Joe Strong and his wings of steel or, A young acrobat in the clouds
make flights in the big tent, and build up a reputation that way.”
When Joe mentioned the matter to his friend, the ring-master, Jim
Tracy decided that perhaps it would be best for the lad to resume his
trapeze work, which had been his first work with the circus.
“Our trapeze part of the show needs strengthening,” said Jim Tracy,
“and you’re the boy that can put a little ginger into it, Joe.
The Lascallas are rather falling down lately. I don’t mean that
literally, but they work sort of listlessly. See what you can do.”
And Joe did. He at once began to practise on the flying rings and
the trapeze, also doing some turns on the long rope. The boy had
made a specialty of this before, doing some novel tricks, such as
sliding down a rope head first without using his hands on the strands
and coming to a sudden stop with his head but a few inches from the
ground. This always made the spectators gasp.
Joe’s trapeze act and similar feats have already been fully
described in the second volume of this series. Suffice it to say
now that he repeated his former triumphs and brought new laurels to
himself by thrilling the crowds.
Joe worked alone on his second advent to the circus, preferring to do
so rather than to do team work with the Lascallas.
Perhaps, though, if he had asked them to let him work with them, they
might have refused, for there was not a little professional jealousy
of Joe on the part of the other trapeze performers. The boy received
so much applause that this was natural, though it does not follow
that the rival actors did not do well. They did, but Joe brought to
his feats such vim, dash and daring that he fairly compelled applause.
Through it all, however, he was always thinking of his wings of
steel, and wondering how they could be made to work, to lift him high
up in the clouds so he could soar down like a bird.
“There’s something wrong with them,” decided Joe, “and it’s going to
take money to find out what it is and to get them right. And to earn
money I’ve got to stay in the circus a while.”
The youth received a good salary, and, as his board and lodging cost
him nothing, he was able to save a considerable portion of it, for he
was not a spendthrift.
The show moved on from city to city, and Joe went with it. Business
was fairly good, though not what it had been during the previous
season, and Jim Tracy was constantly trying to devise new ways for
bettering his attractions. There were no new animals he could secure,
for he already had a good supply, and, moreover, they are not the
main part of the show except in the country districts. In cities the
audiences demanded acts, and thrilling acts at that.
“So it’s our acts we’ve got to brush up,” the ring-master said, in
talking matters over with the other owners of the show.
“How are you going to do it?” some one asked.
Jim Tracy shook his head.
“I guess we’ll get Joe Strong to put back his motor-cycle act,” he
said. “That will do for one thing.”
“The strong man can’t lift any more, that’s sure,” said Mr. Ward, one
of the partners, “and the fat lady can’t get any fatter.”
“It wouldn’t do much good if she could,” declared Jim, “as they are
only freak acts. We want thrillers.”
Joe Strong, coming out of his dressing tent one day at the conclusion
of the afternoon performance, saw the ring-master pacing up and down
in a thoughtful manner.
“What’s wrong now, Jim?” our hero asked. “Has the baby elephant
bitten the boxing kangaroo?”
“No, it’s only that we’ve got to put some more ginger into this show.
Have you noticed how dull the audiences seem to be lately? Nothing
seems to wake ’em up. Even Bill Watson’s new clown act isn’t going as
well as it deserves.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” said Joe.
“No, because you get good hands, and then you’re out of the tent when
the frost settles down. But we’ve got to do something, and I guess
you’d better bring back your motor-cycle act. We’ll pay you more
money for doing that than for the trapeze work.”
“Well, if you really want it I guess I can arrange it,” Joe said.
“I’ll telegraph to have the apparatus sent on. Meanwhile, maybe I
can work up a little enthusiasm for you in a new way--or rather by
varying something you have at present.”
“How do you mean, Joe?”
“I’ll show you to-night. Let it come as a surprise.”
Jim Tracy looked thoughtfully at Joe for a moment. Then the
ring-master said:
“All right. I’ll leave it to you. You’ve pulled off quite a few good
stunts in the past, and maybe you can again. You have full leeway. Do
just as you please, Joe.”
And Joe did.
That night there was a large crowd in the big tent, but, as the
ring-master had said, it did not show much enthusiasm. The people
watched the trick ponies, the lumbering elephants and the racing
horses. They smiled, some even laughed aloud, at the antics of the
clowns; but there were few gasps at some of the really good work of
the trapeze performers, including Joe’s.
When Benny Turton came on to do his tank act more interest was shown.
This tank, where Joe had formerly acted the part of the boy fish, has
been described in the third book of this series; so all that need
be said here about it is that Benny did some tricks under water.
The tank had double walls, and between them goldfish swam on all
four sides, so that it looked as though the “human fish,” as Benny
was billed, was really swimming among the fish. It was an optical
illusion, though when Joe, who had introduced the goldfish, first did
the trick the fish were actually in the water with him.
However, when Joe added a trained seal to this act the fish had to be
isolated, or Lizzie, the seal, would have eaten them, for fish were
her favorite food. So the double glass sides enabled Ben, who had
again taken up the act when Joe left it, to have both the seal and
the fish, making the turn quite spectacular.
Benny began his act. In his shimmering, rubber suit, covered with
glittering scales, he looked not unlike a big fish. He dived into
the water and did some posing, showing how long he could hold his
breath. Then he gave the signal for the seal to be loosed from her
crate on the ground near the tank, which stood on a raised platform.
As the seal flapped her way toward the flight of steps, up which
she wiggled herself to get into the tank, an uncouth looking fellow
darted from his seat near the ring and rushed toward Lizzie.
“Here, come back, you!” cried one of the uniformed ushers. “What do
you want?”
“Why, Mister Officer, I want to catch that there animal!” the fellow
exclaimed in a nasal drawl. “She’s loose; can’t you see? She’ll bite
somebody. What sort of a critter is it, anyhow?”
“Come back here and let it alone!” yelled the usher. “It’s all right!”
“But, Mister Officer, the critter’s loose!”
“I know. It’s meant to be that way. It’s part of the show, don’t you
understand?”
But the outlandish looking individual did not heed. He rushed after
Lizzie, the seal, who was now barking loudly in her peculiar way
and lumbering up the steps. Right after her ran the man, the usher
pursuing him. Many were now watching what was going on, and Ben, in
his tank, looked curiously at the little unexpected happening.
Up the steps went the seal, the queer fellow close after her. At
the edge of the tank Lizzie hesitated a moment, and then plunged
gracefully in. The man made a grab for her, seemingly lost his
balance, and then, amid a roar of laughter from the audience, in he
too plunged, splashing the water over the usher.
CHAPTER VI
A NEW ACT
That part of the audience near the tank was instantly in an uproar,
and persons farther off were wondering what had happened.
“Get him out!”
“He’ll be drowned!”
“Man overboard!”
These were only a few of the cries uttered by the crowd.
Meanwhile the usher and some of the special officers who traveled
with the circus to preserve order did not know what to do. Several of
them gathered about the tank, and some one summoned Jim Tracy from
the ring where he was putting a squad of horses through their paces.
“Some rube fell in the tank while chasing the seal, eh?” remarked Jim
Tracy. “Well, I’ll get him out if I have to use an elephant hook. Who
is he?”
“I don’t know,” the man answered. “I never saw him before. He was one
of the crowd. Just jumped up out of his seat and rushed after the
seal. It was funny, in a way.”
“Was it?” asked Jim. “I’ll make it funny for him if he tries to spoil
one of our best acts!”
The ring-master rushed over to the tank, and, hastening up the steps
so he could look down in the tank, he cried:
“Here, you rube, come out of that! What do you mean, anyhow?”
Jim gestured violently, for he happened to think that the person
under water could not hear what was being said.
And then to the surprise of the ring-master, as well as to the
astonishment of the crowd and the ushers, the stranger in the tank,
who had remained under water all this while, calmly took off a false
moustache and revealed the features of Joe Strong.
As if that was not enough, Joe proceeded to take off his clothes, the
big boots and other “make-up” of a countryman, and reveal himself in
a suit similar to Benny’s--the same suit Joe had worn when he did the
tank act.
“Well--I’ll--be--jiggered!” exclaimed Jim Tracy, and there was no
concealing his surprise. Joe had “put one over” on him and the rest
of the circus folk, as well as fooled the public, giving them all a
good joke to laugh over.
Then Joe and Ben proceeded to do a sort of team act in the tank,
holding their breath under water, while about them swam the seal
and, in the outer tank, the goldfish.
It was a big “hit” and the crowd appreciated the act, applauding
loudly and long.
“I thought it was a real farmer.”
“So did I!”
“Didn’t he act naturally?”
“And wasn’t it funny the way he chased the seal, and fell in after
it?”
Thus commented the persons in the audience one to another, laughing
meanwhile at Joe’s clever act.
When our hero came out, leaving Benny to do the long-holding-breath
act alone, Jim Tracy spoke.
“Is that what you were planning to do to put some ginger in the show?”
“It was,” answered Joe with a smile. “Do you think I succeeded?”
“You surely did. We’ve got to have that at every performance after
this, even if we have to cut out your trapeze work. How’d you happen
to think of it?”
“Oh, it just sort of came to me. I had planned, after talking to
you, to do a sort of team act with Ben, and he agreed to it. Then
it occurred to me that it would go better if it could come about
unexpectedly. So I told him what I was going to do, but I didn’t let
on to you for fear you wouldn’t like it. Then, too, I wanted to make
it as natural as possible, so the public wouldn’t guess that the
ushers were in the game. So no one knew it but Ben and me, unless it
was Lizzie. I think she must have known me, in spite of my make-up
and get-up.”
“I think it likely, Joe,” laughed the ring-master. “And so you togged
yourself up and put one over on all of us?”
“Yes, a countryman’s rig isn’t hard to get, and I bought the false
moustache. I was afraid it might come off in the water, and that
you’d know me, but it stuck on.”
“You had me completely fooled,” confessed the ring-master. “Of course
we can’t fool the ushers again, but I’ll get a good man, and coach
him, so he can pretend to think you are a real countryman as he
chases you. It will go with the public all right, especially as we
show only one day in a town, as a rule, and to a different audience
afternoon and night. Yes, we’ll keep that as a permanent feature,
Joe. It was great!”
From then on Joe had to do the trick twice a day. It was decided to