May 1.--We had the darndest time getting packed up and started on the
road. How in the name of heaven we ever got half the things on the cars
is more than I know, but it seems as though the circus company had a man
to look after everything, and he had men under him to look after his
regular share of things, so when the cars were loaded, and the boss
clapped his hands, and the engineer tooted his whistle, there wasn't a
tent stake or a rope, or a board seat, or anything left behind. Every
man knew exactly where the things were that he was responsible for, so
he could lay his hands on them in the dark, and he knew just what wagon
his stuff was to go in.
Gee, but you talk about system, there is no business in the world that
has a system like a show on the road. Every performer was in his or her
section in the sleeper, and pa and I got an end section with the freaks,
the fat woman across the aisle from us. That fat woman is going to make
life a burden for pa, I can see that plain enough. She is engaged to the
living skeleton, and he sleeps in the upper berth, over her, and he is
jealous of pa, while the fat woman has got to depending on pa to do
little things for her.
Of course, the first night out is always the worst on a sleeper, and the
poor woman is nervous, and when the animal train, in the second section,
ran on a side track beside our train of sleepers, and Rajah, the boss
lion, got woke up and exploded one of his roars, within six feet of the
fat woman's berth, she just gave one yell, and reared up, and came down
hard in the berth.
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