Part 16

"Tell you where it's hard on an acrobat," put in Zorella--"that's where he _can't_ quit on account of his family--where he needs the money. I remember a young fellow joined the show out west to leap over elephants. He got along well enough over two elephants, but when it came to three, why, we could all see he was shaky. Some of the boys told him he'd better stop, but he said he'd try to learn, and he was such a nice, modest fellow and worked so hard that everybody wished him luck. But it wasn't any use. One day he tackled a double over three elephants, and came down all in sections, with his right foot on the mattress and his left foot on the ground. That was his last leap, poor fellow, for the ankle bones snapped as his left foot struck, and a few hours later he lay in the dressing-room tent, pretty white, with the doctors over him. I'll never forget the way he looked up at us when we came in. He was game all right, but his eyes were awful pathetic. 'Well, boys' said he, 'here I am. I did the best I could.' Turned out he'd done it for a sick wife and a little baby. Pretty tough, wasn't it?"

Speaking of leaps over elephants brings to my mind an afternoon when I watched a circus rehearsal in the open air. That is a thing better worth seeing, to my mind, than the regular performance; the acrobats and riders in their every-day clothes are more like ordinary men and women, and their feats seem the more difficult for occasional slips and failures.

Here, for instance, are a mother and daughter, in shirt-waists, watching the trick monkey ride a pony, when suddenly a whistle sounds, and off goes the mother to drive three plunging horses in a chariot-race, while the daughter hurries to her part in an equestrian quadrille. And now these children playing near the drilling elephants trot into the ring and do wonderful things on bicycles. And yonder sleepy-looking man is a lion-tamer; and those three are the famous Potters, aerial leapers; and this thick-set fellow in his shirt-sleeves is Artressi, the best jumper in the circus. He's going to practise now; see, they are putting up the spring-board and the long downward run that leads to it. These other men are jumpers, too, but Artressi is the star; he draws the big salary.

Now they start and spring off rather clumsily, one after another, in straight leaps to the mattress. They won't work into good form for some days yet. Here they come again, a little faster, and two of them try singles. Here comes Artressi. Ah! a double forward, and prettily taken. The crowd applauds. Now a tall man tries a double. Gradually the practice gets hotter until every man is doing his best. There will be stiff joints here in the morning, but never mind!

In a resting-spell I sat down by Artressi and talked with him about leaping. It was hard, he said, going off a spring-board into empty air. Didn't know how it was, but he could always do better with something to leap over, say elephants or horses. He could judge the mattress easier; wasn't so apt to miss it. What was his biggest leap? Well, four elephants and three camels was about his best, with a pyramid of men on top. He'd cleared that twice a day for weeks some years ago, but he wouldn't do it now. No, sir; four elephants was enough for any man to leap over if he had a wife and child. That made a flight of thirty feet, anyhow, from the spring-board to the ground. Oh, yes, he turned two somersaults on the way--forward somersaults. It wasn't possible for anybody to clear four elephants and turn backward somersaults.

I asked Artressi (his real name is Artress) about a leap with three somersaults, and found him positive that such a feat will never become part of a regular circus program. A man can turn the three somersaults all right, but he loses control of himself, and doesn't know whether he is coming down right or wrong. In fact, he is sure to come down wrong if he does it often. Then he mentioned the one case where he himself had made a leap with three somersaults. It was down in Kentucky, at the home of his boyhood. Years had passed since he had seen the town, and in that time he had risen from nothing to a blaze of circus glory. He had become the "Great Artressi" instead of little Joe Artress, and now he was to appear before the people who knew him.

It was perhaps the most exciting moment of his life, and as he came down the run toward the spring-board he nerved himself to so fine an effort that instead of doing two somersaults over the horses and elephants, as he intended, he did three, and, by a miracle of fortune, landed safely. That was his first and last triple; he wasn't taking chances of a broken neck or a twisted spine, which had been the end of more than one ambitious leaper. No, sir; he would stick to doubles, where a man knows exactly what he's doing.

In talking with acrobats, I came upon an interesting phenomenon that seems almost like a violation of the laws of gravitation. It appears that the movements of a performer on the bars or trapeze are affected in a marked degree by the slope of the ground underneath. In other words, although bars and trapeze may rest on supports that are perfectly level, yet the swing of an acrobat's body will be accelerated over a downward slope or retarded over an upward slope. So true is this that the trapeze performer swinging over an upward slope will often require all his strength to reach a given point, while over a downward slope he must hold back, lest he reach it too easily and suffer a collision. Nevertheless, the swing in both cases is precisely the same, with rigging and bars fixed to a true level.

On this point there have been endless arguments, and many persons have contended that acrobats must imagine all this, since the upward or downward slope of the ground under a trapeze can in no way affect the movement of that trapeze. I fancy the wisdom of such people is like that of the professors who proved some years ago that it is a physical impossibility for a ball-player to "pitch a curve." There is no doubt that trapeze performers are obliged to take serious account of the ground's slope in their daily work, to note carefully the amount of slope and the direction of slope, and to take their precautions accordingly. If they did not they would fail in their feats. Those are the facts to which all acrobats bear witness, let scientists explain them as they may.

"Suppose the ground slopes to one side or the other under your trapeze," I asked Ryan, one day. "How does that affect you?"

"It draws you down the slope, and makes your bar swing that way."

"What do you do about it?"

"Sometimes I pull the bar over a little in starting, so as to balance the pull of the hill; but that's uncertain. It's better to fix the rigging so that the bar is a little higher on the downhill side."

Ryan said that a straight-ahead downhill slope is the worst for a man, because he is apt to hold back too hard, being afraid of bumping into his partner, and so he doesn't get send enough, and falls short of his mark.

"But all slopes are bad for us," he said, "and we try hard to get our things put up over level ground."

This is but one instance of the jealous care shown by acrobats for their bars and rigging. These things belong not to the circus, but to the individual performers, who put every brace and knot to the severest test. For the high bars a particular kind of hickory is used with a core of steel inside. Every mesh of the net must resist a certain strain. The bars themselves must be neither too dry nor too moist. The light must come in a certain way, and a dozen other things. Many an accident has come through the failure of some little thing.

This much is certain, that acrobats often suffer without serious injury falls that would put an end to ordinary men. Like bareback riders, they _know how to fall_, this art consisting chiefly in "tucking up" into a ball and hardening the muscles so that the shock is eased. Also they have by practice acquired the power of deciding instantly how to make the body protect itself in an emergency.

"Now," said Ryan, "I'll give you a case where two of us did some quick thinking, and it helped a lot. We were with a circus in Australia, making a night run. It was somewhere in New South Wales, and every man was asleep in his bunk. First thing we knew, bang, rip, tear! a drowsy engineer had smashed into us and taken the rear truck of our sleeper clean off, and there were the floor timbers of our car bumping along over the ties. We had the last car.

"Our engineer never slowed up, and our floor was going into kindling-wood fast. It was as dark as pitch, and nobody said a word. Fred Reynolds and I--Reynolds was a clown acrobat--had lower berths right at the end, next to the negro porter, and I don't say we escaped because we were acrobats, but--well, this is what we did. Fred gave one mighty leap, just like going over elephants, and cleared the whole trail of wreckage that was pounding along behind the car and landed safe on the track. It was a crazy thing to do, in my opinion, but it worked. I made a spring for the chandelier, and hung there until the train stopped. And afterward I found my trousers back on the road-bed with the legs cut clean off, and I guess my own legs would have gone the same way if they'd been there. What did the porter do? Oh, he did nothing, and--and he was killed."

III

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR TRIES HIS HAND WITH PROFESSIONAL TRAPEZE PERFORMERS

ON this particular morning--it was a damp day in February--I had been watching the Potter family, familiar on circus posters in tights and spangles, at their practice of aerial leaps, when Henry Potter, who is husband, father, and brother of the others, and chief of the act, suggested that if I wanted a vivid idea of what it was to work on the flying trapeze I might come up and take his place on the cradle and let Tom chuck the "kid" across to me and see if I could catch him.

The "kid" was Roy Potter (sometimes Royetta, when presented in feminine trappings), a slender lad of seventeen, who had just been doing doubles and twisters and half turns, leaping with shoot and graceful curve from brother to brother up there in mid-air under the rafters of this moldering old skating-rink.

"Go ahead," he urged; "it's easy enough. All you've got to do is hang by your knees, and it can't hurt the boy, for he'll drop in the net if you miss him. Besides, we'll put the 'mechanic' on him."

The "mechanic" is an arrangement of waist straps and trailing pulley-ropes that guard a gymnast while he is learning some new feat.

Doubtless, I should have declined this amiable offer had I taken time to consider, for there was no particular appropriateness in a man who knew nothing about the trapeze, except such rudiments as boys of twelve get in their own back yards, taking part offhand in a leaping performance thirty feet above ground with "the phenomenal and fearless Potters"--I quote the circus signs--"greatest of all great acrobatic aerials." Yet he put it so plausibly--I certainly _would_ get a better idea of the thing--and he made it out so simple--anybody can hang by his knees--that I said all right; I would go up on the cradle and catch the "kid."

This cradle is composed of two steel bars, about a foot apart, that are held rigid by tackle and wire braces. You climb to it (after emptying your pockets) by a swinging ladder, none too secure, and, seated here, look down as from the dome of a circus tent. On a line with you are other cradles, where your partners are coolly preparing to do things. You glance across at them anxiously, then down at the net, which seems a long way beneath.

"Better put some rosin on your hands," sings out Potter from the ground, where he is arranging the "mechanic" lines.

"It's in that little bag on the wire," calls the boy from his perch. "Rub it along your wrists, too; we'll ketch better."

H'm! We will, eh? I do as I am told, and realize that even the trifling movement to get this rosin-bag involves a certain peril.

"Now lean back," comes the word; "catch one bar in the crotch of your knees and brace your feet under the other. That's right. Hang 'way down. Stretch your arms out, and when I say, 'Now,' pull up and reach for the 'kid'--you'll see him coming."

Sure enough, although the blood was in my head, I could see over there Tom Potter's red shirt and the boy's blue one as they poised for the swing. Then Tom's body dropped back, and he swept the lad at full arm's length, through a half circle, and let him go head first, cutting the air, straight at me.

"Now," cried Harry, and I reached out as best I could, only to see the boy, a second later, floundering in the net below me. And they all were laughing. In trying to reach one way I had actually reached the other, and withdrawn my arms instead of extending them, which made me understand better than an hour of words that a man hanging head down at a height finds his muscles as hard to control as a penman writing with his left hand for the first time. He cannot even see straight until his eyes learn to gage distances and the relation of things presented upside down.

With some pains and an awkward clutching at the braces I got myself back into a sitting position, while Roy climbed again good-naturedly to his starting-cradle. A trapeze performer must have infinite patience.

Again we tried the trick, and this time, as I hung expectant, I felt my wrists clutched tight, and there was the agile leaper swinging back, pendulum fashion, from my arms, then forward, then back, while the bar strained under my knees.

"Now, throw him!" called Harry. "Stiffen out and chuck him back to Tom. Now!"

Alas! I made a bungle of it. I could not give him send enough, and the boy, falling short of Tom's arms, dangled from the "mechanic" lines half-way down to the net. It was quite plain that more than good intentions are needed to chuck young gentlemen through flights of eighteen feet. I was feeling decidedly queer by this time--a sort of half-way-over-the-Channel faintness, and could imagine what it must be to work up here, right at the peak of a "big-top" tent, under the scorch of an August sun, with the stifle of a great audience coming up from below. I expressed a readiness to descend.

"Try a drop into the net," suggested Tom Potter. "See, hang by your hands, like this. Keep your legs together and lift 'em out stiff. Then--"

Down he went, and landed easily on his shoulders.

"Better put the 'mechanic' on him," said Harry, and presently young Roy was beside me on the cradle, securing me to the drop-lines with a double hitch.

"You want to be sure to lift yer legs," he remarked. "I knew a feller that struck the net straight on his feet and broke his knees."

"Don't you worry," said Harry; "if you don't fall right, I'll hold you with the 'mechanic.'"

Of course, when a man has started at this sort of thing he must see it through, so I hung obediently by my hands, lifted my legs, and--

"Now," cried Harry, and instantly, before I had time to think or note sensations, I was on my back in the net. And I understood what a terrible problem it is for a gymnast, falling with such swiftness, to turn two or three somersaults in the air and land with the body at just the angle of safety, for a shade too much one way may mean a broken leg, and a shade too much the other way an injured spine.

For some time after my aerial experience I sat around rather limp and white, giving but indifferent attention to the breaking in of young Clarence Potter, baby of the family, now in his first fortnight's practising. He certainly showed a game spirit, this little fellow. When his father said, "Jump," he jumped, and when the call came for a forward somersault across and a half turn he went at it like a veteran, though his wrists must have burned with red chafes where they caught him. Of course he had the 'mechanic' on all the time.

"We have to handle him very careful," said his father, "he's so limber. It wouldn't take much to break his back. But he'll harden up soon. People have an idea that gymnasts are supple-jointed. That's all nonsense. A gymnast won't bend as much as an ordinary business man. There are too many bunches of muscles all over him that keep him stiff. See, feel along here." He prodded my hand into his back and sides. "Not big muscles, mind, but lots of small ones. Say, it's a fine thing to have your body trained. I don't believe there's a healthier-- Hey, there! Keep those legs together. Easy now. Good boy!" The little fellow had made a pretty turn and drop to the net, and was striding along its meshes, beaming at the praise.

"He'll make a gymnast," said Potter, "because he's got a head on him, and can fix his mind on what he's doing. Oh, it takes more than body to make a great acrobat. It takes brains, for one thing, and heart. I believe I'll be able to train that boy so he can do a triple. I mean _do_ it, not get through it in a Lord-help-me way. Most people say a triple can't be done for a regular act because it's too uncertain and too dangerous. But they used to say that of a double. It's all a matter of taking time enough in the practice. That's the thing, practice. Why, look at us. We don't open for months yet, but we're up here every morning all through the winter getting our act down so fine, and the time so perfect, that when summer comes we can't fail."

"How do you mean, getting the time perfect?"

"Why, in trapeze work everything depends on judging time. Just now when you were hanging from the cradle you couldn't see much, could you? Well, we can't, either. We have to know when to do things by feeling the time they take. Say it's a long double swing, where the men cross and change bars. Each man grabs or lets go at the second or part of a second when the watch inside him says it's time to grab or let go. That's the only watch he has, and it's the only one he needs."

"And he dives by the sense of time?"

"That's right."

"And does triple somersaults by the sense of time?"

"Certainly he does. He can't see. What could _you_ see, falling and whirling? A gymnast has no different eyes from any other man. He's got to _feel_ how long he must keep on turning. And it's good-by gymnast if his feeling is a quarter of a second out of the way."

"Do you mean that literally?"

Mr. Potter smiled. "I'll give you a case, and you can judge for yourself. There was a fellow named Johnnie Howard in the Barnum show. He was doing trapeze work with the famous Dunham family, and was very ambitious to equal Dunham in all his feats, which was a large contract, for Dunham is about the finest gymnast in the world. What a pretty triple he can do, clean down from the top of the tent, and land right every time!

"Well, Howard he kept trying triples, and sometimes he got 'em about right and sometimes he didn't. Dunham told him he'd better stick to doubles until he'd had more practice, but Howard wouldn't have it, and he kept right on. Prob'ly he thought Dunham was jealous of him. Anyhow, he tried a triple one night at Chicago, in the Coliseum, and that was the last triple he ever did try. He misjudged his time by a quarter of a turn--that is, he turned three somersaults and a quarter instead of just three--and struck the net so that he twisted his spinal column, and he died a few weeks later. That last quarter of a turn killed him, and it probably didn't take over a tenth of a second."

Here was something to think about. Precision of movement to tenths of a second, with no guidance but a man's own intuition of time, and a life depending on it!

"Can a man regulate the speed of his turning while he is in the air?"

"Certainly he can. That's the first thing you learn. If you want to turn faster you tuck up your knees and bend your head so the chin almost touches your breast. If you want to turn slower you stretch out your legs and straighten up your head. The main thing is your head. Whichever way you point that your body will follow. In our act we do a long drop from the top of the tent, where you shoot straight down, head first, for fifty or sixty feet and never move a muscle until you are two feet over the net. Then you duck your head everlastingly quick and land on your shoulders."

I asked Mr. Potter how long a drop would be possible for a gymnast. He thought a hundred feet might be done by a man of unusual nerve, but he pointed out that the peril increases enormously with every twenty feet you add, say to a drop of forty feet. When you have dropped sixty feet you are falling thirty-five miles an hour; when you have dropped eighty feet you are falling nearly sixty miles an hour. And so on. It seemed incredible that a man shooting down, head first, at such velocity would wait before turning until only two feet separated him from the net.

"It can't be," said I, "that in one of these straight drops a gymnast is guided only by his sense of time?"

Potter hesitated a moment. "You mean that he uses his eyes to know when to turn? I guess he does a little, although it is mostly sense of time."

"You wouldn't get a man to do it blindfolded?" I suggested.

"Not a straight drop, no; but a drop with somersaults, yes."

"What, two somersaults down to the net, blindfolded?"

"Yes, sir, that would be easy. I tell you a man's eyes don't help him when he's turning in the air. Why, Tom and I would throw that boy of mine (Royetta) across from one to the other, he turning doubles, just the same whether he was blindfolded or not. It wouldn't make any difference.

"I'll tell you another thing," he continued, "that may surprise you. It's possible for a fine gymnast to swing from a bar, say sixty feet above the net, turn a back somersault--what we call a cast somersault--then shoot straight down head first for thirty feet and then tuck up and turn a forward somersault, landing on his shoulders. I couldn't do it myself ever since I got hurt down in Mexico, but Tom Hanlon could. I mention this to show what control a man can get over his body in the air. He can make it turn one way, then go straight, and then turn the other way."

After proper expression of wonder at this statement, I asked Mr. Potter if something might not go wrong with this wonderful automatic time machine that a gymnast carries within himself. Of course there might, he said, and that is why there is such need of practice. Let a man neglect his trapeze for a couple of months, and he would be almost like a beginner. And even the best gymnasts, he admitted, men in the pink of training, are liable to sudden and unaccountable disturbances of mind or heart that make them for the moment unequal to their most familiar feats.

"I'll tell you what accounts for the death of most gymnasts," he went on. "It's changing their minds while they're in the air. That's what we call it, but it's only a name. Nobody knows just what happens when a gymnast changes his mind--I mean what happens inside him. What happens outside is that he's usually killed.