Andy the Acrobat - Peter T. Harkness
"Can--can I join?" asked Andy, with a good deal of anxiety.
"Yes, Andy. I had a long talk with him about you, and--here he is now."
A brisk-moving, keen-faced man of about fifty entered the parlor just
then.
"Mr. Harding, this is the boy, Andy Wildwood, I told you about," said
Miss Starr.
"Oh, indeed?" observed the showman, looking Andy all over with one
swift, comprehensive glance. "They tell me you can do stunts,
young man?"
"Oh, a little--on the bar and tumbling," said Andy.
"Well, I suppose you don't expect to star it for awhile," said Harding.
"You must begin at the bottom, you know."
"I want to, sir."
"Very good. I will give you a card to the manager. He will make you
useful in a general way until we have our two days' rest at Tipton, I'll
look you up then, and see if you've got any ring stuff in you."
Andy took the card tendered by the showman after the latter had written
a few words on it in pencil.
Andy made his best bow to Miss Starr. He was delighted and fluttered. He
showed it so much that the showman was pleased out of the common.
"Come back a minute," he called out. "My boy," he continued, placing a
friendly hand on Andy's shoulder, "you have made a good start with us in
that Benares matter. Keep on the right side always, and you will
succeed. Never swear, quarrel or gamble. Assist our patrons, and be
civil and obliging on all occasions. The circus is a grand centre of
fraternal good will, properly managed, and the right circus stands for
health, happiness, virtue and vigor. Its motto should be courage,
ambition and energy, governed by honest purpose and tempered by
humanity. I don't want to lecture, but I am giving you the benefit of
what has cost me twenty years experience and a good many thousands
of dollars."
"Thank you, sir, I shall not forget what you have told me," said Andy.
For all that, Andy's mind was for the present full only of the pomp and
glitter of his new calling. One supreme thought made his heart bubble
over with joy:
At last he had reached the goal of his fondest wishes. Andy Wildwood had
"joined the circus."
CHAPTER XVI
THE REGISTERED MAIL
Andy hurried back to the circus grounds the happiest boy on earth. He
went straight to the clown's tent.
Billy Blow was making up for the morning parade. Dressed up as a
way-back farmer, he was to drive a hay wagon, breaking into the
procession here and there along the line of march. Finally, when he had
created a sensation, he was to drop his disguise and emerge in his usual
popular ring character.
While Billy was putting the finishing touches to his toilet he conversed
with Andy, congratulating him on his success in getting a job with
the show.
"Wait about half-an-hour till the parade gets off the grounds," he
advised Andy. "Scripps, the manager, will be busy till then. You'll find
him in the paper tent."
Andy knew what that was--the structure containing the programmes and
general advertising and posting outfits of the show. He had noticed it
earlier in the day. A wagon inside the tent, with steps and windows,
comprised the manager's private office.
Little Midge was sitting up playing with some show children who had
brought in a lot of toys. Andy went outside with Billy.
"See here," said the clown, as he hurried off to join the parade. "Tell
Scripps that you bunk with me. Any objection?"
"I should say not."
"You're welcome. The general crowd they'd put you with is a bit too
rough for a raw recruit. Just stand what they give you till we reach
Tipton. You've got friends enough to pull you up into the performers'
rank. We'll fix you out there."
"Thank you," said Andy.
He strolled about with a happy smile on his face. Prospects looked fine,
and Andy's heart warmed as he thought of all the good friends he
had made.
"They're a nice crowd," he thought--"Miss Starr, Marco, the Benares
Brothers, the clown. How different, though, to what I used to think!
It's business with them, real work, for all the tinsel and glare. It's a
pleasant business, though, and they must make a lot of money."
There was a shrill, whistling shriek from the calliope wagon. The
various performers scampered from their dressing rooms at the signal.
Each person, vehicle and animal fell into line in the morning caravan
with a promptness and ease born of long practice.
Soon there was a fluttering line of gay color, rich plush hangings,
bullion-trimmed uniforms, silken flags and streamers.
Zeno, the balloon clown, eating "redhots," i.e. peanuts, led the
procession, bouncing up and down on a rubber globe in the advance
chariot. The bands began to play. The prancing horses, rumbling wagons,
screaming calliope, frolicking tumblers, tramp bicyclists weaving in and
out in grotesque costumes, often on one wheel, the Tallyho stage filled
with smiling ladies, old Sultan, the majestic lion, gazing in calm
dignity down from his high extension cage--all this passed, a fantastic
panorama, before Andy's engrossed gaze.
"It's grand!" decided Andy--"just grand! A fellow can never get lonesome
here, night or day. I'm going to like it. Now for the manager. Hope I
don't have any trouble."
When Andy came to the paper tent he found a good many people inside.
There were several performers and canvas men on crutches or bandaged up.
There were village merchants with bills, newspaper men after free passes
and persons seeking employment.
They were called in turn up the steps of the wagon that constituted the
manager's office.
Mr. Scripps was a rapid talker, a brisk man of business, and he disposed
of the cases presented in quick order.
Andy saw four or five dissipated looking men discharged at a word. The
applicants for work were ordered to appear at Tipton, two days later.
Several were after an advance on their salary. Some farmers appeared
with claims for foraging done by circus hands. Finally Andy got to the
front and tendered the card Mr. Harding had given him.
"All right," shot out Scripps sharply, giving the lad a keen look.
"You're the one who blocked the game on Benares? Good for you! We'll
remember that, later."
Scripps glanced over a pasteboard sheet on his desk, first asking Andy
his name and age, and writing his answers down in a big-paged book.
"Half-a-dollar a day and keep, for the present," he said.
"All right," nodded Andy--"it's a start."
"Just so. Let me see. Ah, here we are. Report to the Wild Man of Borneo
side top at twelve."
"Yes, sir."
"Hammer the big triangle there till two. Then--let me see again. Know
how to ride a horse?"
"Oh, yes," replied Andy eagerly.
"All right, at two o'clock report for the jockey ring section at the
horse tent. They'll hand you a costume."
Scripps wrote a number on a red ticket and handed this to Andy--his pass
as an employee. Just then a newcomer bundled up the steps
unceremoniously, a red-faced, fussy old fellow.
"Mail's in," he announced. "Give me the O.K."
Scripps fumbled in a drawer of his desk and brought out a rubber stamp
and pad.
"Mind your eye, Rip," he observed, casting a scrutinizing look over the
intruder.
"Which eye?" demanded the old fellow.
"The one that sees a bottle and glass the quickest."
"H'm!" grumbled Ripley, or "Rip Van Winkle," as he was familiarly known
by the show people. "My eyes are all right. Don't fret. I've been twenty
years with this here show, man and boy--"
"Yes, yes, we know all about that," interrupted Scripps. "You're
seasoned, right enough. Don't leave the rig to come home without a
driver, though, and money letters aboard, as you did last week. Here is
a new hand. Break him in to keep his time employed."
Ripley viewed Andy with some disfavor. Evidently he regarded him as a
sort of guardian.
Andy, however, silently followed him outside. Ripley soon reached a
close vehicle, boarded up back of the seat and with two doors at
the rear.
A big-boned mottled horse, once evidently a beauty, was between the
shafts. As Andy lifted himself to the seat beside Ripley, the latter
made a peculiar, purring: "Z-rr-rp, Lute!"
He did not even take up the reins. The horse, with a neigh and a frisky
dance movement of the forefeet, started up.
"Right, left, slow, Lute. Turn--now go"--Ripley gave a dozen directions
within the next five minutes. He was showing off for Andy's benefit. The
latter was, in fact, pleased. The animal obeyed every direction with a
precision and intelligence that fairly amazed the boy.
Finally getting to a clear course outside the circus tangle, Ripley took
up the reins.
He set his lips and uttered two sharp whistles, ending in a kind of
hiss.
Andy was very nearly jerked out of his seat He had to hold on to its
side bar. For about five hundred yards the horse took a sprint that
knocked off his cap and fairly took his breath away.
"Say, he's great!" Andy exclaimed irrepressibly, as Ripley slowed down
again.
"I guess so," nodded the latter, aroused out of his crustiness by Andy's
enthusiasm. "That Lucille was famous, once. Past her prime a little now,
but when her old driver has the reins, she don't forget, does she?"
Ripley took a turn into a side street and finally halted, giving Andy
the reins.
"Got to order something," he said.
Andy saw him enter a store, but only to leave it by a side door and
cross an alley into a saloon.
Ripley tried to appear very business-like when he came back to the
wagon, but Andy caught the taint of liquor in his breath.
Twice again the circus veteran made stops in the same manner. He became
quite chatty and confidential.
Ripley explained to Andy that he went regularly for the circus mail at
each town where the show stopped.
"Postmasters kick, with five hundred strangers calling for their mail,"
he explained, "so we always forward a list of the employees. This mail,
just before pay day, when the crowd is usually hard up, brings a good
many money letters from friends. That rubber stamp you saw the manager
give me O.K.'s all the registered cards at the post office. Once the
wagon was robbed. The looters made quite a haul. Not when I was on
duty, though."
At a drug store Ripley got several packages and some more at a general
merchandise store. Finally they reached the post office, and Ripley
drove around to a sort of hitching alley at its side.
"Come with me to see how we do things," he invited Andy. "Bring along
those two mail bags."
Andy had already noticed the bags. One was quite large. It was made of
canvas, with a snap lock. The other was of leather, and smaller in size.
Swinging these over his shoulder, Ripley entered the post-office. He
showed his credentials from the circus, and was admitted behind the
letter cases of the places.
Andy watched him receive over a hundred letters and packages, receipting
for the same on registry delivery cards. This lot he placed in the small
leather bag.
The ordinary mail lay sorted out for the circus on a stamping table.
This went into the big canvas pouch.
The circus newspaper mail was ready tagged in a hempen sack. Ripley
carried this out to Andy.
"Toss it in the wagon," he ordered, following with the letter pouches.
Andy opened the back doors of the wagon and tossed in the newspaper bag.
"Say, back in a minute," observed Ripley, depositing his own burdens on
the front wagon seat.
Andy stood watching him. Ripley rounded a corner in the alley where a
wooden finger indicated a side entrance to a hotel bar. Ripley's failing
was manifest, and Andy decided that he did, indeed, need a guardian.
The wagon stood on a space quite secluded from the street. Near the
entrance to the alley several men were lounging about.
Andy carried the leather pouch with him as he went around to the open
doors at the rear of the wagon.
He climbed in, and stowed the newspaper bag and what packages they had
already collected in a tidy pile. Ripley had indicated that there was
quite a miscellaneous load to pick up about town before they returned to
the circus.
Andy was thus employed when the rear doors came together with a sharp
snap.
They shut him in a close prisoner, for they were self-locking, on the
outside only.
Andy, in complete darkness, now groped back to the doors. He heard
quick, suppressed tones outside.
The vehicle jolted. Some one had jumped to the front seat. A whip
snapped. Old Lute started up with a bound, throwing Andy off his
footing. "Send her spinning!" reached him in a muffled voice from the
front seat.
"Jump with the bag when we turn that old shed," answered other tones.
"Why, say! There's only one mail bag."
"I saw them bring out two. I am dead sure of it."
"And this is only common letters."
"How do you know?"
"Jim Tapp described them--'get the leather one,' he says. 'It's got the
money mail in it.'"
"Then where is it?"
"The kid must have it."
"Inside the wagon?"
"Yes."
"Whoa."
With a sharp jerk the horse was pulled to a halt.
Andy heard the two men on the seat jump to the ground. He knew that
their motive was robbery. He knew further that this was another plot of
bad Jim Tapp, the friend and associate of criminals.
In another minute the men would open the wagon doors, pull him out,
perhaps assault him, take the registered mail and fly.
Andy had only a second to act in. He theorized that the wagon, following
the alley, was now probably halted in some secluded side lane.
To escape the clutches of the would-be robbers was everything. Andy,
having no weapon of defence, was no match for them.
"If the rig once reaches the crowded streets, I'm safe," thought Andy.
Then he carried out a speedy programme. Forming his lips in a pucker, as
he had seen Ripley do, Andy uttered two sharp whistles, then a clear,
resounding hiss.
"Thunder!" yelled a voice outside.
"Ouch!" echoed a second.
The horse had given one wild, prodigious bound at hearing the familiar
signal.
The vehicle must have grazed one of the thieves. Its front wheels
knocked the other down.
"My! I'm in for it," instantly decided Andy.
For, swayed from side to side, he realized that the circus wagon was
dashing forward at runaway speed.
CHAPTER XVII
A WILD JOURNEY
Andy Wildwood found himself in a box, in more ways than one.
Judging from the sounds he had heard, the men bent on securing the
registered mail pouch had been baffled. The old circus horse had started
on a sudden and surprisingly swift sprint. From the feeling of turns,
jerks and swings, Andy decided that within four minutes the rig had left
the post-office fully half-a-mile to the rear.
"I've started the horse all right," said Andy. "Old Ripley's signal has
acted like a charm. How to stop the animal, though. That is the present
question?"
Andy ran at the two rear doors of the wagon. He steadied himself, arms
extended so as to touch either side of the box. Then he gave the doors a
tremendous kick with the sole of his shoe.
The doors did not budge. He felt over their inner surfaces where they
came together. The lock was set in the wood. They could be opened only
from the outside.
The wagon box had one aperture, Andy discovered. This was a small
ventilating grating up in one corner above the seat.
He sprang up on the newspaper bag. This brought his eyes on a level with
the grating. It was about four by six inches, with slanting slats. Andy
could see down at the horse and ahead along the road.
He grew excited and somewhat uneasy as he looked out. Lute was a sight
for a race track. Her head down, mane flowing, tail extended, she was
covering the ground with tremendous strides.
Farther back on the route Andy had felt the wagon collide with curbs and
with other vehicles. Once there was a crash and a yell, and he felt sure
they had taken a wheel off a rig they passed. Now, however, they
appeared to be quite clear of the town proper.
The road ahead was a slanting one. A steep grade fully half-a-mile long
led to a stone bridge crossing a river. It was so steep that Andy
wondered that Lute did not stumble. The wagon wheels ground and slid so
that the vehicle lifted at the rear, as if its own momentum would cause
a sudden tip-over.
"We'll never reach the bottom of the hill," decided Andy. "My! we're
going!"
He shouted out words of direction to the horse he had heard Ripley
employ. Lute did not hear, at least did not heed. Andy remembered now
that in stopping the horse Ripley had used the reins.
He held his breath as, striking a rut, the wagon bounded up in the air.
He clung for dear life, with one hand clutching the ventilator bars as
the vehicle was flung sideways over ten feet, threatening to snap off
the wheels, which bent and cracked on their axles at the
terrific strain.
Contrary to Andy's anticipations they neared the bottom of the hill
without a mishap. Suddenly, however, he gave a shout. A new danger
threatened.
The bridge had large stone posts where it began. Then a frail wooden
railing was its only side protection. The roadway was not very broad.
Two full loads of hay could never have passed one another on
that bridge.
"There's a team coming," breathed Andy. "We'll collide, sure. Whoa!
whoa!" he yelled through the grating. "No use. It's a smash, and a
bad one."
Andy fixed a distressed glance on the team half-way across the bridge. A
collision was inevitable. Lute, striking the level, only increased her
already terrific rate of speed.
Andy took heart, however, as she swerved to one side.
The intelligent animal appeared to enjoy her wild runaway, and wanted to
keep it up. Apparently she aimed to keep precisely to her own side of
the road and avoid a collision.
The driver of the team coming had jumped from his seat and pulled his
rig to the very edge of the planking. All might have gone well but for a
slight miscalculation.
As Lute's feet struck the bridge plankway, she pressed close to the
right. The wagon swerved. The front end of the box landed squarely
against the stone post.
The shock was a stunning one. It tore the wagon shafts, harness and all,
clear off the horse. With a circling twist the vehicle reversed like
lightning. The box struck the wooden rail. This snapped like a
pipe stem.
Lute, dashed on like a whirlwind, the driver of the other team staring
in appalled wonder, the box slid clear of the plankway and went whirling
to the river bed fifteen feet below.
Andy was thrown from side to side. Then, as the wagon landed, a new
crash and a new shock dazed his wits completely. He was hurled the
length of the box, his head fortunately striking where the newspaper bag
intervened.
Judging from the concussion, Andy decided that the wagon box had landed
on a big rock in the river bed. There it remained stationary. He
struggled to an upright position. One arm was badly wrenched. His face
was grazed and bleeding.
"If I don't get out some way," he panted, "I'll drown."
It looked that way. He felt a great spurt of water, pouring in rapidly
when the ventilator dipped under the surface. Then, too, the crash had
wrenched the box structure at various seams. Water was forcing its way
in, bottom, sides and top.
From ankle-deep to knee-deep, Andy stood helpless. Then, locating the
door end of the vehicle, he drew back and massed all his muscle for a
supreme effort. Shoulders first Andy posed, and then threw himself
forward, battering-ram fashion. He felt he must act and that quickly, or
else the worst might be his own.
CHAPTER XVIII
A FREAK OF NATURE
The doors at the rear of the wagon box gave way as Andy's body met their
inner surface with full force. He stood now on a slant, his body
submerged to the waist.
The box had crashed on top of one big flat rock in the river bed, and
had tilted on this foundation against another upright rock. But for this
it might have gone clear under water or floated down stream, and Andy
might have been drowned.
All through his stirring runaway experience Andy had kept possession of
the registered mail pouch. It was still slung from his shoulder as he
gazed around him. He was careful lest he disturb the equilibrium of the
wreck. He found out now that the door hinges had been knocked clear off
and the frame badly wrenched in its fall.
"Hello! hello!" shouted an excited voice overhead.
"Hello yourself," sang back Andy, looking up.
The driver of the team into which the runaway had so nearly dashed stood
looking down from the bridge planking. His eyes stared wide as Andy
suddenly appeared like a jack-in-the-box.
"Was you in there?" gulped the man.
"I was nowhere else," answered Andy. "Say, mister, where's that horse?"
"Oh, he's all right. See him?"
The man pointed along the other shore of the river bank. Lute had
crossed the bridge. She had now taken herself to some marshy grass
stretches, and was grazing placidly.
Andy was about twenty feet from the shore. He could nearly make it by
jumping from rock to rock, he thought. At one or two places, however,
the current ran strong and deep, and he saw that he might have to do
some swimming.
"See here," he called up to the man on the bridge, "have you got a rope?"
"Yes," nodded the man.
"Long enough to reach down here?"
"I guess so. Let's try. Wait a minute."
He went to his wagon. Shortly he dropped a new stout rope used in
securing hay loads. It had length and to spare.
Andy tied the mail pouch to its end. Then he groped under water in the
wagon box. He managed to fish out the various parcels it held, including
the newspaper bag.
These he sent up first. Then the man at the other end braced the cable
against a railing post. Andy came up the rope with agility.
He stamped and shook the water from his soaked shoes and clothing. The
mail bag he again suspended across his shoulders.
"Hi, another runaway!" suddenly exclaimed his companion.
Andy traced an increasing clatter of a horse's hoofs and wagon wheels to
a rig descending the hill at breakneck speed.
"No," he said. "It's Ripley."
"Who's he?"
"The man who drove that wagon. Stop! stop!" cried Andy, springing into
the middle of the bridge roadway and waving his arms.
The rig came up. It was driven by a man wearing a badge. Andy decided he
was some local police officer. Ripley was fearfully excited and his face
showed it.
"What did you do with that wagon?" sputtered Ripley, jumping to the
plankway.
Andy pointed down at the river bed and then at the distant horse.
Briefly as he could he narrated what had occurred.
Ripley nearly had a fit. He instantly realized that whoever was to blame
for the runaway, it was not Andy.
"Where's the mail?" he asked.
"There's the newspaper bag," said Andy; "here's the registered mail
pouch. Those thieves took the other bag of mail."
"They did? Do you hear, officer? Get after them quick, won't you? Never
mind us. Describe them, kid."
"How can I, when I never saw them?" said Andy.
Ripley groaned and wrung his hands. He was in a frenzy of distress and
indecision.
"See here," spoke the officer to him. "You had better go after that
horse. Your wagon isn't worth fishing up. Got all there was in it, lad?"
"Yes, sir," answered Andy.
"Very well, bundle that bag and those packages in here, and come with
me. It's good you held on to that registered stuff."
Ripley started after the runaway horse. The officer hurried townwards,
questioning Andy closely. He stopped at the post-office and made some
inquiries among the crowd loitering about its vicinity. Then he drove to
the town hall, went into his office, jumped in the buggy again, and they
proceeded toward the circus.
"I've got a vague description of your two men," he told Andy, "but that
isn't much, with so many strangers in town. You think they are partners
of that Rapp, whom the circus people know?"
"Tapp--Jim Tapp," corrected Andy. "Yes, they mentioned his name."
"The circus detectives ought to handle this case, then," said the
village officer. "I'd better see them right away."
The manager of the show regarded Andy in some wonderment as he and the
officer unceremoniously entered his presence. His excitement increased
as Andy recited his story.
"I warned Ripley," he exclaimed. "Well, he shan't play the spoiled pet
any longer. As to you, Wildwood, you deserve credit for your pluck. I'll
have a talk with you when we get to Tipton. Too shaken up to do a little
general utility work, till I can arrange for something better?"
"Not at all, sir," answered Andy promptly.
Andy saw that he had made a good impression on the manager. The latter
was pleased with him and interested in him. Andy waited outside the
tent. Soon the village officer and two of the circus detectives sought
him out. These latter questioned him on their own behalf.
"Daley, Murdock and Tapp are in this," one of them remarked definitely.
"They haven't got much, this time. The next break, though, may be for
the ticket wagon. They've got to be squelched."
Andy put in a busy, pleasant day. He was getting acquainted, he was
becoming versed in general circus detail.
For an hour he hammered the huge triangle in front of a side show, as
directed. At the afternoon rehearsal he was one of twenty dressed like
jockeys in the ring parade.