Circus Shoes (5 page)

“What did you do then?” Peter asked. Ben spat his straw out thoughtfully.

“Everything. Groom. Bereiter, that’s what we call an assistant breaker. Coachman. Second head of the stables. Then two years back I come to head. ‘Ben,’ Mr. Cob says to me, ‘I’m makin’ you Master of the ‘Oss.” That’s the highfalutin’ way they calls me on the program. ‘And from now on all the hands’ll call you Mr. Willis.’ That’s me name, see?”

“And do they?”

Ben stooped, chose another straw, and put it in his mouth.

“Men and ‘osses they’re all the same. Teach a ‘oss something and that’s the way he’ll always do it. Can’t make him any different. Same with men. I been Ben since was horned. And Ben I’ll die. Can’t expect people to take to a lot of Mr. Willis-ing sudden like. ‘Tisn’t natural.”

“Shall we call you Mr. Willis?” Santa suggested.

Ben shook his head.

“No. Jus’ Ben. I don’t like new ways. The old ones have done me for seventy-five years. They’ll do me a bit longer yet.” He straightened up and looked down the tent. “Time we were getting going.”

Peter looked around to see why.

“Where to?”

“Station. Fetch my ‘osses.” Ben moved off. Then he turned and came back. He looked at Peter. “You haven’t any call to wear those gloves. Put them in your pocket before too many have seen ‘em.” He gave a friendly nod and went off.

Peter looked at his gloves as if he were afraid they would bite him, rolled them up, and put them in his pocket. They went slowly back through the stable tent. When they were nearly at the end Peter said in an angry voice, “Do you see why? I mean, why can people wear gloves? It’s just that everybody here ignorant and doesn’t know how a gentleman should look, I suppose.”

Santa was certain the people they had met so were not ignorant. In fact, she thought they were cleverest people she had ever come across. But didn’t say so. She felt that anything she said would be wrong. Peter had the look of somebody who would answer, “I know that, you fool,” or, “That’s because you’re a girl.” Both very aggravating retorts. So she shrugged her shoulders in a who-cares-anyway manner, and suggested they should have a look at what was happening in the big top.

The big top had changed again. The seating was going up. Circular wooden platforms had been erected and the seats stood on these. Santa was puzzled, but Peter grasped the system in a moment and explained it to her.

“Don’t you see, the lions and things are going to show on that earth they’re digging up. They stay on the ground, but everybody else is raised up so they can see.”

Santa looked at the place where he pointed. A large circular piece of ground had been dug up. Several men were at work raking it.

“I wonder if we dare go and look,” she whispered.

A man above her who was putting up seating heard what she said. He smiled cheerfully.

“They won’t eat you. The worst they’ll do is turn you out. You go and have a look-see.”

The man was in rather an awkward position to talk to. The children were standing on the ground at the entrance to the tent, and he was fixing some seats high up on their left. He looked down at them and only his head showed over some boarding. It meant talking with your chin up in the air, which was not comfortable; but he had a friendly face, and looked as if he might answer questions without being annoyed. Santa smiled at him.

“Do you mind telling me if that”-she pointed to the ring of earth-“is where the lions and things will be?”

“That’s right.” The man’s head nodded. “That’s the ring. They’re making it now.”

“Making it?” Santa looked at him in surprise. “Our uncle, Mr. Gus Possit, said ‘build’ was the word. Don’t you belong to the circus, either?”

“Me!” The man finished fixing a seat. “I’m a hand. That’s right, though, what Gus said. We call it build-up for the big top. But you ‘make’ the ring.”

“How?” Peter and Santa asked at once.

The man made a face at them.

“You’ll have the tent-master after me. You go down and have a look for yourselves.”

“Won’t anybody mind?” Santa asked anxiously. The man looked toward the ring. The ringside seats were already up. A number of people were sitting in them. He looked at their heads.

“See that little fellow with the red hair?” There was one head of unmistakably flaming red, so they both nodded. “That’s Alexsis Petoff.” The man looked down at Peter. “He’ll be about your age. You ask him what you want to know.”

“Alexsis!” Santa hopped because she was so pleased to hear somebody talked about that she knew. “The one who’s going into the act next winter?”

The man turned away to see to another row of seats. “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. But you sit alongside him. Born in the ring young Alexsis was. He’ll tell you all you want to know.”

Luckily there were two empty seats next to Alexsis. Peter and Santa sat in them. They sat rather nervously like people who are not sure they have come to the right party, because although they were very conscious of being Gus’s nephew and niece they were not a bit certain they would not be turned out. Santa dug her elbow into Peter.

“Speak to him. Tell him we know Olga and Sasha.”

Peter cleared his throat like a person who is going make a speech, but is not a bit sure what he is going to say. Luckily he did not have to bother. Alexsis turned and looked at them. Then beamed.

“It will be Peter and Santa who was the nephew and niece of Gus.”

Santa was so interested in his English being so bad she could not even shape her own words properly.

“It will be. But why do you talk so much worse English than Olga and Sasha?”

Alexsis had a face that easily looked worried. It looked worried now.

“When we was in England,” he explained care fully, “it is that every child who is not fourteen must go to school. But when I was little we was not in England. I have German, French, Russian, and a little Italian, but I have not much English My father say it because I am lazy.”

Santa looked at him with interest, remembering this was exactly what Olga had said her father about him.

“Are you?”

A queer faraway look came into Alexsis’ eyes. “It is that I may not do what I can do.”

“Oh!” Santa looked at Peter. They both felt embarrassed. Alexis had such a desperate way of speaking. Santa changed the subject.

“Why is it “building” the big top, and ‘making’ the ring. Somebody told us it was. Is that right?”

Alexis looked surprised at such ignorance.

“But of course a ring must be made. A field is hard, yes? How could the artistes work?”

Peter was a little vague as to what he meant. Work as he understood it meant bookwork or housework, or something like that. He knew the animals would appear in the ring, but he could not see why it needed “making” so carefully.

“But they’ve dug it up now. Why are all those men working on it?”

Alexsis suddenly grasped that they were completely ignorant.

His face looked more worried than ever, as he fumbled for the right words. “A ring he must always be the same size and soft to the foots.”

Santa shook her head.

“Not foots. Feet.”

“So!” Alexsis nodded. “It is that I forget. First the men come and dig up the ground. But ground he is hard. He is rough. He have stones. Sometimes he slope. Then you put more good earth to make a ring.”

Peter was interested.

“Where do you get the earth from?”

“You buy him. Some town it is only seven ton. One town it is twenty.”

Peter looked at the men who were working.

“What are they doing now?”

“They rake him smooth. They maybe water him. Presently the elephants come to tread him down. Then when all is done they put sawdust. Very pretty the sawdust. They pattern it.”

Santa sighed at what seemed to her a shocking waste of labor.

“Well, of course, we’ve never seen a circus. But we’ve seen pictures of them. It all seems a lot of fuss to me.”

A party of men came down one of the gangways. They carried between them some portions of curved wood with plush tops. They put the bits all round the ring, screwing them together At the side where the children had come in leading to the stables there was hinged piece which made a door.

Peter got up and examined it. He looked over his shoulder at Alexsis.

“Is that an edge to keep the animals behind.”

Alexsis got up.

“That is the ring fence. Inside that is the circus. You understand? No?”

“Yes.” Santa was sorry to see he was going. “Must you go?”

“Yes. The horses will have come. My father wish me to work one of them,” He ran off in the direction of the stables.

Santa looked after him.

“Pity he couldn’t stay. Even though he does speak so queerly, he told us a lot of things. Look, there’s Uncle Gus. Gus I mean.”

Gus had come into the big top from the opposite entrance. Both Peter and Santa got up, supposing he come to look for them. After all one does not meet nephews and nieces for the first time every day, so it was only natural that he should want to come and talk to them. But not a bit of it. He came in with another man. They unstrapped a large wooden box. Gus never even looked round to see if the children were there. After a minute or two Peter and Santa sat down again, feeling as stupid as people do feel who have expected to be wanted and then found they were not.

However, they soon forgot about that, for Gus and the other man began to do the most exciting things.

Out of the box came a steel bar, some rolls of wire, and a rope ladder. Gus had clogs over what looked like dancing pumps. He kicked the clogs off and put them on the ring fence, seized a bundle of wire, and like a monkey climbed up a ladder attached to one of the king-poles. While he was up there his friend was fixing the other ends of the wires to staples on the ground. They were both very busy and hardly spoke. Now and then Gus said “Now,” or “Coming,” and the man on the ground caught an end of wire and replied “O.K.” or “Easy does it.” When they had their bar fixed up in the roof, it looked like an ordinary garden swing.

All the while Gus was working, various tent hands who had finished their work for the moment stood round the ring smoking and watching. This disgusted Peter.

“If I were Gus,” he whispered to Santa, “I’d make those fellows put the things up for me.”

Santa nodded. She, too, was puzzled. Why did her uncle have to do what appeared a menial job? If had an uncle in the circus at all he must be important even if everybody did call him Gus.

“So’d I,” she whispered back. “But perhaps they don’t know how to.”

At this moment Gus seemed to have everything finished rope into the ring. He fetched his clogs and beckoned to his friend.

“Ted. Come and meet my nephew and niece.”

Ted was younger than Uncle Gus, with black curly hair. He raised his eyebrows.

“Nephew and niece. Never knew you had any.”

“Kedgeree and rum-I’d nearly forgotten myself. Gus took his arm. “Peter and Santa. Meet Mister Ted Kenet.”

“Pleased,” said Ted. He felt in his pocket and produced a small paper bag. He held it out. “Have one. Sweets. But a little sulphur for the blood. Nothing like it in the spring.”

Santa looked in the bag. The candies were yellow, rather like pieces of Edinburgh rock. She took one and bit it gingerly. It did not taste bad. She made an encouraging face.at Peter to tell him so, for he was much more fussy about eating things he did not like than she was. Peter took a small piece. He looked at Gus.

“What’s that you’ve put up?”

Gus gave an apologetic glance at Ted. “Brought up by my poor sister Rebecca. Mustn’t speak ill of the dead, but the woman was a fool.” He turned to Peter. “That’s a trapeze.”

“Oh.” Peter did not like to ask what a trapeze was. Instead he turned to the question of why people like his uncle and Ted should work with all those workmen and standing about. “Why do you put it up.? If I were you I’d let them.” He nodded in the direction of the tent hands.

“Would you! You hear that Ted? He’d, let somebody else put his stuff up for him. The boy’s a fool.” He pointed dramatically at the roof. “When Ted and me go up there to do our act, there’s nothing between us and the ring. If something went wrong we’d break our necks most like.”