Part 1

RED WAGON STORIES OR TALES TOLD UNDER THE TENT

BY WELLS HAWKS

I. & M. OTTENHEIMER PUBLISHERS NO. 321 WEST BALTIMORE STREET BALTIMORE, MD.

Cover Design by J. R. CROSSLEY.

Copyrighted 1904. I. & M. OTTENHEIMER. BALTIMORE, MD.

Between the shows there were seven of the circus outfit who would sit around the ring bank and on the carpet pads just to talk. Here are some of the tales told under the big round top when the tent was empty.

And to those happy days of bread and preserves, when we bare-footed kids sneaked out of the backyard gate to the circus lot and led the spotted ponies to water, these little yarns are affectionately dedicated:--

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

THE PRESS AGENT’S STORY 7

THE OLD GRAFTER’S LAMENT 14

THE BILL POSTER’S VISIT 21

THE CANDY BUTCHER’S DREAM OF LOVE 30

THE BOSS CANVASMAN’S YARN 33

THE SIDE SHOW SPIELER SPEAKS 48

THE BAND MASTER’S SOLO 54

THE CANDY BUTCHER TALKS ABOUT A LOVE AFFAIR AND HIS ENCOUNTER WITH THE BUCKWHEAT MAN 59

THE CONCERT MANAGER GETS REMINISCENT 70

THE HANDS AT THE WINDOW 75

THE CONCERT MANAGER TELLS THE BOYS AN ELEPHANT STORY 83

THE PRESS AGENT’S STORY.

The Press Agent of the Big Show had formerly been dramatic editor of the leading daily in Council Bluffs. It was his star boast that he was the only critic in the Middle West that ever had the nerve to roast Joe Jefferson, and he said he did it in the interest of art.

“Art,” says he, “must be preserved, an’ the only way to do it is by knockin’.”

The Press Agent wore his hair long, had a smooth face, and looked like a police reporter out on a three-column story with the facts coming in slowly. He hadn’t much baggage, but he always carried about a ream of adjective hit paper, two lead pencils, and a pass-pad. No man ever heard him talk without wondering what kind of stuff he beat out on a typewriter.

The saw dust spreader was smoothing out the ring for the night acts and the rest of the gang were sitting around roasting the route when the Press Agent came through the red curtains at the dressing tent entrance picking his teeth with a straw. He sat down on the box where the Greaser Knife Thrower kept his keen steels, and filling his pipe waited for a break in the conversation. Then he asked the gasoline man for a match. After he got the fire he saw there were no words loose from the ring-bankers, so he starts his skein.

“Well, lads, we hit ’em up hard at the mat today, 12,000 on the blue boards an’ the ticket wagon window down before the harness is on for the entree. S’pose them laddy-bucks in No. 2 car will say it was a good billin’, but I’m tellin’ you people that this is a readin’ community, an’ it was the press work that had the coin hittin’ the window this date, an’ that’s no cold cream con, either. The Gov’nor knows it, for he gives me a good word an’ a back pat jus’ as the parade was startin’ for the main highway.

“I’m given youse the real word, an’ it’s this--when you can get ’em readin’ about the Big Show you’ve already got ’em feelin’ for change to buy, an’ that’s as true as ticker talk. The old man sees in the paper that the Big Show will soon be on the lot, an’ when he gets home to daily bread he tells it to the old woman; the kids get next and there’s no let up on papa ’till he promises to buy in for the whole family. An’ workin’ one is workin’ all--that’s my motto. It’s the press work that gets ’em talkin’, an’ it’s the talkin’ that’ll make ’em give up even when wheat is down to 48 an’ interest on mortgages is starin’ ’em in the face. Get the paper talk an’ the money is so sure that you can be plannin’ new acts for next season before the first pasteboard hits the bottom of the red box on the gate.

“But, say, it ain’t no children’s game to get this paper talk. The good old days when you could blow into the newspaper offices with a loud vest and a tiger claw hangin’ on your watch guard is done. Them times the old agent would lay down a cigar on the editor’s desk, spread a lot of salve about the greatest yet and the only one in captivity story, and then work the gag ‘write me somethin’, old man.’ But them days is strictly past. It’s a new make up now, an’ a new line of talk that wins ’em. You want to enter quiet like just as if you were one of them Sunday school boys with a write-up on a rally in the church basement. The editor gives you the size-up for this, an’ when you says ‘I’m ahead of the Big Show comin’ 25th and 26th,’ he’s so surprised that he’s glad to see you, an’ it’s once aroun’ the track before the bunch sees the flag that he asks you out to drink before you spring your pass-pad. And, if you don’t believe me, ask soft talking Jim Jay Brady and have it passed off for gospel.

“It’s the approach that makes the center shot this new century. Go in easy, be skimp with your talk, don’t spread the salve too thick, an’ give ’em clean copy--that’s the game; be you ahead of Henry Irving with ten carloads of stuff, a dinky little farce comedy with a society dame doin’ the lead, a melodrama with a real convict a-cracking the safe, or one of them Broadway big ones--no matter, it’s the same, an’ what goes for them goes for the Big Show, whether you’ve got 68 cars on the sidin’, or you have slipped in after night with rubber boots on--and that’s no Tody Hamilton catch line.

“But you don’t want to be too certain; you can get your chances in this line just as easy as in the shootin’ gallery when its bullets against clay pipes. Some of the boys that handles the copy for the Eastern press can put up a frost that would keep Chicago beef around the world in a sailin’ ship. But you can melt ’em if you make good. Remember hittin’ Boston las’ season an’ runnin’ up against one of these heady boys with a foldin’ forehead. I give it to ’em easy, an’ when I says circus he looks at me through his windows an’ says so haughty:

“‘Ah, the circus! Quite a diverting entertainment. Originated with the Greeks.’

“Now wouldn’t that make you itch? Me mind gets to chasin’ ’roun’ for a proper come-back, an’ I tries to recollect the names of some of them old guys what went paddlin’ ’roun’ in a sheet an’ sandals spittin’ out wise words that no one has forgot. An’ mem’ry lands me at the right dock, so I han’s this to the college boy:

“‘Yes,’ sez I, ‘I believe it was Aristophanes who wrote an epic on the circus to be read at one of Nero’s spring openin’s.’

“The words is hardly out of me mouth when he gives me one of those looks that would have made Peary thought he had found the pole. So I lays me copy on the desk and gives five bells to back water an’ I’m in the elevator. An’ so help me Bob, I hardly reaches the pavement before I sees sheets of paper flutterin’ in the air an’ me copy falls on the asphalt. The college boy had lifted it. Now you would think that it was a sheet that roasted us. Not at all, not at all. He gives us a two-column write-up and three half tones that had me up to the bar an’ dizzy for a day. The worst will fool you.

“An’, say, that reminds me. Remember when we was playin’ the week’s run in Chicago las’ July? Well, I’d been skatin’ roun’ to the papers an’ buyin’ drinks for the press boys, an’ it was joggin’ along to three on the dials when I remembers I have a bed at the hotel. It was out near the lot, an’ I starts out to walk. I’m crossin’ the railroad tracks when a weary steps out an’ asks me for a match. I gives up, when another comes into the talk an’ says, ‘Give us money.’ Say, I didn’t have but thirty cents, an’ I gave up. But the highwaymen thought I was lyin’, an’ was going to tap me when I says, ‘Now, boys, let’s argue this out.’ So I takes them two Jesse Jameses under a lamp post an’ gives them a josh talk on the Big Show that has ’em serfy.”

“Well,” said the Boss Canvasman, who was always interested when there was any fight talk, “what happened, what happened?”

“What happened?” says the Press Agent. “Hear me! I takes out me pass-pad an’ writes passes for them robbers until a policeman comes, when I turns ’em over. An’ that ain’t all; I gets a column story in each of the afternoon sheets on how the Press Agent of the Big Show captures two bold boys, an’ the Gov’nor gives me the good word and a double X, an’ I says thankee an’ repeats me motto, ‘An’ workin’ one is workin’ all,’ to every barkeeper that was sellin’ after midnight that evenin’.”

THE OLD GRAFTER’S LAMENT.

The Old Grafter had corns on his knuckles from holding greenbacks between his fingers.

He looked a trifle seedy about the costume, but his moustache was waxed--the moustache, too, was dyed and you saw the reason when he took his hat off. The Old Grafter wore a celluloid collar and a polka dotted dickey, and when his vest was opened it showed up the shyness of his linen.

The Concert Manager was springing gossip about the principal clown who was having trouble with his wife who did the iron jaw swing. He saw the Old Grafter coming across the ring and he stopped, for it was pretty well known that old-timer wouldn’t stand for scandal. The Old Grafter bit off enough tobacco from the canvasman’s plug to make a comfortable quid and then sat down on the snake box. He was looking sad and there was silence. Presently he sent a splash of juice up against the center pole and after shifting the quid he opened up.

“Say fellers, I’ve been cuttin’ the cards since John Robinson had money in tent shows an’ I’ve come to the verdict, it’s this--when you’ve got the green in your pocket an’ the suckers is tipped off they’ll crowd you as thick as flies on the popcorn pile, but when there ain’t no coin to jingle you kin get so lonesome that you’ll go to bed with a hot water bot’l for company.”

This bit of wisdom impressed the gang, for no one spoke, and the Old Grafter threw his reversing bar and chinned out this--

“The old days is gone an’ they’s left the circus graft on a weedy sidin’ with no roun’ trips back to the lan’ of promise. Them was the one ring days an’ in them times there was allus fodder for the hogs. Today it’s one ring, two rings, three rings and a stage--the biggest tent on earth, but for the grafter--nothin’, nothin’. Me, what use to turn the shank of the week with a bigger wad than the principal bareback gets, me makes today a dirty twenty on percentage an’ sellin’ reserved seats. I’m ashamed to look the old days in the face. Why say in them days many a time the proprietor of the Big Show was touchin’ the grafter for cash when business was bad an’ today so diff’rent, so diff’rent--if I gets into a poker play on the train an’ the ante’s a nickel I’ve got to reach twice to find the coin. If I’d had the good sense what’s in Bill McGinnis head I’d a bought a little road tavern like he did twenty years ago an’ I’d a-had a bank book roostin’ back of the bar. But I thinks there’s still somethin’ doin’ my end an’ I waits an’ loses--and what do I get--a couple of treasuries and some change at the pay off durin’ the season with crackers and cheese for me an’ the old woman in the winter. It’s the diff’rence ’tween horse radish an’ saw dust an’ its got me slippin’ back.

“I’ll tell you fellers somethin’ ’bout the old days. ’Twas ’bout ’76 an’ we was graftin’ with a one ring outfit. We struck good crops and sunny weather in the one nighters in the Ohio valley. The farmers had money an’ there was peaches in the orchard for every boy with the troup that had a bag of tricks. Everybody was standin’ in on the graft an’ we had a fixer two days ahead so there’d be no call. We was carryin’ a car with the lay out an’ four tin horns that was science on faro and turnin’ the wheel. The big game was invited to the car an’ there was allus a set out an’ sumthin’ to drink. The little fish was worked on the lot an’ there was days, many days when the graft was mor’n the ticket wagon count up, an’ the rake off was loafin’ ’bout par, continuous. Good days them, me boys, for ev’ry body from the boss of the outfit down to the stake driver. Money was comin’ easy an’ when there was any protestin’ on the part of the patrons an’ it got to fists, or gun play we passed along the Hey Rube an’ there was Gettysburg till mornin’ if they was lookin’ for battle.

“The best burg we hit was a lit’l settlement where we had a two mile haul up the pike from track to lot. Everything was ripe for graftin’ an’ we was ready for harvest. Seems like a reform committee had to hit down all the games and the folks was hungry for gamlin’. The posters in No. 1 car piped us off on conditions an’ it was said that them paste spreaders traveled off with a roll from stud polker in the car after the bills was on the stands.

“They wuz on the lots waitin’ for us when the boss landed to lay off the pitch for the round top, we wuz only usin’ one then an’ had no an’mals to speak of. The fakirs got in the game early an’ transparent cards from gay Paree was the first bait and bitin’ was good. ’Fore the parade started all hands was busy on the lot takin’ care of the games an’ say the farmers had it with ’em in rolls. The foxy boy in the ticket wagon has all his bad coin ready and the constable with the badge has been fixed with a ten to see there’s no argument when short change is handed out.

“Oh! we worked systematic them days.

“Well, say, before the band had struck up the grand march for the entree gold bricks wuz sellin’ like cod fish cakes at a nigger camp meetin’ an’ the boys what was workin’ the shells had to lay off to get the stiffness out’er their fingers.

“I hates to tell it, I hates to tell it in the days there’s nothing’ doin’.

“You see I was cappin’ for the boss of the show an’ say that day keeps me busier than a man drivin’ sheep. The outfit was gettin’ thirty-five per cent. of the graft an’ if the partic’lar grafter who was gettin’ the coin failed to come up we se’ed that he was prop’ly turned over to the off’cers of the law an’ we did the prosecutin’ on the groun’ that we was runnin’ a strictly moral show. Say, while I was watchin’, a farmer with a bunch of weeds under his chin an’ a face like a quince comes up to me an’ makes a holler. Somebody had touched him for his wad ’fore he could get to the games an’ he was dead sore. I se’ed that he was goin’ to make trouble so I remembers that his wagon is standin’ in the dirt road by the lot. I gives a stakeman the tip he kicks the off bay in the flanks an’ there’s a runaway. The corn cutter chases after his team an’ forgits that he ever had a roll.

“An’ say at night down in the car the air was hot. The tin horns was busy and coin was droppin’ like rotten apples in a mill race. The boys what was dealin’ the faro had monkeyed with the deck an’ it was far to the bad for the spenders. ’Bout time to start haulin’ for the cars two burly boys begins to talk fight an’ it looks like Hey Rube all aroun’. One sticks his knuckles into me face an’ I says to him sort’er fierce like.

“Say, young fellow, if youse lookin’ for fight I’ll git one of the boys to stick his teeth in your neck an’ you’ll change your mind.

“There was no gun playin’ but there was a lot of chinnin’ and cussin’ but we finally gets the tin horns out an’ starts ’em up the road to the first section. The gang is hot after us an’ there was only one thing saved us. Jes’ as the crowd was closin’ in I sees the tiger den with the two blacks pullin’ it comin’ over the hill. I chases forward to the trainer an’ when the cage gits up close we jes’ shoves them two tin horn dealers in the den with the tigers an’ saves their lives.”

“Never could make a return date there, could you, Bill?” asked the Boss Canvasman as he made one of the spotted coach dogs take a jump through his hands.

“Return date, well I should reckon. Went back there in two months an’ still foun’ ’em ripe. But there was only one way to do it. The Boss had to paint over all the cars an’ wagons an’ change the name of the show. The hay boys thought it was a new outfit.”

THE BILL POSTER’S VISIT.

The Bill Poster was a stranger to most every one in the outfit. He traveled a month ahead of the show on Advertising Car No. 2, and while he hung around during the run in New York he never got well enough acquainted to mix in with the ring bank squatters. While the outfit had great respect for him, and especially for his work, he wasn’t generally understood, and this did not keep his popularity up to par. He always seemed solid with the business staff and called the assistant treasurer by his first name, and these two conditions were known to the sawdust boys. They always took off their hats to anybody on the staff, and the man in the ticket wagon was only known at the pay-off. Then, too, he dressed well and wore a diamond, that is, a real one, and altogether his financial condition was too good.

But for some reason or other the Bill Poster did happen back on the show one afternoon. Just after the matinee, when the gang sat down on the bank for the spiel, he was seen walking across the track, and the boys at once began to speculate on what brought the paste spreader back to home. Some of them thought it was for a call-down, and the concert manager declared that was the cause, for, said he, “I never seen a town billed so rotten as this un.” But the gasoline man, who was a close observer, thought different. He knew that there was a little fairy working in the Fall of Rome ballet that was sweet on the paste boy, and he put the rest of the crowd wise before the conversation got too far from the shore.

“Cert’nly,” he said. “Didn’t I see the guy in his plaid rags ev’ry night when he was playin’ the Garden, gittin’ the little lady at the dressin’ room door and blowin’ her off to butter cakes an’ coffee before she chases to the bridge an’ home.”

The gasoline man was getting real gabby on the love affair, when the Bill Poster came through the red curtains over the dressing tent entrance and walked across the ring to where the gang sat in the shadows. He had a sassy little “Howdy” for everybody and then passed around a box of Turkish cigarettes. Everybody passed it up, and the Boss Canvasman bit off a two-by-three chew from his plug and looked sour.

“Slipped back to see the Boss,” said the Bill Poster, as he lighted one of the Turkish boys with a match he took out of a sterling box that had a beer ad. on it. “Ain’t no secret; I want a transfer. I’m good an’ tired of the slow work on No. 2 car, an’ so I gets a day off an’ runs back to see if the Boss won’t put me with the opposition crew.”

The gang was silent. Nobody had asked for the why, so nobody commented on it. The fact that he was going to have nerve enough to ask to get in the opposition crew filled the concert manager with disgust, for he knew something about bill posting, and also knew that it took a triple-plated crackerjack to hold a place with this crowd of rush pasters of a three-ring outfit.

“There’s nothin’ to it,” continued the Bill Poster, “gettin’ into a town where ev’rything is dead ready, all the boards up, and nothing to do but paste. I want a little excitement. I allus gets it in the winter, when I’m billin’ a hall show. Many a time I’ve laid me bundle of lithos under a doorstep to punch some guy who was tearin’ down my stuff in saloons where I’d spent up me money, and then hangin’ his stuff in the window. I tell you the opposition crew is the crowd to have the ginger. When your car is hangin’ up on a grassy sidin’ an’ you gits a wire that the other show is routin’ three days ahead of your own bookin’s, it makes you jump. The boss wires the head of the gang to jump for the town and beat ’em up. Beat ’em out, but on the level, legitimate--but beat ’em up. Don’t tear down none of their billin’, but kill it if you have to buy the side of the Presbyterian meetin’ house to git a showin’ for them nine-colored twenty-eight sheet stands.”

As far as the gang on the bank was concerned, the Bill Poster was talking Greek, and he had ’em wingin’. The Concert Manager thought he was “next,” but his coupling broke before his understanding left the city limits. Just then the Press Agent of the Big Show happened in and the talk hadn’t gone three lengths before the Bill Poster and the newspaper man crossed bayonets. Both were doing the publicity gag, and both had a well set and riveted idea that each one and not the other was bringing the people into the tent and giving the show a good gate to send back on the statement to the high hat boys in the city who were doing the financing.

“Let me tell you something,” said the Press Agent, as serious as if he was arguing to get a half column write-up on fourteen dollars’ worth of advertising in the only daily in the town. “Let me tell you. These days the people who are spending money for amusements reads the papers, and it’s the paper talk that lands the coin at the window. I know what I’m talkin’ about. Bill posting is all right, but it’s the newspaper work that does the real singin’.”

“Come off!” said the Bill Poster. “You’re only pluggin’ your own job. You don’t mean to tell me that the boss of this outfit would keep all the printin’ shops in Cincinnatty goin’ night an’ day to git out the wall stuff if they didn’t think it was some good. An’ say, they wouldn’t be runnin’ three billin’ cars ahead of this here show if there wasn’t some come-back to the money they was blowin’. Why, say, what do you think they are? Your press work is all right, an’ my bill postin’ is all right, an’ you’ve got to have both.”

“Well, maybe you’re right,” said the Press Agent; “I guess they use the billing to emphasize my work.”

“I don’t know so sure what you means, partner,” said the Bill Poster, “but the Boss of our car figgers it out this way: He says that the readin’ in the papers about the big show makes ’em look at the pictures on the wall. And, says he, the pictures on the wall makes ’em read what is in the papers. An’, say, he’s been pastin’ since the John Robinson days.”

“Guess he’s right,” said the Press Agent.

This last statement hit the gang as real good sense, and they half agreed that the Bill Poster knew something about his business.

“I tell you, boys,” continued the Bill Poster, as he took a seat on the sawdust pile and lighted another one of the Sultan’s dreams, “in me dull moments, when we is travelin’ an’ there’s nothin’ to do but layin’ out paper an’ gittin’ the buckets ready, I figgers it out this way: You can git ’em with the paper talk all right; but there’s one thing you can do with good bill postin’ and litho work, an’ it’s this, you can’t make ’em read the papers, but bless me, you can make ’em see bill postin’. Say, me an’ the gang I work with in New York have sniped the subway fence so hard with red-on-yellows that you would think there was nothing else on Broadway. Did you see ’em? Well, you bet. There was so much color stickin’ along the ditch that it hurt your eyes when you rode by in a car. That’s what I claims for proper billin’. You can git it where they’ve got to see it.