The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) by Marshall P. Wilder (read full novel txt) 📕

here on the roof, and if you see anything queer about it, you mustn't let on—you mustn't tell."

"That's all right," assured Aunt Huldah, turning to descend the narrow little stairway. "They'll do jest as you tell 'em, Gib. Mind you don't tip them soap boxes over an' fall off'n the roof, chil'en. Sissy, you keep tight hold of Ally's hand—she's apt to fly when the big performance comes;" and Aunt Huldah's rich, mellow, chuckling laugh came back to them up the stairs.

One would have said that nothing on earth could make matters more glorious to the children of the Wagon-Tire House on this Fourth of July evening; but after Troy Gilbert's words, they trod not upon the earthen roof of the hotel, but on air; they sat not upon soap boxes, but on thrones.

Nay, kings were small people compared to them. There was to be a mysterious extra performance, in which the sheriff was implicated; it would take place under their very noses, and they were asked to assist, to keep still about it!

Gilbert had said truly: the crowd was a big one, and most enthusiastic. As a matter of fact, there were nearly a hundred cowboys on hand who had been let into Gilbert's scheme. The fireworks were equally successful whether they blazed splendidly or fizzled ingloriously. It was enough for the boys that Troy Gilbert was doing the act; they whooped at every figure, and whooped again at Troy's unaccustomed drollery.

There was a strain of intense expectancy in the audience, communicated, though without their knowledge, to those not in the secret from those who were; so that the crowd was wildly eager, without altogether knowing why.[Pg 1594]

After the display of pin-wheels, fiery serpents, bouquets, Roman candles and rockets, old Frosty and Mrs. Frosty (otherwise the Signorina Ippolita di Castelli) came on the small platform to do their knife-throwing-act, the knives trailing fiery tails. This kept the audience entertained during the time necessary to prepare the Columbia act.

"Bet you'd be scared to do that," whispered Eddie Beach.

"Bet I wouldn't," Gess made answer. "I'd jest as soon sling them old knives—Mr. La Rue said me an' Tell was likely boys to train. I bet Ally'd hold as still as the Signorina 'f I was to throw them knives at her."

For the Columbia performance Gilbert had, during the day, stretched another wire about five feet and three inches above the big wire on which Minnie was to walk. Indeed, it was this secondary wire which had caused the eruption of old Frosty demanding to "know."

When the knife-throwing act was finished, there was a short pause followed by a little murmur of applause; and this grew louder and louder, until it was a medley of whoops, yells, stamping, and calls in every tone and key for the next act—the grand stroke of the performance. Frosty and the Signorina forbore to go upon the roof of the Roundup to receive Minnie, until they should see her start from the roof of the hotel.

Figures were seen upon the top of the Wagon-Tire House (both roofs were flat) and Frosty strained his eyes eagerly toward that end of the big wire. The wondering children drew back and refrained even from whispering among themselves—Troy's caution was not needed. Strange doings, indeed, were going forward about the end of the wire. Troy Gilbert was apparently pushing a reluctant figure toward it—it looked as though the person[Pg 1595] were tied, and he laughed and struck her when she seemed unwilling.

Finally, Columbia began to move out slowly along the wire. She was everything that audience or proprietor could desire. The spiked tiara was on her head, blazing with violet light. Down her back hung her fair curling hair; in her hands was the long balancing pole—Columbia's scepter of power; and her white draperies were illuminated with fires of blue and crimson and violet.

The children stared, silent, motionless, expectant. They were nearer than those in the street and had had opportunity to observe the irregularity of Columbia's launching.

There was a little outburst of applause when she first appeared. But as she moved out over the wire, the silence was so complete that the coughing of one of the patient ponies on the outskirts of the crowd was plainly audible.

Those in the secret were silent, in ecstasies of admiration. The children kept still because they had been told to—whatever they saw. Those not instructed were mute with amazement—a sort of creeping awe.

Most of the audience had seen Minnie that afternoon in the tent-show, her slender girlish form clad in spangled gauze, her delicate blonde prettiness enhanced by the attire, doing her trapeze act. She had then moved with the lithe grace of a young deer; her face had been all eager animation. What sort of thing was this, that seemed to advance along the wire as though it were on casters—that was never seen to take a step? What face was this, strange, staring, immobile as a face carved in wood?

"Gee!" murmured one of the X Q K boys, who had come in late and was uninformed. "Gee, I ain't been a-drinkin' a thing—what in the name o' pity ails that gal!"

"Great Scott; she gives me the mauley-grubs! Ugh!"[Pg 1596] and his companion shivered. But save for these murmured comments, the crowd was intensely still.

Suddenly, about the middle of the street, Columbia's forward movement slackened, checked altogether. This was not unexpected, for midway the rockets fastened about her waist, and upon her crown were to be discharged. The manner in which these latter went off brought shrieks and groans from the crowd below. They fizzed up into Columbia's face, they burned against her bodice, they struck her arms. "Oh! oh! Poor soul! she'll have her eyes put out! She'll be killed!" cried a woman's voice from the street.

"I might 'a' known better than to trust that fool Gilbert with them fireworks," groaned old Frosty. "That there girl is worth more'n a hundred dollars a month to me. If I was to take her East I could hire her out for two hundred, easy, an' here she's likely to get all crippled up, so's't she won't never be no account."

Columbia was the only personage unmoved by all the fiery demonstrations; she stood rigid, looking strangely massive and tall, till the last rocket had spent itself. Then her progress began again with a sort of jerk. A shudder went over her frame, the pole wavered in her hands—those hands that seemed so limp and lifeless—she tottered, made a violent movement with her head, then swayed out sidewise and fell—holding the pole tight in her hands!

And the strangest sound went up from that big assembly, a mingled sound of groans and smothered outcries, and also what one might have sworn—had it not seemed impossible—was wild hysteric laughter.

Gess and Tell and Eddie Beach, luxuriating in Troy's permission to "holler as much as they pleased," emitted shrieks that would have chilled the blood of any whom this strange spectacle had not already terrified.[Pg 1597]

For, instead of falling to the ground twenty feet below, as would have been natural, and lying there, a mangled body, Columbia hung to the wire, a mad, fantastic, incredible spectacle, head downward, in a blaze of inverted patriotic splendor!

The wildest confusion ensued. Frosty was beside himself. He simply danced and yelled where he stood. Those who were in the secret shouted themselves hoarse with rapture, capering like dervishes, embracing one another; those who were not, screamed with horror and dismay.

As all gazed fascinated, something drifted down from the hanging figure. A cowboy plunged forward, caught it up, and there broke upon the sudden stillness which had followed this incident, a roar of hearty laughter, as he held high in the blaze of light that came from the pendent figure, Columbia's wooden-seeming countenance—a false face!

Instantly, the shouting and confusion broke out again. The figure began to sway; and the light draperies were ignited by some bit of fire which had been brought into contact with them, by the inversion of Columbia's proper position.

The figure showed that, beyond the streaming golden hair—the beautiful fair hair which Aunt Huldah had cut from Daisy's head, and which Daisy had given with loving generosity—and the stuffed-out waist of Columbia's classic robe, the only anatomy Columbia possessed was an upright post with a wheel at the bottom—a caster indeed!—which had run upon the big wire.

At the top of Columbia's head there had been another wheel, which ran, trolley-like, upon the upper wire; and a slender wire traveling along the lower, or footway wire, had drawn the figure forward.

Some obstacle had been met in the overhead wire; and[Pg 1598] when the figure was jerked forward, harder and harder, to overcome this, the upper attachment finally gave way entirely and allowed the figure to fall. Only Gilbert's precaution of looping a heavy wire from axle to axle of the lower wheel around the footway wire, had prevented Columbia from falling to the ground.

As the explanation began to spread over the crowd—not in whispers, but in shouts, mingled with roars of laughter—those who had been instructed beforehand pressed round old Frosty and the Signorina in a dense mass.

Threats, complaints, demands, all sorts of outcries filled the air.

"You old fakir!"

"What do you mean by it, Frosty?"

"Do you think you're a-goin' to run a blazer like this on us, and we'll swaller hit like hit was catnip tea?"

"What fer did ye want to fool us thataway?"

"We ain't a-goin' to stand it—we'll——"

"Gentlemen, jest be quiet. Let me out—let me git across the street to the Wagon-Tire—where my daughter is—and I can explain things."

"Explain nothin'!" was the cry; "you'll explain right here! Do you think Blowout is a-goin' to stand this kind o' thing?"

"Who put you up to run this blazer on us? Them fellers at Plain View? Er them scrubs at Cinche? This town ain't a-goin' to stand it!"

"Gentlemen," came Frosty's pipe again, "gentlemen, let me out—jest let me git to my daughter—let me git out o' here before it's too late! This is some o' that scoundrel Kid Barringer's doin's. Let me out, gentlemen!"

But the old man had gone the wrong way about it. Kid was one of them, a good fellow, and much liked.[Pg 1599] Even those who knew nothing now scented a romance. The big crowd hemmed old Frosty in and held him there with pretended wrath and resentment.

At the back door of the Wagon-Tire House, just before the wooden Columbia appeared to the eyes of Blowout, a meeting had taken place. From that door Aunt Huldah had stepped with Minnie clinging to her arm. In the dense shadow Kid Barringer was waiting with two of the best ponies in Wild Horse County. He came eagerly forward.

"Kid," said Aunt Huldah's heartsome voice, "here's Minnie—I've brung her to you. I b'lieve we're doin' right. You're a good boy, Kid. An' I know you love her an' will take keer o' her. Ef you wasn't to, you'd shore have me to fight!" and she chuckled genially.

"Good-by, honey. Ye needn't to look skeered. We-all have got ye now, an' we'll take keer of ye—the hull kit an' bilin' o' us. Good-by, bless your sweet little heart!"

With the word Minnie was in her saddle, swung there by her lover's strong arms, and away across the levels beside him.

And while, back in Blowout, the Signorina fairly clawed, cat-like, to get through that wall of cowboys and across the street to where (believing Kid Barringer to be as far away as Fort Worth) she had left Minnie scarce half an hour before—while the old man shouted and swore and protested and fairly wept with rage and apprehension; Kid Barringer reached his left hand out to his companion, saying:

"Slack him down a little, honey; we're safe now. Mr. Ferguson, the Presbyterian preacher—he's promised me—I told him—an' he's a-goin' to marry us. His place ain't half a mile further on, an' he's lookin' fer us. We're safe now, my poor little girl."[Pg 1600]

The cowboys, with roars of delight, fished down the remains of the dangling Columbia, while the original performer, to whom Columbia's figure was understudy, stood in Mr. Ferguson's little parlor, waiting for that gentleman to bring in a second witness. Her little fair head was resting on Kid's broad shoulder; Kid's arm was around her slender figure; and she was saying, between laughter and tears:

"Kid, how do you reckon that old machine Columbia is getting along with my turn, back there at Blowout?"

And the happy bridegroom made blissful answer: "I don't know—or keer—honey. She can go it on her head for all of us, can't she? She give us our chance to get away, and that was all we wanted. Aunt Huldy is the Lord's own people. I'll never forget her. You wouldn't hardly 'a' thought I was