. You gotter give it to Dan Silver there. I guess he's a stupid guy--yes, stupid like a bear cat!” His tone of reluctant admiration indicated that this last was spoken satirically and that seriously he regarded a bear cat as probably the astutest hybrid of all species.

“Are all circuses conducted in this general fashion, suh?” inquired the old judge softly.

“No,” admitted Stanton, “they ain't--the big ones ain't anyway; but a lot of the small ones is. They gotter do it because a circus is always fair game for a sore rube. Once the tents come down a circus has got no friends.

“I tell you what,” he went on, struck amidships with a happy notion--“I tell you what you do. Lemme swear out an attachment against the band wagon and the band-wagon team, and you go serve it right away, sheriff. That'll fix him, I guess.”

“How so?” put in the judge, still seeking information for his own enlightenment.

“Why, you see, if you tie up that band wagon Dan Silver can't use it for parading. He ain't got but just the one, and a circus parade without a band wagon will look pretty sick, I should say. It'll look more like something else, a funeral, for example.” The pleased grafter grinned maliciously.

“It's like this--the band wagon is the key to the whole works,” he went on. “It's the first thing off the lot when the parade starts--the band-wagon driver is the only one that has the route. You cut the band wagon out and you've just naturally got that parade snarled up to hell and gone.”

Judge Priest got upon his feet and advanced upon the exultant stranger. He seemed more interested than at any time.

“Suh,” he asked, “let me see if I understand you properly. The band wagon is the guidin' motive, as it were, of the entire parade--is that right?”

“You've got it,” Stanton assured him. “Even the stock is trained to follow the band wagon. They steer by the music up ahead. Cop the band wagon out and the rest of 'em won't know which way to go--that's the rule where-ever there's a road show traveling.”

“Ah hah,” said the judge reflectively, “I see.”

“But say, look here, judge,” said Stanton. “Begging your pardon and not trying to rush you nor nothing, but if you're going to attach that band wagon of Dan Silver's for me you gotter hurry. That parade is due to leave the lot in less'n half an hour from now.”

He was gratified to note that his warning appeared to grease the joints in the old judge's legs. They all three went straightway to the sheriff's office, which chanced to be only two doors away, and there the preliminaries necessary to legal seizures touching on a certain described and specified parade chariot, tableau car or band wagon were speedily completed. Stanton made oath to divers allegations and departed, assiduously combing himself and gloating openly over the anticipated discomfiture of his late partner. The sheriff lingered behind only a minute or two longer while Judge Priest in the privacy of a back room impressed upon him his instructions. Then he, too, departed, moving at his top walking gait westward out Jefferson Street. There was this that could be said for Sheriff Giles Birdsong--he was not gifted in conversation nor was he of a quick order of intellect, but he knew his duty and he obeyed orders literally when conveyed to him by a superior official. On occasion he had obeyed them so literally--where the warrant had said dead or alive, for example--that he brought in, feet first, a prisoner or so who manifested a spirited reluctance against being brought in any other way. And the instructions he had now were highly explicit on a certain head.

Close on Sheriff Birdsong's hurrying heels the judge himself issued forth from the sheriff's office. Hailing a slowly ambling public vehicle driven by a languid darky, he deposited his person therein and was driven away. Observing this from his place in front of the drug store, Sergeant Jimmy Bagby was moved to remark generally to the company: “You can't tell me I wasn't right a while ago about Judge Billy Priest. Look at him yonder now, puttin' out for home in a hack, without waitin' for the parade. There certainly is something wrong with the judge and you can't tell me there ain't.”

If the judge didn't wait nearly everybody else did--waited with what patience and impatience they might through a period that was punctuated by a dozen false alarms, each marked with much craning of elderly necks and abortive rushes by younger enthusiasts to the middle of the street. After a while, though, from away up at the head of Jefferson Street there came down, borne along on the summer air, a faint anticipatory blare of brazen horns, heard at first only in broken snatches. Then, in a minute or two, the blaring resolved itself into a connected effort at melody, with drums throbbing away in it. Farmers grabbed at the bits of restive horses, that had their ears set sharply in one direction, and began uttering soothing and admonitory “whoas.” The stores erupted clerks and customers together. The awning poles on both sides of the street assumed the appearance of burdened grape trellises, bearing ripe black and white clusters of small boys. At last she was coming!

She was, for a fact. She came on until the thin runlet of ostensible music became a fan-faring, crashing cataract of pleasing and exhilarating sound, until through the dancing dust could be made out the arching, upcurved front of a splendid red-and-gold chariot. In front of it, like wallowing waves before the prow of a Viking ship, were the weaving broad backs of many white horses, and stretching behind it was a sinuous, colorful mass crowned with dancing, distant banner-things, and suggesting in glintings of gold and splashings of flame an oncoming argosy of glitter and gorgeousness.

She was coming all right! But was she? A sort of disappointed, surprised gasp passed along the crowded sidewalks, and boys began sliding down the awning poles and running like mad up the street. For instead of continuing straight on down Jefferson, as all circus parades had always done, the head of this one was seen now, after a momentary halt as of indecision, to turn short off and head into Clay. But why Clay Street--that was the question? Clay Street didn't have ten houses on it, all told, and it ran up a steep hill and ended in an abandoned orchard just beyond the old Priest place. Indeed the only way to get out of Clay Street, once you got into it, was by a distant lane that cut through to the paralleling street on the right. What would any circus parade in possession of its sane senses be doing going up Clay Street?

But that indeed was exactly what this parade was doing--with the added phenomena of Sheriff Giles Birdsong sitting vigilantly erect on the front seat of the band wagon, and a band-wagon driver taking orders for once from somebody besides his rightful boss--taking them protestingly and profanely, but nevertheless taking them.

Yes, sir, that's what she was doing. The band wagon, behind the oblique arc of its ten-horse team, was swinging into Clay Street, and the rest of the procession was following its leader and disappearing, wormlike, into a tunnel of overarching maples and silver-leaf poplars.