Watch Yourself Go By. Al. G. Field
path and out through the barn into Stable Street.
Nearly opposite the stable from which he had just emerged was the big stable of the Marshall House, a tavern kept by Isaac Vance, the uncle of Ike Stribeg, the afterwards noted circus agent.
Baggy Allison and Hughey Boggs, characters of the town, were seated on a bench outside the door of the big stable. Scott, pulling the sheet more closely about him and waving his arms wildly, quickly crossed the street towards the two worthies, thinking to have some fun with them. Both caught sight of him at the same instant. One corner of the sheet, fluttering high in the air, it certainly was a skittish looking object that floated down upon the two superstitious men. Over went the bench, a chair or two, Allison stepped in a tin pail as he arose, his foot entangled in it. The clattering of Baggy's foot in the pail added ten fold to the terror of Hughey. He swore afterwards he could feel the clutch of the long, bony fingers of the ghost on his neck.
He Could Feel the Clutch of Long, Bony Fingers on Him
The hostlers flew, both trying to enter the narrow door of the tavern. Wedged in the doorway, each thought the other holding him. Fighting, cussing, scratching, they were pulled into the big tap room filled with guests. All imagined the two hostlers were fighting and endeavored to separate them.
Baggy Allison was very slow of speech; Hughey Boggs stuttered painfully. After they were separated they kept up their clawing and waving.
Baggy, pointing toward the stable, blurted out: "Ghost! Ghost! Ghost after us! Ketch it! Ketch it!"
Hughey stuttering more terribly, owing to his fright had, only got to "Gh—gh—gh—gh," when Baggy had finished explaining the cause of their fright.
Bud Beckley, old Johnny Holmes and Jim Hubbs, the town constable, were the first to run towards the stable, but nothing was to be seen in any direction. Baggy and Hughey were unmercifully scored for their cowardice, and were ridiculed for days afterward.
Win Scott was as badly frightened as the two hostlers. The flight of the men caused him to redouble his speed. On down Stable Street to Playford's Alley, out along the high stone wall enclosing Nelson Bowman's castle, on to Jeffries' Commons, formerly an old graveyard.
Here, according to report, the spook sank into a sunken grave. Albert Baker's mother saw the apparition as did Sammy Honesty, one of Bowman's servants.
Saturday morning, the day of the show, was one of those days that nature often bestows on Brownsville: not the fleck of a floating cloud in the firmament above. Even the winds slept that they might not ruffle the tranquility of the scene or Alfred's tent.
Lin was greatly disturbed over the opening in the tent. She declared: "Every dadratted, stingy critter in the neighborhood would jes' stan' outside and peek in fer nuthin'; and jes' to think, we got all the other places kivered only that plague-goned old hole right by the door."
When Win Scott arrived with the white linen sheets, Lin was greatly surprised. She feared they were not come by honestly. The boys assured her they had borrowed them, promising to return them as good as they came.
Lin was finally persuaded to tack and sew the sheets on the tent. When completed, she surveyed her work for a moment and said: "We're all hun-ki-dora now"—a slang phrase in those days signifying "all right."
Jeffries Commons swarmed with children. So impatient was Alfred to open the circus that he refused to eat dinner. Lin fetched him a pie which he devoured as he worked.
Win Scott was the door-keeper and treasurer. Lin had a wordy war with the treasurer soon after the doors opened. Willie Shuman, who was lame, wanted to sit on the treasurer's seat, a soap box near the main entrance. Win objected solely on the grounds that real shows did not permit patrons to sit where they pleased but made them stand around. Lin secured another soap box and Willie was given the kind of seat he desired "up high," as Lin expressed it, "so nobody could stan' in front of him."
Lin insisted on counting the receipts several times while the audience was assembling and when they reached sixty-eight cents, she concluded it was too much money to entrust to any one connected with the show. Emptying the pennies in her pocket, she pinned it up, remarking: "Ef there's no trouble comes up about them there new linen sheets, we'll give another show tonight. I hev all the lights hangin' in the cellar ready."
The ghost seen the night before had been the talk of the town and that it disappeared on the old commons near the tent was whispered about among those in attendance at Alfred's show. Lin heard whispers of the reports and somehow she could not entirely dispossess her mind of the idea that the new linen sheets were connected in some way with the ghosts. However, so deeply interested was she in the manifold duties she had imposed upon herself that ghosts and linen sheets were, for the time, forgotten.
Sitting on a soap box holding two children on her lap, so they could see it all, Lin was calling on Alfred to come back into the ring and repeat a twisting about trick he had just performed. Lin said the children wanted to see him do it "agin."
Encores were numerous from Lin, no matter whether the major portion of the audience desired them or not; if the children expressed a wish to see any feat repeated Lin simply commanded that it be done and if the performer hesitated to take a recall, Lin sat the children off her lap and marched the performer out and compelled him to comply with the children's wishes.
Although it was balmy spring, there was a tinge of chill in the air that touched one. Many of the boys were compelled to undress to don their costumes, and Joe Sandford's costume especially was not conducive to comfort and warmth.
Alfred had strongly impressed it upon all who participated in the performance that they must have real show clothes. Many and surprising were the costumes. Tom White's father had been a member of the Sons of Malta. Young White wore his father's regalia, a cross between the make-up of Captain Kidd and Rip Van Winkle.
Joe Sanford's costume made Alfred slightly jealous. Lin had trimmed the garments loaned Alfred by Mrs. Young. She had made him a body dress from an old patch quilt, the figures worked in yellow and red. Yet the colors were not as bright as those in the costume of Joe.
It was spring time, house-cleaning and wall-papering time. Mrs. Sanford, being of an inventive turn of mind, collected the wall paper scraps, particularly the red border paper. Fashioning a suit out of the paper, she pasted it together. The costume was after the style of Napoleon, as we have seen him in pictures. Joe was without clothing of any kind except the pasty wall paper suit, stripes on the trousers running up and down and on the jacket encircling. As Joe walked about the dressing room to keep warm the paper suit rustled and swished. He was the admiration of all the performers.
Although Joe was not to appear until later he insisted that he be permitted to perform his feats at once, that he was almost frozen. Lin was advised of this fact and said: "Oh, well, let him do his showin'. Ef he ketched cold he would hev the tisic, (phthysic)." Joe was subject to this affliction.
Joe's part of the performance was hanging on a horizontal pole a little higher than his head, skinning the cat, then sitting upright on the bar, clasping his knees with his hands, revolve around the pole. Joe had performed this feat a thousand times. But he had never attempted it in a show costume constructed of wall paper.
Joe's Wall Paper Duds
The wall-paper suit began to give along the pasted seams even while Joe was skinning the cat. Lin said afterwards: "He was so durned skeered and a wheezin' with the tisic he didn't know whether he was a-foot or a-horseback. I seed the rips openin' every time he stirred."
Joe was evidently uncertain as to the strength of his show clothes. Despite a parting of seams he squirmed upon the horizontal bar, gripped his knees with his hands. Thus doubled up the strain on the wall paper was greater than ever. Joe ducked his head forward. The first revolution, the greater