Circus Shoes (18 page)

Fifi took up the story.

“And Mink said, ‘Here I am, but I cannot be a clown any more.”

“Why not?” asked Santa.

Fifi shrugged her shoulders.

“He wrote in the paper, ‘Monsieur, Madame, I was in the world to make laughter I have seen war, so I have no laughter to give. I retire!”

“Goodness!” said Santa “What a grand way to write.”

Olga, Fifi, Fritzi, and Sasha looked at her with varying expressions of pity.

Fritzi explained her to the others.

“She was English.”

Santa saw that in some way she had said the wrong thing about Mink. She got the subject back to his work.

“And now he just teaches?”

“Yes.” Olga, still lying on her back held her toes. “He is the greatest teacher. He only takes those who have talent.”

“Oh!” Santa gave an admiring glance at Fifi. No wonder she always looked so self-assured. She could look self-assured if Mink, who only took people of talent, had said he would teach her.

“Are you going to do a routine while you play the violin, Fifi?”

Fifi giggled. “If I could play a beautiful hymn like you, I would.” Then she patted Santa’s hand to show she was only teasing. “No I will work two years to be an acrobat. Already I have worked with him a little. He doesn’t work like everybody here. See.” She got up. “Here is how Paula does when she is working with the Arizonas.” Very neatly she went through the routine that Ted Kenet had shown Peter and Santa.

Sasha and Olga got up and did it too, though not so well. Fritzi made disparaging noises through her teeth when they started.

“It is well as Fifi does it,” she said to Santa loudly. “You see how it is. She backwards turn and the same way as a clock go.”

Fifi finished neatly. She held out her two hands palms uppermost just as if an audience were there. She came back to Fritzi and Santa. “With Mink he turns the other way. As an Arab. He goes forward and not the way of a clock.”

Olga stood on her head.

“Is that all the difference?”

“If it is,” said Sasha, once more trying to walk on his hands, “we could do that without going to Mink.”

Fritzi and Fifi exchanged another glance.

“It’s not all,” Fifi said with dignity. “The impulse is different. With Mink there is no flip-flap. There is a forespring.” She got up again, threw herself over, and came back neatly the right way up. “Do you see Santa?”

Santa saw that one way Fifi went forward and other backward, but it was all one to her. Either impossible to do.

“I suppose so. But I can’t do any of it anyway.”

Fifi caught her hand. “Come on, I’ll teach you.”

Santa had on the same green frock in which she had traveled. It was getting very shabby. She wished it would get hotter so that she could wear one of cotton dresses. Fritzi, Olga, and Fifi had on practice clothes. Like bathing-dresses, with a jersey to match to put on when they finished working. Santa would have liked to learn how to tumble, but she self-conscious. To be the only one with skirts made her feel embarrassed.

“I can’t. I haven’t the right clothes.”

Fifi dismissed the need for special clothes with gesture of her hands. But Fritzi was more understanding.

“Come! I another practice clothes have. I will them. Then mine mother can clean your dress. Each day she say, ‘The dress of the little Santa dirty is. I would wish to have it to clean.’”

Fifi nodded. “That is the same with
maman.
I said, ‘Impossible! Santa has no clothes. What she wears is all there is.’”

Santa was very glad to think she might borrow a practice dress. Of course she: had never worn anything like that and she felt she would look really professional in it. All the same, she did wish Fifi and Fritzi would not make her sound so poor. She knew she could not do the things they did, or have the clothes they had, but she did not like to have them saying so.

Peter got on well with Hans. Hans was serious, and liked to talk of serious things. To him the most serious thing in the world was training wild animals. To Peter, horses and riding. They sat side by side shaping the branches which Hans had chosen for catapults.

“Will you have sea-lions when you are big enough to work?” Peter asked.

Hans chipped a small piece of wood from the fork of his branch.

“Maybe some. But mine father wish I should go to He has the animals that were mine grandfather’s.”

“What sort of animals?”

Han topped cutting and considered.

“Now there was five lion. One go dead just two month ago. Three panther, four bear, and two tiger.”

“Will you have to go in the cage with them?”

“But yes. It is a fine show. They work together.”

“But aren’t you afraid?”

Hans thought.

“May be a little sometimes.”

Peter peeled the last bit of his forked twig.

“I’d be all the time. I mean, they could kill you.”

Hans nodded.

“That is so.”

“Ben says he doesn’t like wild-animal acts. He says he doesn’t like any act behind bars.”

“That was right. I too wish they did not have perform. I could not take an animal from a forest. could not shut him up all the time; I know how unhappy he is.”

“Well, what about your uncle’s beasts? They’re shut up. Aren’t they unhappy?”

“No. They came as cubs. I see them train. They were like babies. They know nothing.” Hans hold of Peter’s arm to make him attend. “First must know each other. It is not natural that tigers, panthers, and polar bears friends could be.”

“I should think it wasn’t. How do you make like each other?”

“First they were all in cages next to each other. So they all speak to each other. Then mine uncle visit them. To each one he bring a small present. So it is they to each other say, ‘See, our friend who bring the little things in his pocket is come!’ Then one day after many weeks they are all together put to play ”

“My goodness!” said Peter. “I wouldn’t have liked being there that day.”

“No,” Hans agreed. “It is a time of great anxiety. The cubs were very valuable. It was bad if they should fight. You see, they were like little children who go to a kindergarten. One boy maybe will another boy kick. He does not mean to be bad, it is he feels strange. So it with mine uncle’s animals. They play the great games, they get hot, and they are excited: Then maybe a little bad one pull a lion’s mane. The lion think that no much fun. He hit whoever near is. Then mine uncle come. He is like the teacher in the school. He keeps order.”

“Sooner him than me.”

“If you were like us you would not be afraid. Always we have the wild animal. Always we have love them. It is with them as with the horses. Never must they their own way have. Always must each know who the master is. So it is we the tricks teach. Some trainers make great show with the whip. That is bad. It is the leather pocket in which the little pieces of meat are that should make each little one wish to please.”

Peter put down his penknife.

“But Ben said lions and animals like that don’t working in the ring.”

Hans frowned.

“I do not know. Sometimes I think, ‘This is not kind. The animals are not happy.’ Then I think, ‘These were born in captivity. Each one, if he was not in the ring, he must to a zoo go. That is bad. Animals are like us. Each one he like to have something to do. If he is free that is best. But if he cannot be free then it is kinder he should work. Just to sit in a cage with all day nothing to do, that is terrible.’”

Peter looked across in the direction of the stables. “Well, I’d much rather have something to do with the horses.”

“So,” Hans agreed placidly. “For me it must be the wild animal. I was afraid if I was not there another trainer not so kind would be.”

“Mr. Cob wouldn’t have a trainer who wasn’t.”

“But there are others.” Hans looked suddenly angry. “If I the peoples were who paid the circus to see and there were some beasts who do not happy look, of which you could say, ‘That is not kind,’ I would get up, and I would walk out, and as I go I would cry to everyone, ‘You must not stay. You must not the money pay to see an animal perform who do not love their trainer!’ “

Peter thought rather regretfully of Satan and his lion. It was obvious that the lions did love him. Peter had seen Satan sit with one that had toothache, and he knew that the lion had let him pull the bad tooth out. It was a pity, in a way; it would have been exciting to see Hans making a row in the big top.

Santa came along. She was wearing an emerald green practice suit. She had green wool on the ends of her braids. She looked nice dressed that way. Peter felt proud of her. Santa was very conscious of her clothes. She stood on one leg.

“I borrowed it from Fritzi.”

Hans looked up.

“You were practicing?”

Santa sat down beside them.

“I’d meant to. Fifi said she would show me how to tumble, but while I was changing she and Olga went off somewhere.” She looked anxiously at Peter. “Do I look all right?”

“Um. Not bad.”

Ted Kenet came by. He had been working and had a coat over his practice things. He was, as usual, eating candy. He nodded to the three children.

“Hallo, kids. How’s things?”

“I was going to practice tumbling with Fifi,” said Santa, “but she’s gone.”

“Oh! Well, if you’ll come along past my caravan first, I’ll show you how to work.”

“Will you?” Santa jumped up. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

Ted walked off. Santa had to run to catch up.

“If I minded I wouldn’t have offered. You ever drink sarsaparilla?”

“No.”

“Well, you should. That’s what I'm going to get now. Nothing like it for keeping the blood cool. I’ll give you a glass.”

“Thank you.” Santa tried to sound pleased, but she had doubts about the taste of sarsaparilla. “Of course you need cool blood on a trapeze.”

“You’ve said it.” Ted stooped and picked a dandelion and put it in his button-hole. “Though it’s all right up there. Get a fine view.”

Santa thought of the way he and Gus spun round.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d have time to see much.”

“You’d be surprised. Why, only last night at the second house I saw a lady faint. I’d a lovely view of her.”

They reached the caravan. Santa leaned against it. Ted went inside to mix the sarsaparilla. He came out with two glasses and handed one to Santa.

“Drink up. May you never break any bones!” Since this was obviously a sort of toast, Santa took a sip. She did not care for the taste at all. But Ted swallowed his in three gulps, so she made a valiant effort and got hers down. Ted took her glass. He smacked his lips. “A glass of that three times a day and you’ll live to be a hundred.”

Santa did not say so, but she thought she would rather not be as old if it meant drinking all that sarsaparilla.

Ted was a first-class teacher of tumbling. He took Santa into the ring.

“It’s all being supple and balancing right.” He took hold of one of her legs and tried to lift it over her head. It was something all the other children did quite easily, but Santa’s legs would not do it.

“I think I’m made wrong,” she gasped.

“No.” Ted dropped her leg. “Stiff. That’s your trouble. You want exercises. Nothing like it. They’ll make you so you can jump over the moon. Come on.”

The next half-hour was the most hardworking that Santa had ever spent. Ted did not believe in amateurs. He told Santa that he was teaching her just for fun, but he worked her as if
she
had to earn her living doing acrobatics. Some of it was fun. He played leap-frog with her. Not leap-frog as anybody might do it, but with a special way of taking-off and landing. Most of the time was spent on dull exercises like the ones she did at school. He made her stoop and touch her toes after everything she did. At the end, he picked up first one leg and then the other and again tried to hold them over her head. He still could not make her do it, but he said they were a good inch higher than they had been before the lesson started.

“You work at those exercises two or three days.” He felt in his pocket and found his bag of sulphur candy. “I’ll give you another lesson at Preston.”

Preston, to which they moved for the last three days of the week, was not very popular with Peter and Santa. It rained a great deal, and Gus said it was a good opportunity for writing letters. They were each to write to Mr. Stibbings, Mrs. Ford, Madame Tranchot, and Miss Fane. Rain and four letters to write were very depressing. If it had not been that they were both trying to please Gus, they would probably have grumbled. As it was, they only grumbled to each other.

“It’s sickening, with the holidays nearly over,” said Peter.

Santa sucked her pen.

“ And I can’t find anything to say. I don’t believe any of them ever saw a circus. They’re not traveled like us.”

There was one nice thing at Preston. They rode in the street parade.

It was Mr. Cob’s idea. He saw Peter and Santa hanging about outside the big top.