The White Elephant Mystery (3 page)

“Do you suppose we’ll get there before the circus does, Mr. Boots?” Djuna asked eagerly.

“Well now, I can’t rightfully tell,” Mr. Boots said. “They’re comin’ from Crocker City, where they played last night. It’s about a hun’red miles away, so I don’t think they’ll be in before five, or thereabouts.”

Mr. Boots stopped and honked his horn in front of Tommy Williams’s house. The door opened as though Mr. Boots had opened it when he honked his horn and Tommy came dashing down the steps. He wished them both a good morning, and then didn’t say anything more because he was still too sleepy to speak.

After they had sped through the almost silent town of Clinton, Djuna said: “Say, Mr. Boots, where does the circus come in? Where do they have it when they get it unloaded?”

“Oh, they got a fine place in Riverton, now,” Mr. Boots said. “Yessiree! Used to have to lug everything for two, three miles—with elephants pushing wagons out of the mud ’n’ everythin’ else. But now they go right into the circus grounds on the spur that the Army laid to that old Army camp, where I worked. Remember?”

“Oh, sure,” Djuna said. “It has a fence around it and everything.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Boots. “They was doin’ some kind of secret stuff there durin’ the war an’ had to have a fence around it. The railroad spur runs right in there and all they have to do is just unload their stuff and set it up.”

“Oh boy! This is going to be fun!” Tommy managed to say.

“Say, Mr. Boots,” said Djuna. “Does a circus always know where it is going beforehand, or do they just pick any place and stop there if they think a lot of people will come to the show?”

“Oh my, no, no, no!” Mr. Boots said. “I don’t know too much about circuses, but I learned some about ’em from knowin’ old man Grant.

“Runnin’ a circus is just like runnin’ any big business,” Mr. Boots went on. “Just as soon as the circus closes its season in the fall they start to get ready for the openin’ the next spring. They got to repair their wagons, an’ equipment, an’ paint things. Why, they even have to get rid of some of their railroad cars and get new ones. It just don’t happen that a circus goes to a certain city. It plays where it is sure to get a lot of people to come to the show, but sometimes they leave more cash in a town than they take out.”

“Jeepers, how could that be, Mr. Boots?” Tommy asked.

“Well, it’s this way,” said Mr. Boots. “A circus train can only travel about a hundred and fifty miles a night. Now suppose there are two cities that are good circus towns that are about three hundred miles apart. You see they can’t make that three hundred miles in one night, so they stop off at some little place in between.

“Long before the circus gets to this little place, or any of the places where the circus plays, it sends a lot of advance men on ahead to make the arrangements, put up the posters, and buy the supplies they’ll need. They have to have hay for the elephunts an’ horses, tons of straw and bushels of oats, to say nothin’ of bran for other animals and maybe a hun’red bales of shavings that they use in the entrances and the rings and on the big track around the rings where they have the chariot races ’n’ things like that. Then they got to have coal for the big travelin’ cookin’ ranges that cook meals for everyone with the circus. Why, they even have to have a couple o’ old broken-down horses they can kill to feed the lions and tigers and cat animals. To say nothin’ of the tons of meat they have to buy to be cooked in the tent that is the kitchen and chow house.”

“Jiminy crimps!” Djuna said. “There is an awful lot more to running a circus than I ever thought about.”

“Yes, I guess there is,” Mr. Boots said. “Now take the horses. You don’t see many horses any more, big heavy draft horses like the circus has. Nigh on everyone likes the sight of a big handsome horse. That’s why they have ’em for the parade. A horse like that is as much of a curiosity now as a automobile used to be when I was a boy. Yessir!”

“I never thought of that,” Tommy said. “They must have to have an awful lot of men with the circus to put up the tents and the seats and take care of the animals, ’n’ everything.”

“A slew!” Mr. Boots said. “A reg’lar slew. First, there is the ‘roughnecks.’ They’re just the common workmen who can do about everything. Then the plank and seat men, who put up the seats for the afternoon and night performa’ces. The ‘canvas men’ load and unload the tents and put ’em up. Then there is the ‘big-top gang.’ They work only on the main tent. An’ the ‘razorbacks’—they load and unload the railroad cars. They call the performers ‘kinkers’ and the people who wait on the people of the circus in the ‘cook house’ or eating tent are called ‘flunkeys.’ An’ the men who take care of the animals in the menagerie are called ‘animal men.’ Say! They got so many different names I can’t remember ’em all! But that’ll give you an idea of how big a circus is and how hard it is to handle.”

“Hey! We’re in Riverton, Mr. Boots. Where do we go now?” Tommy said excitedly.

“Jest keep your pants on, Tommy!” Mr. Boots said. “We go a spell down this street and then we cut off to the right and go in the main entrance to the old Army camp.”

“Do you think they’ll let us go right into the grounds?” Djuna asked.

“I think so,” said Mr. Boots. “We can show our passes an’ I think they’ll let us in.”

They went on down the main street and just as they turned off it to the right they caught a glimpse of the railroad tracks beyond and Mr. Boots said, “See them long, loaded flatcars on the track ahead?”

“Is that the circus, Mr. Boots?” Tommy half whispered.

“That’s it!” Mr. Boots said. “We’ll be inside in a minute. Jest in time to see it comin’ into the spur.”

But when Mr. Boots reached the entrance to the old Army camp which was to be the main entrance to the circus, he found that the gates were partly closed and were only being opened to admit people who were connected with the circus.

Mr. Boots showed the man at the gate his four passes and told the man that he used to be a friend of old man Grant’s, but the man just shook his head and said, “Sorry, brother. Can’t admit no one.”

“You mean,” Djuna said in a still voice, “that we can’t go in at all to see the circus unload?”

“That’s what I mean,” the man said and anyone could have told that he was beginning to get impatient. “C’mon now, Grandpa, get that old truck out of here, and get yourself out with it.”

“But—” Djuna said weakly. “We came all the way from Edenboro to see—”

“I don’t care where you came from, punk,” the man said. “Now scram!”

Mr. Boots shook his head and threw the gearshift of the old truck in reverse. He looked just as disappointed as Tommy and Djuna as he began to back the old truck around. He was halfway around when the white police car of the state troopers came up to the gate. They snapped on the light inside it while they got out some papers.

Djuna was blinking the tears out of his eyes and could hardly see as he stared at the white car; then his vision cleared and he let out a yell that Miss Annie must have heard in Edenboro.

“Socker! Mr. Furlong! Cannonball! Mr. McGinnty!”
he screamed as he threw himself out of Mr. Boots’s truck to the ground and raced toward the white police car.

“Socker” Furlong, who was a roly-poly young man, a reporter on the
Morning Bugle
in a nearby large city, and “Cannonball” McGinnty, who was a state trooper, both turned abruptly and stared at Djuna in astonishment.

“Well, tickle my Aunt Miranda!” Socker said when he had recovered from his astonishment. “If it isn’t old Hawkshaw himself! Hello, Djuna! well, I’ll be … ! Where in the world did you come from?”

“Hello, Mr. Furlong. Hello, Mr. McGinnty,” Djuna managed to say. “Jeepers! I’m awful glad to see you, because they won’t let Tommy and me and Mr. Boots inside the grounds to see the circus unload.”

“Oh, they won’t, won’t they?” Socker said and he fixed the man who had told them to “scram” a few minutes ago with a very stern look.

“Listen,” Socker said to the man almost in a whisper. “Do you want the big top to fall down? Do you want the lions to escape? Do you want the ‘bulls,’ elephants to me, to get loose and trample people? Do you
want
calamity, brother?”

“Why, no-o,” the man said. “No, no. We don’t want none of them things.”

“Then let that truck through the gate,” Socker said, pointing to Mr. Boots’s truck. “Let it through anytime it wants to go in. Do you hear?”

“Why, yes, sir,” the man said. “I didn’t know—”

“You know now!” Socker said. He stuck his arm out the side of the police car and motioned to Mr. Boots to follow them in. The man at the gate threw it wide open and Mr. Boots drove his truck through the entrance gate right on the tail of Trooper McGinnty’s white police car.

When they were through the gate, Trooper McGinnty swung the police car around to the right with an expert twist of the wheel and Mr. Boots swung his old truck around right beside it with a twist that wasn’t so expert. They both came to a stop, side by side, facing the fence.

Then they were all standing on the ground, in the dim light of dawn, and shaking hands with each other—because both Socker and Cannonball had once brought Djuna home to Edenboro after he had helped the police catch two escaped criminals,
¹
and they had both met Mr. Boots and Tommy at Miss Annie’s house at that time.

“It’s nice to see you again, sir,” Socker and Cannonball both said as they shook hands with Mr. Boots, and then they rumpled Tommy’s hair as they shook hands with him.

“Say!” Mr. Boots said, and the white fringe on his chin sort of danced as he chuckled. “What did you say to that galoot on the gate that wouldn’t let us in? It certain’y had authority.”

“Oh, I just told him what might happen to the circus if he didn’t let you in,” Socker said. “Most of these circus people are superstitious and it doesn’t take much to shake ’em up if you do it right.”

Socker Furlong’s round face beamed as he turned to Djuna and put an arm around his shoulders. “I was going to make Cannonball take me over to Edenboro this noontime to get you,” he said to Djuna. “I should have known you’d be here.”

“Jeepers, we’ve been planning to come ever since we knew the circus was coming here,” Djuna explained, and then his face became serious as he said, “How does it happen you’re here, Mr. Furlong?”

“Well, that’s a long story,” Socker said. “And I don’t want to be called Mr. Furlong any more. Remember? My name is Socker!”

“And mine’s Cannonball,” Trooper McGinnty said sternly.

“Okay, sir,” Djuna said, and he nodded at both of them a little shyly. Then he lost his shyness as his gaze went beyond them to the circus lot and the long string of flatcars and Pullmans steaming into the spur.

“What,” he asked, because he couldn’t help it, “are those little red flags stuck all around the grounds?”

Socker turned around and looked at the little red flags that were fluttering at the end of thin iron stakes stuck into the ground. They were quite visible because now the first faint rays of orange light were spreading across the sky to the east as the sun climbed upward behind the hills beyond Riverton.

“That’s the plan for the circus,” Socker explained. “The lot superintendent puts the flags there and they tell just where everything goes. Without them the circus would get in an awful tangle.”

There was a dull thump as the leading locomotive nosed gently against the bumper at the end of the spur and came to a halt. As though the bump was some kind of signal, “roughnecks,” “canvas men,” “razorbacks” and “animal men” swarmed off the train. Everything seemed to be confusion, but every man knew his job and they all took pride in doing it well.

“Let’s just stand here and watch for a few minutes,” Socker said. “You’ll see a whole village come into being as the drivers and workmen follow the instructions given by those little red flags. They show just where the big top is to be put up, where the connections are to be made that will lead to the menagerie at one end, and to the stables and dressing tents at the other end. They show where the ‘Midway’ goes, and where—”

Socker suddenly cocked his hat around on his head and talked out of the corner of his mouth like a regular circus barker: “The li-t-tle red fla-a-ags, Ladies and Gentlemen, will tell you how to get to the Mus-e-eum of Livi-i-ing Curios-i-ties … where you ca-a-an s-ee-eee the MAS-TERPIEE-CES OF A-A-ALLL CREA-A-TION’S
Wildest
WHIMS!”

“Hoddy-doddy!” said Tommy Williams as both he and Djuna doubled up with laughter, “you sound just like a regular circus man!”

In answer Socker opened his mouth wide and said, “The be-ee-g show! This a-way to the be-ee-g show! Performance starts in five min-utes! Buy yoah tickets for the be-ee-g show!”

When Djuna could stop laughing he said, “What’s that they’re putting up first, Socker?”

“That, my little questioning quince, is the kitchen and chow house. That’s the first thing they unload and set up. Let’s move over a little closer,” Socker said with a grin.

Just while they were walking across the lot the long center poles of the kitchen and the restaurant tent were placed and raised into position. The canvas traveled upward and took form, and the boss canvasman was shouting “Guy out! Guy out! Speak your Latin!”

Stakemen swarmed in to drive in the long tent pins, swinging their heavy sledges; each man as he struck added a word to the chant that is as old as the circus itself:

“Ah, heebie, hebby, hobby, holey, go-long!”

They chanted in unison as they made the long stakes crawl into the earth.

Even before the kitchen was entirely erected, fresh meat, bread, vegetables—all kinds of provisions—began to arrive, things that had been ordered weeks before to be delivered the minute the kitchen tent went up.

Under the tent the butcher began to cut up carcasses of beef, mutton, and pork into chops and steaks and gaily tossed them to the cooks, who already had coal fires going in their ranges. Waiters in white aprons were scurrying around the restaurant tent as the roustabouts drove in the stakes with their eternal chant, rattling dishes and tableware as breakfast came into being.