Circus Shoes (13 page)

The Frasconi brothers had come across from the men’s dressing-tent with raincoats over their tights. The bearer brother kicked off his clogs, and without taking off his raincoat raised the other brother over his head. The one raised had his raincoat on too. He looked very odd lying in it supported by the palms of his brother’s hands.

Peekaboo, the comedy horse, made up of two men, walked in standing upright. He had clogs on all four feet, and a raincoat over each half of him. In some ways he looked even sillier than he had in the ring. He was like a real horse folded up.

The show had begun with Satan’s lions. The moment they had finished Satan superintended their removal into their traveling cages and saw them off to the station. He came back to the artistes’ entrance to speak to Mr. Cob just as the Arizonas were going on. The paint was dripping off his face.

“Hot work tonight, Satan,” said Ted Kenet. Satan nodded.

“You’ve said it. Rain always upsets cats. But this rain we’ve had here has sent them crazy. I shan’t be sorry to get out.”

“Why don’t lions like rain? Santa whispered to Peter.

Peter shook his head. It was one of those odd bits of information you seemed always to be picking up in a circus.

The Elgins, wrapped in raincoats, came hurrying along. They hung their raincoats on the stairs leading up to the orchestra. They kicked off their cogs and rubbed their feet in the tray of rosin. They then began limbering-up. Peter and Santa stared at them with amazement. Their idea of the way to get their muscles loose would have broken the bones of an ordinary person. The girls held out first their right legs and their left for one of the men to hold straight over their heads. The men not only held them there but gave hem two or three good jerks when they had got them in position. They picked each other up. They threw themselves over backward standing on their hands and in that position leaned against the tent side. Two of the men picked up one of the girls. One took her head, and the other her legs. They bent her into a hoop and held he rover their heads.

Peter dug Santa in the ribs.

“And that’s what Alexsis wants to do. Sooner him than me.”

Santa, gazing in horror at the girl, expecting every moment to see her break in half, nodded.

“Or me. I’d much rather ride, even if I didn’t do it as well as my father.”

The sea-lions arrived in the artistes’ entrance with an incredible amount of fuss. They came barking out of their tank, almost falling over in their excitement. Each bark sounded as though they were saying, “It’s us! It’s us! It’s us!”

They had good look at the Risley act while it was waiting to go on. Close to, it was quite clear, in spite of their rompers and socks, that the two Miss Martinis were not children. The younger one, though she was not much taller than Santa, looked about seventeen.

As soon as the family arrived for their entrance, they threw off the toweling dressing-gowns they had round them, took off their clogs, rubbed their feet in the rosin tray, and began their own kind of limbering-up. This meant Mr. Martini took the elder of the girls and juggled with her, and the son took the younger one. The two girls were completely unmoved and went on with a conversation they were holding in Italian.

Peter and Santa were getting a bit cramped under the seats. They came out and went for a walk through the stables, which looked oddly depleted.

All the horses, except those the Kenets and Paula were using in the high-school act, had gone to the stables. The bereiters were just riding the last of the Liberties out of the stables as the children came in. The sea-lions, poodles, and lions had gone. Only the elephants were still on their platform. They were dressed for their act, which came next. The elephant man had already unfastened their feet. The thought that it was almost their entrance had excited them. Each was desperately rehearsing. Trunks swinging from side to side, feet raised. As Peter and Santa came near them, Ben caught hold of each of them by a shoulder and drew them into one of the loose boxes which had not yet been pulled down. At that moment Kundra gave an order in Hindustani. The first elephant stepped off the platform. The second caught hold of his tail and followed. In a neat line they hurried to the artistes entrance.

“You kids want to watch out,” said Ben. “You’ll get kicked or trodden on one day. None of the animals would mean to do it, but they get excited when it’s their act.”

Peter and Santa were about to step out again when there was the sound of horses’ hooves. Round the bend in the tent came one of the Kenets. He was leaning out of the saddle to watch his horse’s forelegs. It was pretty to see the way they were picked up. Left, right, left, right. At the end of the tent they turned. The horse went false. He was checked a moment, then off he went again in perfect rhythm.

“Would the horse do it wrong if he didn’t practice before he went in the ring?” Peter whispered.

Ben chuckled.

“There was never a high-school rider yet who didn’t have to show off. Be out at the front if they were allowed to.”

Peter sighed.

“I wish I could ride.”

“Do you, son?” Ben gave him a thoughtful glance. Your dad was a groom, so Gus was tellin’ me. Maybe it’s in the blood. You come along one mornin’ when I’m exercisin’ the ‘osses in the ring I’ll put you up and see how you shape.”

“Would you?” Peter glowed. That was something like. If he were allowed to learn to exercise the horses he would feel much better.

Santa came out into the center of the tent. A groom was pulling down the wall of the stall.

“Why don’t you exercise them outside? It’s dull for them in the big top. They’d have much more fun in a field.”

Ben chewed at a bit of straw. It was rather an old bent one, but there were not many clean bits lying around.

“They aren’t shod properly. A ‘oss that’s shod for this work won’t stand up to hackin’ across country. I don’t exercise ‘em just for exercisin’ in a manner of speakin’. It’s on account of their gettin’ a roll. Those Suffolk punches the Arizonas ride. You watched them at work?” Peter and Santa nodded. “Well, which way did they go round the ring?

They tried to remember.

“Clockwise,” said Santa.

Peter thought a moment longer. “Against the clock.”

Ben chewed placidly.

“Peter’s right. No matter where you see a bare-backed act it goes that way. Well, when the ‘osses have done twelve rounds of the ring somebody ‘as got to ride him twelve times clockwise. If they didn’t that ‘oss would get a roll. Stands to reason. You try runnin’ round in a circle always goin’ the same way. You’d get lop-sided, and then you’d roll.” Ben spat out his straw. “Well, I must be movin’.” He gave Peter a nod. “You come along. I’ll see how you shape.”

Santa walked back up the tent, kicking up the earth with the toes of her rubbers. Peter looked at her.

“I expect he meant you too.”

Santa made a proud face.

“As a matter of fact I wasn’t wanting to ride a horse.”

Peter shrugged his shoulders.

“You are a fool. Why didn’t you ask him?”

Santa skipped up against the wall of the tent.

“You want to watch out, “ she said nastily. “Anybody who was attending would hear six elephants coming.”

Peter jumped across to the other side of the tent. He would have liked to have told her not to be so cocky, but by the time the six elephants had hurried by it was too late.

They watched the elephants go to the station. They saw them splash their way out into the rain and mud. As usual the elephants held on to each other by the tail. One of the keepers rode on the leader. Peter lifted the tent flap. They watched them disappear into the night, their grayness almost at once giving them the look of shadows.

“If anybody in Carlisle doesn’t, know there’s been a circus and suddenly meets those I should think they’d get an a shock,” he said.

They went back to the artiste’s entrance. The Whirlwinds were just finishing, Gus and Ted Kenet swinging around faster and faster. Then the music stopped. They slid to the ground and stood bowing in the ring. The bandmaster held up his baton. The band burst into
God Save the King.
”

Crash! Bang! “Pass along outside quickly, please.” Everybody busy. Everybody working very quickly

For a minute or two Peter and Santa were too confused to see what was happening. Then they began to sort things out.

The audience were leaving. The “Pass along outside quickly, please!” was for them. Of course they were not passing out quickly. Who would when? The uniformed men from the entrance had come inside and were driving them forward. They looked rather like sheepdogs folding a stubborn flock.

Not that anybody belonging to the circus was paying any attention to the audience. As the last notes of
God Save the King
died away artistes, ring-hands, tent-men had swarmed in from the artistes entrance. The band came hurrying down from their balcony. Mr. Cob stood in the middle of the ring.

The crashing and banging came from the seats being pulled down and stacked in heaps, starting with those farthest from the audience. The queer thing was the people who worked on them. Of course all the men were there, but with them, dressed in old overalls, were some of the clowns an three of the Kenets.

Then the artistes were surprising. It had already upset all Peter’s and Santa’s ideas of what was what to find that the dancing butterflies were also the people who sold programs. It did not seem that such lovely ladies should do a job like that. Now they had a further shock. The butterflies changed into cotton overalls and were busy pulling covers off those seats which were expensive enough to have them. Two great baskets had been dragged to the ring-side and into them, neatly folded, the butterflies put the covers.

Gus and Ted Kenet had pulled disgraceful old dressing-gowns over their Whirlwind clothes. They took down their trapeze quite unmoved by the pointing and nudging of the departing audience.

The two Frasconi sons and their father packed the trampoline. The Frasconi sons had changed into dark suits. They did not look interesting. Santa gazed at them with disapproval.

“If I were a circus artiste and wore pink all over and a little bit of velvet fur, I wouldn’t let the audience see me except while I had it on. They don’t look a bit nice now. And they were so lovely when they were on the trampoline.”

Peter pointed up at the roof, where Gus was sitting nonchalantly on the trapeze doing something to a rope.

“And if I were Gus I wouldn’t were that awful dressing-gown. It isn’t even clean.”

One of the butterflies staggered toward them with her arms full of chair-covers. She looked at Peter and made a gesture with her head at the basket.

“Heave the lid up, would you?”

Peter was delighted. Even opening a lid made you feel as though you had something to do. He watched the butterfly put her covers in a neat pile in the corner of the basket. He hated her cotton coat. It was the kind of thing Aunt Rebecca had worn when she did the housework. It worried him to see her and the other artistes working. He might not be a relation of the duchess, but he had comforted himself with the thought that at least in the circus he moved in the best world there was. He quite understood that everybody might help now and again as a favor; but all these people who so short a time ago had looked so marvelous in the ring were appearing in dirty old clothes in front of the audience. It must be wrong. He leaned against the basket.

“Why do you all help pack?”

The girl went on folding covers.

“Why not?”

“I should have thought somebody else would. Some of these men.”

The girl went off to uncover a few more chairs. she looked over her shoulder.

“I shouldn’t fuss, Little Lord Fauntleroy. Work never hurt anybody.”

Peter came back to Santa looking very red.

“Did you hear what she said?”

Santa kicked up a little pile of earth with her toe.

“Perhaps she didn’t mean to be as rude as she sounded.”

“Well, then, why call me Little Lord Fauntleroy?”

Santa rugged her shoulders.

“He’s a boy in a book. Mrs. Ford said. She told me about it. She‘d saw a movie of it. She said he was a dear little boy.”

Peter gave her a look.

“You would say a thing like that. You’ve grown hateful since you came here. You never used to be.”

Santa sat down on a box somebody had put near them. She thought of the way Peter had sulked lately, and of how Ben had said he would let him ride and had not said anything about her. She looked smug.

“If you want to know, I’ve been a Christian martyr of goodness. It’s you who are always cross.”

“I like that-“

Santa put her fingers in her ears.

“It’s no good talking. I’m not listening. I’m watching the pull-down.”

Peter could have hit her. Nothing is more annoying than a person not listening when you want to argue. He put his hands in his pockets and walked off to the other side of the ring.

In a few minutes they both forgot they had been quarreling. The seats were still being taken down but fewer men were working on them; the rest were carrying away the tent-props. It was queer, as the seats vanished, and the props were carried out, and the ring nee was taken away, how gradually you could see the rough ground beginning to be just the empty ground again that it had been last Sunday. Peter came across to Santa.

“There’s masses and masses of straw just come. They’re going to put it in here. I heard the men say so.”

“Why?”

Peter did not know.

“I didn’t like to ask anybody. They all look so busy.”

They went outside to look at the straw. It was very interesting out there, though horribly wet. The wagons had drawn up in a circle round the big top. They were being loaded. It was a queer light. It was made by great arc-lamps fixed to trucks. It gave a greenish tinge to everything. The moving figures looked quite ghostlike in it. A stream of men came out of the big top carrying props. The props were long and heavy, and the ground slippery with mud. It was amazing that nobody skidded and dropped one.

There was added to the crash and bang of the seat packing a sound of hammering on metal. The men were loosing the staples. Ben came stalking through the rain. He went up to one of the stable hand who was unlacing the side flaps of the stable tent.

“Tell ‘em I’m ready for my straw.”

He was turning away, but Santa caught him by the arm.

“What’s the straw for, Ben?”

Ben smiled. His face was dripping with rain.

“You both here? It’s a nasty night. Still, may as well see things all ways.”

“That’s what Gus said, more or less,” Santa agreed.

Peter nodded in the direction of the straw which was now being carried in arm-loads into the stables.

“Why the straw now? All the animals have gone.”

Ben picked a straw off a bundle that was being carried by. He put it in his mouth.

“You take a look at your rubbers.”

Peter and Santa looked at their legs. “Look at all that mud ‘n’ water. What d’you think these tents would be like if we laid him down in this?”