Circus Parade by Jim Tully Page A

dimmed and the train guarded until the chief despatcher gave us an engine and the right of way.
    Cameron’s loss was several thousand dollars. Finnerty had gained eighty cents.

IV: The Moss-Haired Girl
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    IV: The Moss-Haired Girl
    W E reached ———, Missouri, in a worn condition. The news of our battle had preceded us in the newspapers. Cameron was unable to leave his bed. Finnerty’s one eye was completely closed. He could not see for several days. But his spirit was indomitable. He was the first to appear on the new lot.
    We dispensed with the parade until mid-afternoon and spent the morning mending the main tent. After buying all the half-inch rope that could be had in the town, we again painted the tents with paraffine to make them waterproof. The canvas was two seasons old and had begun to leak.
    When all was nearly ready for the parade, a deputation of citizens arrived and asked for the proprietor. Upon being shown to his car they informed him that he was forbidden to show in the town. We were billed in the place for two days. Cameron used all his eloquence and tricks on the men. They remained firm. Telegrams from the Oklahoma city gave reports of our hey rube fight with biased detail.
    The performers and other aristocrats with the show were indignant at such treatment by the rubes. But we who had the hard work to do were glad. Our next jump was one of four hundred miles on a third-class railroad. The trip would consume the better part of two days and nights. It would give us a respite in the incessant round of toil and turmoil.
    But Cameron found work for idle hands to do.
    We spent the first day mending the tents and seats and in rubbing pained black and blue spots on our bodies with arnica and liniment.
    There was a gash in Rosebud’s body which had been inflicted when he fell on the edge of his drum. He sat with a heavy bandage around it, while he polished his drum sticks and cleaned his other musical contraptions. Late in the afternoon he walked wearily into the town with his broken drum.
    With Jock’s consent I divided my time between Cameron, Finnerty, the Strong Woman and the Moss-Haired Girl. The latter had been struck by a flying club which had fractured her rib.
    As she shared with the Strong Woman the honors of being Cameron’s most valuable freak, she was treated with consideration.
    â€œWhy don’t you sue the broken-nosed old devil?” Buddy Conroy, who operated the loaded dice game under Finnerty, had asked her.
    â€œNo, no, I wouldn’t do that. The old faker has troubles enough. Besides, I’m of age. I should have kept out of the way of the club. Anyhow, he was blind when he threw it.”
    â€œMaybe Finnerty threw it because he couldn’t never make a date with you.”
    â€œNo, he was just blind, that’s all,” was Alice’s rejoinder.
    I worked about the tent until Conroy left.
    Then the Moss-Haired Girl turned to me, saying:
    â€œHeavens, I’m glad he’s gone. He gives me a cold feeling—like a dead fish.”
    â€œYeap,” I said, “he’s as bad as Finnerty.”
    The girl laughed. “No, he’s not that bad. There’s nothing as bad as Finnerty—but then—maybe we don’t understand.”
    Few people knew the Moss-Haired Girl’s real name. To the circus people she was known as Alice Devine. Her mother had been Swedish, her father Indian and Irish. She was the most superior person with the circus, and the weirdest. She converted her hair, which was between blonde and brown, and long, into a tangled heap of moss by washing it frequently in stale beer, which she tinted green with herbs.
    Cameron gave her seventy-five dollars a week and all expenses, and billed her as “The Moss-Haired Girl.” The women flocked to see her in every town. She also earned about fifty dollars a week by selling portraits of herself.
    Her eyes were a deep blue, her complexion dark, her