by Sarah Orne Jewett
Kate and I looked forward to a certain Saturday with as much eagerness as if we had been little school-boys, for on that day we were to go to a circus at Denby, a town perhaps eight miles inland. There had not been a circus so near Deephaven for a long time, and nobody had dared to believe the first rumor of it, until two dashing young men had deigned to come themselves to put up the big posters on the end of ‘Bijah Mauley’s barn. All the boys in town came as soon as possible to see these amazing pictures, and some were wretched in their secret hearts at the thought that they might not see the show itself. Tommy Dockum was more interested than any one else, and mentioned the subject so frequently one day when he went blackberrying with us, that we grew enthusiastic, and told each other what fun it would be to go, for everybody would be there, and it would be the greatest loss to us if we were absent. I thought I had lost my childish fondness for circuses, but it came back redoubled; and Kate may contradict me if she chooses, but I am sure she never looked forward to the Easter Oratorio with half the pleasure she did to this “caravan,” as most of the people called it.
We felt that it was a great pity that any of the boys and girls should be left lamenting at home, and finding that there were some of our acquaintances and Tommy’s who saw no chance of going, we engaged Jo Sands and Leander Dockum to carry them to Denby in two fish-wagons, with boards laid across for the extra seats. We saw them join the straggling train of carriages which had begun to go through the village from all along shore, soon after daylight, and they started on their journey shouting and carousing, with their pockets crammed with early apples and other provisions. We thought it would have been fun enough to see the people go by, for we had had no idea until then how many inhabitants that country held.
We had asked Mrs. Kew to go with us; but she was half an hour later than she had promised, for, since there was no wind, she could not come ashore in the sail-boat, and Mr. Kew had had to row her in in the dory. We saw the boat at last nearly in shore, and drove down to meet it: even the horse seemed to realize what a great day it was, and showed a disposition to friskiness, evidently as surprising to himself as to us.
Mrs. Kew was funnier that day than we had ever known her, which is saying a great deal, and we should not have had half so good a time if she had not been with us; although she lived in the lighthouse, and had no chance to “see passing,” which a woman prizes so highly in the country, she had a wonderful memory for faces, and could tell us the names of all Deephaveners and of most of the people we met outside its limits. She looked impressed and solemn as she hurried up from the water’s edge, giving Mr. Kew some parting charges over her shoulder as he pushed off the boat to go back; but after we had convinced her that the delay had not troubled us, she seemed more cheerful. It was evident that she felt the importance of the occasion, and that she was pleased at our having chosen her for company. She threw back her veil entirely, sat very straight, and took immense pains to bow to every acquaintance whom she met. She wore her best Sunday clothes, and her manner was formal for the first few minutes; it was evident that she felt we were meeting under unusual circumstances, and that, although we had often met before on the friendliest terms, our having asked her to make this excursion in public required a different sort of behavior at her hands, and a due amount of ceremony and propriety. But this state of things did not last long, as she soon made a remark at which Kate and I laughed so heartily in lighthouse-acquaintance fashion, that she unbent, and gave her whole mind to enjoying herself.
When we came by the store where the post-office was kept we saw a small knot of people gathered round the door, and stopped to see what had happened. There was a forlorn horse standing near, with his harness tied up with fuzzy ends of rope, and the wagon was cobbled together with pieces of board; the whole craft looked as if it might be wrecked with the least jar. In the wagon were four or five stupid-looking boys and girls, one of whom was crying softly. Their father was sick, some one told us. “He was took faint, but he is coming to all right; they have give him something to take: their name is Craper, and they live way over beyond the Ridge, on Stone Hill. They were goin’ over to Denby to the circus, and the man was calc’lating to get doctored, but I d’ know’s he can get so fur; he’s powerful slim-looking to me.” Kate and I went to see if we could be of any use, and when we went into the store we saw the man leaning back in his chair, looking ghastly pale, and as if he were far gone in consumption. Kate spoke to him, and he said he was better; he had felt bad all the way along, but he hadn’t given up. He was pitiful, poor fellow, with his evident attempt at dressing up. He had the bushiest, dustiest red hair and whiskers, which made the pallor of his face still more striking, and his illness had thinned and paled his rough, clumsy hands. I thought what a hard piece of work it must have been for him to start for the circus that morning, and how kind-hearted he must be to have made such an effort for his children’s pleasure. As we went out they stared at us gloomily. The shadow of their disappointment touched and chilled our pleasure.
Somebody had turned the horse so that he was heading toward home, and by his actions he showed that he was the only one of the party who was glad. We were so sorry for the children; perhaps it had promised to be the happiest day of their lives, and now they must go back to their uninteresting home without having seen the great show.
“I am so sorry you are disappointed,” said Kate, as we were wondering how the man who had followed us could ever climb into the wagon.
“Heh?” said he, blankly, as if he did not know what her words meant. “What fool has been a turning o’ this horse?” he asked a man who was looking on.
“Why, which way be ye goin’?”
“To the circus,” said Mr. Craper, with decision, “where d’ye s’pose? That’s where I started for, anyways.” And he climbed in and glanced round to count the children, struck the horse with the willow switch, and they started off briskly, while everybody laughed. Kate and I joined Mrs. Kew, who had enjoyed the scene.
“Well, there!” said she, “I wonder the folks in the old North burying-ground ain’t a-rising up to go to Denby to that caravan!”
We reached Denby at noon; it was an uninteresting town which had grown up around some mills. There was a great commotion in the streets, and it was evident that we had lost much in not having seen the procession. There was a great deal of business going on in the shops, and there were two or three hand-organs at large, near one of which we stopped awhile to listen, just after we had met Leander and given the horse into his charge. Mrs. Kew finished her shopping as soon as possible, and we hurried toward the great tents, where all the flags were flying. I think I have not told you that we were to have the benefit of seeing a menagerie in addition to the circus, and you may be sure we went faithfully round to see everything that the cages held.
I cannot truthfully say that it was a good show; it was somewhat dreary, now that I think of it quietly and without excitement. The creatures looked tired, and as if they had been on the road for a great many years. The animals were all old, and there was a shabby great elephant whose look of general discouragement went to my heart, for it seemed as if he were miserably conscious of a misspent life. He stood dejected and motionless at one side of the tent, and it was hard to believe that there was a spark of vitality left in him. A great number of the people had never seen an elephant before, and we heard a thin little old man, who stood near us, say delightedly, “There’s the old creatur’, and no mistake, Ann ‘Liza. I wanted to see him most of anything. My sakes alive, ain’t he big!”
And Ann ‘Liza, who was stout and sleepy-looking, droned out, “Ye-es, there’s consider’ble of him; but he looks as if he ain’t got no animation.”
Kate and I turned away and laughed, while Mrs. Kew said confidentially, as the couple moved away, “She needn’t be a reflectin’ on the poor beast. That’s Mis Seth Tanner, and there isn’t a woman in Deephaven nor East Parish to be named the same day with her for laziness. I’m glad she didn’t catch sight of me; she’d have talked about nothing for a fortnight.”
There was a picture of a huge snake in Deephaven, and I was just wondering where he could be, or if there ever had been one, when we heard a boy ask the same question of the man whose thankless task it was to stir up the lions with a stick to make them roar. “The snake’s dead,” he answered good-naturedly. “Didn’t you have to dig an awful long grave for him?” asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned they curled him up some, and smiled as he turned to his lions, who looked as if they needed a tonic. Everybody lingered longest before the monkeys, who seemed to be the only lively creatures in the whole collection; and finally we made our way into the other tent, and perched ourselves on a high seat, from whence we had a capital view of the audience and the ring, and could see the people come in. Mrs. Kew was on the lookout for acquaintances, and her spirits as well as our own seemed to rise higher and higher. She was on the alert, moving her head this way and that to catch sight of people, giving us a running commentary in the mean time. It was very pleasant to see a person so happy as Mrs. Kew was that day, and I dare say in speaking of the occasion she would say the same thing of Kate and me,—for it was such a good time! We bought some peanuts, without which no circus seems complete, and we listened to the conversations which were being carried on around us while we were waiting for the performance to begin. There were two old farmers whom we had noticed occasionally in Deephaven; one was telling the other, with great confusion of pronouns, about a big pig which had lately been killed. “John did feel dreadful disappointed at having to kill now,” we heard him say, “bein’ as he had calc’lated to kill along near Thanksgivin’ time; there was goin’ to be a new moon then, and he expected to get seventy-five or a hundred pound more on to him. But he didn’t seem to gain, and me and ‘Bijah both told him he’d be better to kill now, while everything was favor’ble, and if he set out to wait something might happen to him, and then I’ve always held that you can’t get no hog only just so fur, and for my part I don’t like these great overgrown creatur’s. I like well enough to see a hog that’ll weigh six hunderd, just for the beauty on’t, but for my eatin’ give me one that’ll just rise three. ‘Bijah’s accurate, and he says he is goin’ to weigh risin’ five hundred and fifty. I shall stop, as I go home, to John’s wife’s brother’s and see if they’ve got the particulars yet; John was goin’ to get the scales this morning. I guess likely consider’ble many’ll gather there to-morrow after meeting. John didn’t calc’late to cut up till Monday.”
“I guess likely I ‘ll stop in to-morrow,” said the other man; “I like to see a han’some hog. Chester White, you said? Consider them best, don’t ye?” But this question never was answered, for the greater part of the circus company in gorgeous trappings came parading in.
The circus was like all other circuses, except that it was shabbier than most, and the performers seemed to have less heart in it than usual. They did their best, and went through with their parts conscientiously, but they looked as if they never had had a good time in their lives. The audience was hilarious, and cheered and laughed at the tired clown until he looked as if he thought his speeches might possibly be funny, after all. We were so glad we had pleased the poor thing; and when he sang a song our satisfaction was still greater, and so he sang it all over again. Perhaps he had been associating with people who were used to circuses. The afternoon was hot, and the boys with Japanese fans and trays of lemonade did a remarkable business for so late in the season; the brass band on the other side of the tent shrieked its very best, and all the young men of the region had brought their girls, and some of these countless pairs of country lovers we watched a great deal, as they “kept company” with more or less depth of satisfaction in each other. We had a grand chance to see the fashions, and there were many old people and a great number of little children, and some families had evidently locked their house door behind them, since they had brought both the dog and the baby.
“Doesn’t it seem as if you were a child again?” Kate asked me. “I am sure this is just the same as the first circus I ever saw. It grows more and more familiar, and it puzzles me to think they should not have altered in the least while I have changed so much, and have even had time to grow up. You don’t know how it is making me remember other things of which I have not thought for years. I was seven years old when I went that first time. Uncle Jack invited me. I had a new parasol, and he laughed because I would hold it over my shoulder when the sun was in my face. He took me into the side-shows and bought me everything I asked for, on the way home, and we did not get home until twilight. The rest of the family had dined at four o’clock and gone out for a long drive, and it was such fun to have our dinner by ourselves. I sat at the head of the table in mamma’s place, and when Bridget came down and insisted that I must go to bed, Uncle Jack came softly up stairs and sat by the window, smoking and telling me stories. He ran and hid in the closet when we heard mamma coming up, and when she found him out by the cigar-smoke, and made believe scold him, I thought she was in earnest, and begged him off. Yes; and I remember that Bridget sat in the next room, making her new dress so she could wear it to church next day. I thought it was a beautiful dress, and besought mamma to have one like it. It was bright green with yellow spots all over it,” said Kate. “Ah, poor Uncle Jack! he was so good to me! We were always telling stories of what we would do when I was grown up. He died in Canton the next year, and I cried myself ill; but for a long time I thought he might not be dead, after all, and might come home any day. He used to seem so old to me, and he really was just out of college and not so old as I am now. That day at the circus he had a pink rosebud in his buttonhole, and—ah! when have I ever thought of this before!—a woman sat before us who had a stiff little cape on her bonnet like a shelf, and I carefully put peanuts round the edge of it, and when she moved her head they would fall. I thought it was the best fun in the world, and I wished Uncle Jack to ride the donkey; I was sure he could keep on, because his horse had capered about with him one day on Beacon Street, and I thought him a perfect rider, since nothing had happened to him then.”
“I remember,” said Mrs. Kew, presently, “that just before I was married ‘he’ took me over to Wareham Corners to a caravan. My sister Hannah and the young man who was keeping company with her went too. I haven’t been to one since till to-day, and it does carry me back same’s it does you, Miss Kate. It doesn’t seem more than five years ago, and what would I have thought if I had known ‘he’ and I were going to keep a lighthouse and be contented there, what’s more, and sometimes not get ashore for a fortnight; settled, gray-headed old folks! We were gay enough in those days. I know old Miss Sabrina Smith warned me that I’d better think twice before I took up with Tom Kew, for he was a light-minded young man. I speak o’ that to him in the winter-time, when he sets reading the almanac half asleep and I’m knitting, and the wind’s a’ howling and the waves coming ashore on those rocks as if they wished they could put out the light and blow down the lighthouse. We were reflected on a good deal for going to that caravan; some of the old folks didn’t think it was improvin’—Well, I should think that man was a trying to break his neck!”
Coming out of the great tent was disagreeable enough, and we seemed to have chosen the worst time, for the crowd pushed fiercely, though I suppose nobody was in the least hurry, and we were all severely jammed, while from somewhere underneath came the wails of a deserted dog. We had not meant to see the side-shows, and went carelessly past two or three tents; but when we came in sight of the picture of the Kentucky giantess, we noticed that Mrs. Kew looked at it wistfully, and we immediately asked if she cared anything about going to see the wonder, whereupon she confessed that she never heard of such a thing as a woman’s weighing six hundred and fifty pounds, so we all three went in. There were only two or three persons inside the tent, beside a little boy who played the hand-organ.
The Kentucky giantess sat in two chairs on a platform, and there was a large cage of monkeys just beyond, toward which Kate and I went at once. “Why, she isn’t more than two thirds as big as the picture,” said Mrs. Kew, in a regretful whisper; “but I guess she’s big enough; doesn’t she look discouraged, poor creatur’?” Kate and I felt ashamed of ourselves for being there. No matter if she had consented to be carried round for a show, it must have been horrible to be stared at and joked about day after day; and we gravely looked at the monkeys, and in a few minutes turned to see if Mrs. Kew were not ready to come away, when to our surprise we saw that she was talking to the giantess with great interest, and we went nearer.
“I thought your face looked natural the minute I set foot inside the door,” said Mrs. Kew; “but you’ve—altered some since I saw you, and I couldn’t place you till I heard you speak. Why, you used to be spare; I am amazed, Marilly! Where are your folks?”
“I don’t wonder you are surprised,” said the giantess. “I was a good ways from this when you knew me, wasn’t I? But father he run through with every cent he had before he died, and ‘he’ took to drink and it killed him after a while, and then I begun to grow worse and worse, till I couldn’t do nothing to earn a dollar, and everybody was a coming to see me, till at last I used to ask ‘em ten cents apiece, and I scratched along somehow till this man came round and heard of me, and he offered me my keep and good pay to go along with him. He had another giantess before me, but she had begun to fall away consider’ble, so he paid her off and let her go. This other giantess was an awful expense to him, she was such an eater; now I don’t have no great of an appetite,”—this was said plaintively,—”and he’s raised my pay since I’ve been with him because we did so well. I took up with his offer because I was nothing but a drag and never will be. I’m as comfortable as I can be, but it’s a pretty hard business. My oldest boy is able to do for himself, but he’s married this last year, and his wife don’t want me. I don’t know’s I blame her either. It would be something like if I had a daughter now; but there, I’m getting to like travelling first-rate; it gives anybody a good deal to think of.”
“I was asking the folks about you when I was up home the early part of the summer,” said Mrs. Kew, “but all they knew was that you were living out in New York State. Have you been living in Kentucky long? I saw it on the picture outside.”
“No,” said the giantess, “that was a picture the man bought cheap from another show that broke up last year. It says six hundred and fifty pounds, but I don’t weigh more than four hundred. I haven’t been weighed for some time past. Between you and me I don’t weigh so much as that, but you mustn’t mention it, for it would spoil my reputation, and might hender my getting another engagement.” And then the poor giantess lost her professional look and tone as she said, “I believe I’d rather die than grow any bigger. I do lose heart sometimes, and wish I was a smart woman and could keep house. I’d be smarter than ever I was when I had the chance; I tell you that! Is Tom along with you?”
“No. I came with these young ladies, Miss Lancaster and Miss Denis, who are stopping over to Deephaven for the summer.” Kate and I turned as we heard this introduction; we were standing close by, and I am proud to say that I never saw Kate treat any one more politely than she did that absurd, pitiful creature with the gilt crown and many bracelets. It was not that she said much, but there was such an exquisite courtesy in her manner, and an apparent unconsciousness of there being anything in the least surprising or uncommon about the giantess.
Just then a party of people came in, and Mrs. Kew said good by reluctantly. “It has done me sights of good to see you,” said our new acquaintance; “I was feeling down-hearted just before you came in. I’m pleased to see somebody that remembers me as I used to be.” And they shook hands in a way that meant a great deal, and when Kate and I said good afternoon the giantess looked at us gratefully, and said, “I’m very much obliged to you for coming in, young ladies.”
“Walk in! walk in!” the man was shouting as we came away. “Walk in and see the wonder of the world, ladies and gentlemen,—the largest woman ever seen in America,—the great Kentucky giantess!”
“Wouldn’t you have liked to stay longer?” Kate asked Mrs. Kew as we came down the street. But she answered that it would be no satisfaction; the people were coming in, and she would have no chance to talk. “I never knew her very well; she is younger than I, and she used to go to meeting where I did, but she lived five or six miles from our house. She’s had a hard time of it, according to her account,” said Mrs. Kew. “She used to be a dreadful flighty, high-tempered girl, but she’s lost that now, I can see by her eyes. I was running over in my mind to see if there was anything I could do for her, but I don’t know as there is. She said the man who hired her was kind. I guess your treating her so polite did her as much good as anything. She used to be real ambitious. I had it on my tongue’s end to ask her if she couldn’t get a few days’ leave and come out to stop with me, but I thought just in time that she’d sink the dory in a minute. There! seeing her has took away all the fun,” said Mrs. Kew ruefully; and we were all dismal for a while, but at last, after we were fairly started for home, we began to be merry again.
We passed the Craper family whom we had seen at the store in the morning; the children looked as stupid as ever, but the father, I am sorry to say, had been tempted to drink more whiskey than was good for him. He had a bright flush on his cheeks, and he was flourishing his whip, and hoarsely singing some meaningless tune. “Poor creature!” said I, “I should think this day’s pleasuring would kill him.” “Now, wouldn’t you think so?” said Mrs. Kew, sympathizingly; “but the truth is, you couldn’t kill one of those Crapers if you pounded him in a mortar.”
We had a pleasant drive home, and we kept Mrs. Kew to supper, and afterward went down to the shore to see her set sail for home. Mr. Kew had come in some time before, and had been waiting for the moon to rise. Mrs. Kew told us that she should have enough to think of for a year, she had enjoyed the day so much; and we stood on the pebbles watching the boat out of the harbor, and wishing ourselves on board, it was such a beautiful evening.
We went to another show that summer, the memory of which will never fade. It is somewhat impertinent to call it a show, and “public entertainment” is equally inappropriate, though we certainly were entertained. It had been raining for two or three days; the Deephavenites spoke of it as “a spell of weather.” Just after tea, one Thursday evening, Kate and I went down to the post-office. When we opened the great hall door, the salt air was delicious, but we found the town apparently wet through and discouraged; and though it had almost stopped raining just then, there was a Scotch mist, like a snow-storm with the chill taken off, and the Chantrey elms dripped hurriedly, and creaked occasionally in the east-wind.
“There will not be a cap’n on the wharves for a week after this,” said I to Kate; “only think of the cases of rheumatism!”
We stopped for a few minutes at the Carews’, who were as much surprised to see us as if we had been mermaids out of the sea, and begged us to give ourselves something warm to drink, and to change our boots the moment we got home. Then we went on to the post-office. Kate went in, but stopped, as she came out with our letters, to read a written notice securely fastened to the grocery door by four large carpet-tacks with wide leathers round their necks.
“Dear,” said she, exultantly, “there’s going to be a lecture to-night in the church,—a free lecture on the Elements of True Manhood. Wouldn’t you like to go?” And we went.
We were fifteen minutes later than the time appointed, and were sorry to find that the audience was almost imperceptible. The dampness had affected the antiquated lamps so that those on the walls and on the front of the gallery were the dimmest lights I ever saw, and sent their feeble rays through a small space the edges of which were clearly defined. There were two rather more energetic lights on the table near the pulpit, where the lecturer sat, and as we were in the rear of the church, we could see the yellow fog between ourselves and him. There were fourteen persons in the audience, and we were all huddled together in a cowardly way in the pews nearest the door: three old men, four women, and four children, besides ourselves and the sexton, a deaf little old man with a wooden leg.
The children whispered noisily, and soon, to our surprise, the lecturer rose and began. He bowed, and treated us with beautiful deference, and read his dreary lecture with enthusiasm. I wish I could say, for his sake, that it was interesting; but I cannot tell a lie, and it was so long! He went on and on, until it seemed as if I had been there ever since I was a little girl. Kate and I did not dare to look at each other, and in my desperation at feeling her quiver with laughter, I moved to the other end of the pew, knocking over a big hymn-book on the way, which attracted so much attention that I have seldom felt more embarrassed in my life. Kate’s great dog rose several times to shake himself and yawn loudly, and then lie down again despairingly.
You would have thought the man was addressing an enthusiastic Young Men’s Christian Association. He exhorted with fervor upon our duties as citizens and as voters, and told us a great deal about George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, whom he urged us to choose as our examples. He waited for applause after each of his outbursts of eloquence, and presently went on again, in no wise disconcerted at the silence, and as if he were sure that he would fetch us next time. The rain began to fall again heavily, and the wind wailed around the meeting-house. If the lecture had been upon any other subject it would not have been so hard for Kate and me to keep sober faces; but it was directed entirely toward young men, and there was not a young man there.
The children in front of us mildly scuffled with each other at one time, until the one at the end of the pew dropped a marble, which struck the floor and rolled with a frightful noise down the edge of the aisle where there was no carpet. The congregation instinctively started up to look after it, but we recollected ourselves and leaned back again in our places, while the awed children, after keeping unnaturally quiet, fell asleep, and tumbled against each other helplessly. After a time the man sat down and wiped his forehead, looking well satisfied; and when we were wondering whether we might with propriety come away, he rose again, and said it was a free lecture, and he thanked us for our kind patronage on that inclement night; but in other places which he had visited there had been a contribution taken up for the cause. It would, perhaps, do no harm,—would the sexton—But the sexton could not have heard the sound of a cannon at that distance, and slumbered on. Neither Kate nor I had any money, except a twenty-dollar bill in my purse, and some coppers in the pocket of her water-proof cloak which she assured me she was prepared to give; but we saw no signs of the sexton’s waking, and as one of the women kindly went forward to wake the children, we all rose and came away.
After we had made as much fun and laughed as long as we pleased that night, we became suddenly conscious of the pitiful side of it all; and being anxious that every one should have the highest opinion of Deephaven, we sent Tom Dockum early in the morning with an anonymous note to the lecturer, whom he found without much trouble; but afterward we were disturbed at hearing that he was going to repeat his lecture that evening,—the wind having gone round to the northwest,—and I have no doubt there were a good many women able to be out, and that he harvested enough ten-cent pieces to pay his expenses without our help; though he had particularly told us it was for “the cause,” the evening before, and that ought to have been a consolation.