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In all her days of presenting the spectacular, Cheyenne had neverwitnessed a more even contest than was now being staged this day inthe early autumn of 1932, at the circus grounds in the city's suburbs.It was a race between a midget and a lout.
The little man ducked under the garish banners portraying the wondersof the Kid Show, raced the interval to the "big top" of the GreatInternational, then back again, closely followed by a lanky oaf whoselonger strides evened the contest.
"I'll cut yer ears off," the pursuer snarled, as the midget swungaround the pole supporting the snake banner, thus gaining a distanceon his enemy. "En I'll cut yer heart out," the big one yelled as hestumbled and almost fell.
As evidence that he would make good his terrifying threat, the loutflourished a clasp-knife in his right hand; with his left, he madefutile grabs at the midget's coat tail.
The crowd that watched this contest was not of the circus. It was agathering of those who came to the lot at an early hour to watch theCircus City set up shop for the one-day stand in this westernmetropolis. Some of the onlookers were railroad men, off duty; somewere cow hands from nearby ranches; a few Indians from the reservationbeyond the willow-fringed Lodgepole Creek, lent their stoicalpresence, while several soldiers from the newly christened Fort Warrenwith or without official sanction, were on hand to witness the setup.
It was the accepted judgment of those present that the midget and thelout were staging a ballyhoo--a "come-on"--preliminary to the openingof the Kid Show. There was no applause as the little man outwitted hisfollower by an adroit dodge under the ticket wagon. No one trippedthe lout as the race led through the assembled crowd. If the contestwas a part of the day's program, no spectator seemed willing to play"stooge" in this preliminary performance.
Some distance to the north where the two great tents of the main showcame together, a group of workmen were operating a stake driver. Inthis gang the midget knew he would find understanding friends. If hecould gain sufficient distance to undertake this straightaway, hewould find help. He dived between a spectator's legs, turned to theright, and ran for this haven of hope.
Two things interrupted his plans. A ramshackle auto moved across hispath. To avoid collision, the midget veered his course to step in ahole and fall sprawling at the feet of the man clambering out of themachine. His pursuer was on him in an instant. "I tole ye I would cutyer heart out," he panted as he brandished the knife. But before hecould execute the threat, the knife was struck from his uplifted hand.
The lout screamed with pain as he grabbed his wrist. "Yu've broke myarm," he shouted as he danced around the big man. "Why don't ye pickon one of yer size?" The stranger took in the situation at a glance.The slanting forehead and the evil though childish face revealed amoron with whom words of reason would have little effect. He saidnothing.
It was the midget who took charge. He scrambled to his feet, took afew deep breaths, brushed the dust off his coat, and ordered the moronback to the side show. "Go back to your mother," he commanded. "Goright back to Mamie and tell her what you've been doing, and tell herall of it. Don't look for your knife; I'll get that for you when youget over your tantrum."
The midget watched the retreating figure. "His mother is a finewoman," he explained to the stranger. "Has charge of costumes andassists in makeup. That dunce is with her on a few days vacation froma school for the feeble-minded.
"And now, Mister, I want to thank you for your timely help. Youprobably saved my life, for you can't tell what a half-wit will do,when in a tantrum and armed with a knife. All my life I've had theenmity of half-wits. The big ones tease 'em and they take it out onthe little fellow.
"Well, that's that, as dear Marie Dressler says. I certainly amindebted to you, Mister. What's your name, Mister? I surely ought toknow the name of the man that probably saved my life."
"My name is Welborn, Sam Welborn. I live quite a distance back in thehills."
"And my name is David Lannarck, and I've got a score of other namesbesides, to include Shorty, Prince, Runt, Half-Pint, and others. I'mwith the Kid Show. I was getting my stuff in shape for the openingwhen Alfred decided to work on me with that knife. And he about got itdone, because there were none of the show people around to take himoff me. The spectators thought it was some sort of a pre-exhibition.
"And now, Mr. Welborn, let's go down to the cook tent and get a cup ofcoffee, and then you can look around the lot until the shows open. Iwant you to be my guest for the day. I feel that I can never repay youfor what you have done. If you ever want any help or aid that a littlefellow like me can give, call on me; there are a few things that I cando."
"Well I do need some help, right now," said Welborn. "I want todispose of a couple of bears."
"Bears? What kind of bears?"
"Two black bear cubs, fat and fine and just ready to be trained. Icaught them up in the hills, and find that I have about as much usefor them as I would have for a yacht, or a case of smallpox. I'vetried turning them loose, but they won't go. Knowing that the show wasto be here today, I brought them down in the trailer, hoping some onewanted two healthy cubs to fit into an act or exhibition."
"Bears, bears," mused the midget. "Truth is, Mr. Welborn, I'm notposted on the bear market. Offhand, I would say that they were notworth much to a show that was losing money by the bale. You see, thisgood old year of '32 is a bust. A depression hits a circus first andhardest. Just now, we are cutting the season and have planned astraightaway back to winter quarters. Instead of going down throughFort Collins, Greeley, Denver, Pueblo, with a swing through Texas, wehave canceled everything. We play this Union Pacific right through toOmaha and thence back home by direct rails. So a pair of bear cubswouldn't be much of an asset right now."
"Anyhow, let's look 'em over while I think up a plan." The midgetrecovered Alfred's knife from the dust and walked over to the trailerthat he noted had a wooden coop of slats aboard. He climbed up on thewheel where he could see two black, wooly objects, scarcely a foothigh, and nearly that size in length and breadth.
"They do look fat and in good fur," he commented, "and from the waythey are working on the slat on yon side, you won't have them long.They would be out of the pen in another half-hour."
"That's the point to the whole matter. You just can't keep 'em pennedin, and you can't keep 'em barred out. They have reached the peststage and are incorrigible. Now I didn't expect to get much out ofthem anyhow," continued Welborn. "If I could find a home for them,where they would earn their keep, I would be willing to give them tosuch a party. Oh, I know it sounds sort of mushy," he hastened toexplain as he noted the questioning look on David's countenance, "butI killed their mother for raiding our truckpatch and hogpen and Ifound these little fellows up near the den, starving and unable tofend for themselves. I took them home, fed them milk and bread andsugar and brought them up to where they are. But they have reached thestage where something must be done. As you see, they are hard to penup and it's worse to turn them loose. Life to them is one continuousround of wrestling, scrapping, knocking over anything that's loose,and tearing up anything in reach. Whipping them does no good. They cryand beg until you are sorry and then it's to do all over again. I justcouldn't kill them; it would be like killing a pet dog. So I justthought that if I could find someone to take them and care for them,it would be good riddance and give me time to go back to my work."
"Well, that solves the problem," said the midget, gleefully. "I've gotyour party. He's old Fisheye Gleason right here with the show. We candeal with that old buzzard as freely and as profitably as if we werein a cutthroat pawnshop. Hey, you fellows," he called to some passinglaborers, "have any of you seen old Fisheye in the last hour?"
"Fisheye is linin' up the wagons in the menag," said one of the men.
"Er he may be up at the marquee tellin' the boss where to route theshow," said another. "Maybe he's got Beatty cornered, tellin' him anew plan fer workin' the cats this afternoon," leered another. Theleader pointed to the far end of the
big animal tent.
"I've got him located," said David. "Now you fix that slat so thebears won't leave for the next hour and we'll work on Fisheye. He hasbeen with this plant ever since Uncle Ben took it out as a wagon show.Hear him tell it, he set Barnum up in business and loaned the Ringlingboys their first money. Fisheye is a romancer, unhampered by facts.But he's a wise old man at that.
"Fisheye Gleason still has his first dollar. He wears the samecorduroy pants that Uncle Ben gave him on his twenty-first birthday.If we had the time he would tell us his personal experiences withevery celebrity in the circus world. We haven't the time, and we'vegot to work fast and cautious.
"Now Fisheye would balk and walk away on us if we offered him thesebears for nothing; he just wouldn't understand it. He dickers inanimals a little; trains 'em and has 'em doing things right away. Helikes 'em and they like old Fisheye. Why, he can take these littlebears and have 'em turning somersaults, dancing, and climbing to theirperches in no time. Then he sells 'em into some big act.
"Fisheye is our meat for this play, but don't sell out too quick."
Leaving the cubs to the further destruction of their cage, theprospective salesmen wended their way through a maze of sidewalls,poles, unplaced wagons, cages. On past the refreshment booth that wassetting up in the central area; past a score of elephants, swaying incontentment over the morning hay; past camels, llamas, zebras, andother luminaries, to the far end of the big tent where a group oflaborers were aiding two elephants to line up the last of the cagesand vans in a proper circle around the enclosure.
It was all confusing enough to the big Westerner, but the little manknew where to go. He pressed forward to where a little, old, dried up"razorback" was regaling two of the workmen with words of experienceif not wisdom.
"'En I told Shako," he declared with emphasis, "that he never couldwin back old Mom's confidence, till he got a big armload of sugarcaneen doled hit out to her. En shore enough when we got to Little Rockand Shako got holt of some sugarcane, he win that old elephant'srespect instanter. En that ain't all! When we got to Memphis en hitinto that big storm, why ole Mom--" But the audience died away to oneman as the midget's voice interrupted.
"Say, Fisheye, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Mr. Welborn. MeetMr. Welborn, Mr. Gleason. Mr. Welborn here dickers a little in nativeanimals and has a couple of the slickest, fattest, neatest bear cubsI've seen in years. He's got too much business to give any time totraining them and I told him of your success with animals and he wantsto make a deal with you."
"What kind of a deal? And where's yer bars?" Fisheye was alert to thebusiness up to knowing the full import of the deal.
"They are out here in a coop--on a trailer. He brought them down outof the mountains this morning."
"Did ye ketch 'em this mornin'?" queried Fisheye as he followed thetwo salesmen to the truck.
"Naw, he's had 'em in training for two months. Best of all, he knowshow to take care of their hair, how to feed 'em. Look, there they are,alike as two peas and ready to climb a pole or turn a somersault."
Fisheye was peering through the slats. "I wish we had 'em out whar Icould see 'em better. Now what's yer deal, Prince? Ye said somethin'about a deal?"
"Well, it's like this, Fisheye. Mr. Welborn could go right on trainingthese bruins and peddle them through an ad in _Billboard_ for a suretwo hundred smackers, surely by Thanksgiving--"
"Two hundred nothin's," retorted the wary Fisheye, who was not to leta fancy price go by without protest. "Thar's no bar in the world wutha hundred dollars. Why up in the Yallerstone, they offer to give 'emaway!"
"Sure they do, or did last year. They are the old mangy bears thatbother tourists, Jesse James bears, that they want to get rid of. Butthey wouldn't sell you a cub for love or money. Bears are scarce thisyear. They hint of a bear famine up there.
"And anyhow, you didn't let me finish. Why if you owned these bearsand had 'em climbing an injun ladder right up to their perch in theanimal act, had 'em dancing, turning somersaults, you would ask a halfgrand for them and never bat an eye. They would be worth it, and youknow it. But rather than go through the work of getting them ready,Mr. Welborn is willing to take an even hundred for the two. Betterstill, he'll let you make a note for the hundred due in ninetydays--or say Christmas. By that time you've got the bears sold andyour note paid, and jingling the difference."
Fisheye was squinting through the slats. "I wish we had 'em out whar aman could see what he's buying."
"Haven't you got an empty cage where we could turn them out in thedaylight?" asked the sales manager.
"Shore I have. I jist got pie Rip's cage all cleaned out an ready ferwhat come."
"Well, get it open. Cut loose the trailer, Mr. Welborn, and we willback it in by hand. Here, Happy, you and Joe help push this trailer into where Fisheye shows you. These cubs need initiating anyhow."
The trailer was unhooked and carefully backed in through a passagelaid out by the versatile Fisheye. A door was opened in one of theunplaced cages and the little bears pushed out into a new world. Theyscrambled to a far corner, faced about, and waited for the next move.
"There they are," cried the midget enthusiastically, "black asmidnight, fat as butterballs and ready for work." To be sure, thelittle salesman could not see up to the level of the cage floor, buthis sales talk never ceased. "How much am I offered, men," he calledout in a voice simulating an auctioneer. "How much for the two?"
"Now you jist cut out yer comedy until I can squint 'em over," saidFisheye impatiently. "Kin ye move 'em around a little, Mister?"
Welborn reached his hand through the bars and clucked to the littlescared bruins. Hesitatingly they crept up to the extended hand andthen sat up. They were surely butterballs as the midget proclaimed.
"You can't tell which is Amos and which is Andy. Can you, Fisheye?"challenged the salesman.
"Naw! I don't know 'em by name but that un is the oldest. In twins oreven litters thar's one that's oldest. That un is the oldest, hestarts to doin things fust. Now you jist tell me all over again,what's yer proposition about me owning these little b'ars?"
"Well, it is as I said. Mr. Welborn here will take your note for aneven hundred for both bears. The note will be due Christmas. We can goright over to the ticket wagon and have Lew draw the note, payable atthe Wabash Valley Trust Company for an even hundred, and the cubs areyours. And here's another thing," David motioned Fisheye over toanother wagon and out of Mr. Welborn's hearing. "Here's the rest ofthe plan. I am going to offer this man Welborn ninety dollars for yournote. He won't be bothered by having to send it to the bank, and he'lltake my offer. There's where I come in; I make a ten spot without anyinvestment."
"How come?" squawked the amazed Fisheye. "Ye don't own no bars, yeain't out no cash, en ye draw a sawbuck. Now jist why can't thismountain man take ninety dollars in folding money offen me and cut outall this bankin' stuff. I don't want any note at the Wabash Valleynohow. They'd jist harass me into payin' it. Jist cut all that out andlet him take the foldin' money."
"Well, maybe he will," sighed the super salesman. "But I thought ascheap as they were, I ought to have a ten spot out of it. But I resignin your favor. It's all among us folks anyhow. Just you go over andspot him the ninety and see if you win."
Fisheye went back of a neighboring cage to search himself for theneeded cash. The salesman turned to Welborn who in the whole deal hadsaid never a word. "It worked out all right," chuckled the midget."Fisheye is saying spells over his bankroll and is kissing some of thetens and twenties a fond and reluctant farewell. He will offer youninety dollars and you take it. It's better than I'd hoped. You see,Fisheye has his money sewed to him and it makes it hard to acquire.Some of it will be plastered together, for Fisheye hasn't taken a bathsince part of the Barnum-Jenny Lind Special went off the bridge atWheeling. The little bears will always know their Fisheye, day ornight."
At this juncture Fisheye returned and counted down the cash. Two ofthe twenties and one ten, were printed in the early
twenties.
"And now, Mister Welborn, we will have that cup of coffee and I mustgo to work. I want you to see the Kid Show and the Big Show as myguest. I'll have the boys park your machine and trailer right back ofour show where it will be safe until you want it. After the mainperformance we will have dinner, say about four o'clock and we willcall it a day."
"I think you should have this money," said Welborn as they drank theircoffee. He handed Fisheye's keepsakes to David. "I did not expectanything and I am satisfied that the bears are in good hands."
"Not a cent," said David, waving the money aside. "I still owe youmore than I can ever repay. Besides all this, we've done Fisheye agood turn. He'll have those cubs doing things before snow flies."
"He has always wanted a Happy Family Act, and now he's got a start.From time to time he will add native animals like foxes, raccoons,badgers, and maybe a porky or two and label them 'Native Americans'and sell them to someone, cage and all, before next season."
"Fisheye is versatile. Every winter he has a bunch of misfit dogs, andout of the outfit he'll get some smart ones that will train well. Heis good, too, on a dog and pony act. Once a zebra got its leg broke inswinging one of the big poles in place. It looked like there wasnothing to do but shoot it. But Fisheye salvaged the cripple; hetaught it to get up and down with the leg in splints; cured him,except for a slight limp, and finally sold the beast as the only zebrathat was ever broken to harness. Fisheye is a grand old liar but he'sa fine animal man."
David Lannarck, Midget Page 2
