"With Folded Hands Forever"

A Little Tragedy of the Big-Tops, Which Proves That Circus Life Is Not All Music and Roses

JIM TULLY

MUCH can happen with a ten car circus during a season. And Cameron's World's Greatest Combined Show was no exception. Under its three tents had gathered renegades, vagabonds, and thieves.

A principal circus freak, the Strong Woman, weighed over four hundred pounds. She was more vain than a school girl and more petulant than a film actress in the throes of a quick divorce. She closed her eyes on every mystery in life but men. She had loved and trusted them. One betrayed her.

Her dream had been of a little farm near the edge of the wide rolling Rhine. Her betrayer, not wishing, even in imagination, to travel so far, had induced her to part with three thousand dollars that he might go and purchase a farm on the Hudson. He did not return. Alice, the Moss Haired Girl, had been fond of her, as well as myself. We formed a committee of two and became sentimental about her. Bob Cameron, the circus owner, and Slug Finnerty, the chief spieler, had discovered her. In her hand was a little blue bottle.

Her salary had been one hundred dollars per week and all expenses. She had loaned money at exorbitant rates to those whom she deemed the more reliable among the circus people. Many of those who were in debt to her sighed deeply at the news of her death and murmured—"Poor unhappy woman— she's better off." Cameron later tried to collect the money which was owed her. It was his intention, so he said, to forward it to her relatives, when he found their address in Germany.

A MARK was seen on her throat, as though the string which held her "grouch bag" of money had been torn from it. Money, jewelry, finery, everything of possible value had disappeared. We felt certain that Cameron and Finnerty had robbed her.

"They'd of skinned her if they could—the dirty dogs," sneered Jock, the boss hustler, "talk about fallin' among thieves."

The coroner was called and signed the death certificate. There was no money with which to bury her.

"It's a lucky shot for me," said Silver Moon Dugan, the boss canvasman, "I owed her fifty bucks I won't have to pay. She was a funny dame."

Alice, the Moss Haired Girl said to me after the coroner had gone, "It's sure hell to die in Arkansas with the circus—but then— she s just as well off—she was just in wrong, that's all." The girl walked with me to where the "Baby Buzzard" sat, in front of the musicians' tent. (The Strong Woman, not liking the circus owner's wife, had called her the Baby Buzzard. We did the same ever after.)

"Well—she's gone," said the Baby Buzzard, as we approached.

"Yes," was Alice's answer. "It's a hard loss for Mr. Cameron—she drew a lot of money each week.

"Yes—it's too damn bad for Bob—poor Bob—he does have the hardest time," smiled the Moss Haired Girl.

"Yes, indeed he do," responded the Baby Buzzard, missing the Moss Haired Girl's tone of mockery.

"But she has to be buried you know," Alice continued, "there's too much of her to keep above ground. We'd better take up a collection for her—I'll start it with twenty dollars." Just then the ministerial Cameron appeared.

"What will you give?" Alice asked him.

"Well, I think five dollars each among twenty of us will be enough—after all, we can't get a coffin big enough in the town, and it don't matter nohow. I've got two of the boys makin' a big box and linin' it wit' canvas—the damn coffins fall apart after three days in the grave, anyhow. Them undertakers are the original highway robbers."

THE Baby Buzzard disappeared and returned with a glass heaped full of half dollars. She counted out ten of the coins and then handed them to Alice—who turned them over to Cameron.

"These'll pay her way through purgatory, or start her soul rollin'. That's more'n she'd do for me if I croaked. People 'at croak 'emselves should bury 'emselves. Them's my ways of lookin' at it—I ain't never seen a man yet I'd bump myself off for—you can't do them no good when you're dead," half soliloquized the Baby Buzzard.

"Maybe not," returned the Moss Haired Girl, looking from Cameron to the Baby Buzzard—"but we can at least shut our mouths and let her rest in peace. Somebody's stole everything she had—even her silk underwear's gone—and who in the hell with this circus can wear that?"

"Maybe the elephant trainer stole it to put on his pets," sneered the old lady.

"Maybe so, but the elephants wouldn't wear it if they knew it was stolen—they're above that," replied Alice.

"Well, well," and Cameron now became more reverent, "It's all beyond our power." He pointed heavenward. "He who is above us has called her home."

"He may have called her but He didn't send her carfare. He probably thought she could bum her way," laughed Alice.

"That is not for us to judge," replied Cameron solemnly, "who are we to question the Great Taskmaster's laws. It is best that we bury her before parade so as not to disturb the even tenor of her ways—I will say a few words and have the band play and sing a few songs—and then we shall take her to the graveyard, in one of the elephant's cages. Buddy Conroy is there now makin' arrangements. The wagon with the cage can follow along with the parade—and no one will be the wiser."

The Strong Woman was placed in a square pine canvas-covered box, with her blonde head resting on a huge red pillow trimmed in green. Her heavy hands were folded. Her mouth was puckered in a half smile which helped to conceal the cyanide scar at the edge of her lower lip. Her head was buried in the pillow. Her large breasts rose high above the rest of her body.

Fourteen men lifted the box.

Cameron's showman instinct prevailed at the last. The calliope was called into service. A man stood upon its platform and played as weird a tune as was ever concocted by the most fantastic human brain.

It seemed to my boyish mind to have been blended with wild wails and screeching laughter. It was followed by

I had a dream the other night,

Floating on the River of Sin, I peeped inside of Jordan bright,

Floating on the River of Sin.

And another place I seen inside,

Floating on the River of Sin,

A place where the devil does reside, Floating on the River of Sin.

FREAKS and thieves, trailers and clowns, acrobats and stake drivers had gathered in front of the Strong Woman's tent.

"Come on now men, we'll make it snappy," said Slug Finnerty—join in song with the calliope . . ."

He waved his hands.

I seen a band of spirits bright,

Floating on the River of Sin Holding church by candle light,

Floating on the River of Sin.

A great big chariot passing by,

Floating on the River of Sin,

Come so close they had to fly,

Floating on the River of Sin.

The crude heavy voices were drowned out by the wail of the calliope.

They drove the chariot down below,

A spirit fell down and hurt his toe,

And all the others yelled "Oh, Oh!" Floating on the River of Sin.

Then singin' and shoutin' way out loud, Floating on the River of Sin,

They took her to heaven on a great big cloud,

Floating on the River of Sin.

When the song died away Silver Moon Dugan commented, "Gee, if she ever fails outta heaven she'll sure tear a hole in the ground." A few roustabouts laughed. Then Cameron stood before us on a pine box.

"Fellow travelers with Cameron's World's Greatest Combined Shows," he began, "it is my sad duty to say a few words here. I wish it understood that I come to bury Caesar—not to praise her. She is beyond us now—stripped of everything before God—who takes care of the weary and the worn and calls the wandering lady here home—

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"We talk of worldly splendour—yet Solomon in all his gorgeous glory was not arrayed as one of these. She who now lies here before us, once held our little world in awe—now none of us are too procrastinatin' and poor to show our reverence—and she recks not of it at all. It is not ours to judge —for we are ever in our Great Taskmaster's eye—and if he should ever blink it ever so slightly we would crumble like the atomic mountains that rise up outta the sea.

"Ours is hut a little stay here— full of sound and fury—and if you will pardon the blasphemy—signifying— not a hell of a lot.

"It all reminds me of that well known poem made immortal by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, than whom there is no more profound student of the human heart—

There is so much good in the best of us

And so much bad in the rest of us

That it little behooves the best of us

To talk about the rest of us.

"These lines to me have always been a welcoming tocsin. When tired— when weary with the troubles of Cameron's World's Greatest Combined Shows—I often retire to my humble car and solicitate upon them. Feeling the full majesty of them—I have naught but love and understanding for those members of my circus who would fain he ungrateful—

"For are we not—the same that our fathers have been?— Do we not see the same sights and view the same sun . . . and run in the same blood where our fathers have run?

"A great object lesson can be revived from this—as I have said in preceding—we are ever in our Great Taskmaster's eye—he who rolls the mountains is watching over us.

"God is ever on the side of justice— or—as General Robert B. Lee so well said, 'God marches at the head of the heaviest battalions—and those battalions are imposed of justice and mercy and undying truth.' "

Cameron took a large red and white handkerchief from his pocket. He unfolded it deliberately, then wiped his forehead and eyes—cleared his throat and resumed . . .

"We have laboured in the vineyard with our sleeping friend here—and that reminds me—that she is not dead —but sleepeth." Cameron looked at his audience as one will who feels that he has uttered a profound truth. He wiped his eyes again. When he removed the handkerchief they suddenly filled with tears. His whole manner changed—"Oh it stabs me to the heart."

His frame shook . . . his kerchief rubbed wet eyes. The audience looked bored with piety. Cameron's right hand, holding the kerchief, rose high in the air. He stood on tip toe.

"But friends—do not despair—in that vast circus ground in the other world we shall again meet the lady who now lies here—with folded hands forever."

The Strong Woman was placed in the elephant cage. The crowd dispersed. The calliope played slowly

Room enough—room enough—

Room enough in heaven for us all

Oh don't stay away—

The ringmaster's whistle blew. The circus wagons moved. The Strong Woman started on her last parade.