I HAVE rambled along, talking about my profession and the things that have happened in it, until now I realize that I have not touched upon some events which meant a good deal to me personally. A clown, despite the general impression, is a real human being. He has emotions like any other mortal, and sometimes they are deeper and truer than in those who pretend to piety and keep a straight face.

Although we are nomads, we people of the circus have hearts. It was shortly after I came to America that I first saw the woman who was to play, for a time, such an important part in my life. I had just joined the Burr Robbins show, and I was a struggling young clown in a strange land. I did not even know all the people in the show. My life had been so hard and fast that I had had no time to think of romance.

One day as I walked from the pad room to the entrance to the main tent, waiting for my time to go on, I saw a young woman in tights and ruffled skirts, standing with a whip in her hand. She, too, was waiting her turn. She was lithe, slender, and graceful, and she had the most wonderful eyes I had ever seen. Something rose in my throat and a keen, swift feeling ran through me. I had never anywhere beheld anyone who had impressed me in just that way. As she stood there, full of life and animation, the very embodiment of grace and beauty, I realized that she wielded a fascination for me that was irresistible. I watched her as she made her entry. When she walked she was the very poetry of motion; her bow to the crowd was airy, and when she leaped to the back of a noble white horse, she seemed like a bird. I stood at the entrance transfixed. She seemed the most exquisite rider I had ever seen. I forgot my cue, and one of my fellow-clowns had to shake me by the shoulder and say:

“Wake up, Jules.”

That afternoon I stumbled through my work. I was so slow that the ringmaster touched me up with his whip. I could not keep my eyes off that rider. When she was in the ring the whole tent seemed to be flooded with sunshine, and when she left it, amid a tumult of applause, it seemed bare and desolate.

Day after day I watched her in silent admiration. Once I picked up courage to speak to her. The informality of circus life requires no introductions among its people. She seemed to be very proud and haughty, and treated my advance with disdain. Yet I always made it a point to be at the entrance when she went on, and I watched for her when she came out. While she was in the ring I could scarcely work.

I never realized how deeply I cared for her until I saw her talking to the head of our principal trapeze family. He was a splendid-looking Frenchman, with brown hair and curled mustache, and he had a dashing air. He got a big salary, was featured in all the bills, and quite naturally my lady smiled upon him. But I loved on in silence, and in pain, covering it all with the clown’s fool garb.

Can you imagine how I felt as I stood apart each day, watching this glorious creature laughing and making merry with a handsome rival? It was just like a scene in a French book that I had read when I was a boy at the Circus Francisco in Paris. I little dreamed then that it would happen to me.

One day I gave her some flowers that I had bought on a hot, dusty trip downtown. She accepted them with a sort of condescension, and then turned quickly away, for the French acrobat happened along, and she beamed on him.

This ordeal was not pleasant. It got on my nerves, and interfered with my work. I had always been sunny and smiling, and my unfailing good cheer had often helped to drive care away from my colleagues. I grew sad and irritable.

“What’s the matter, Jules?” they all said.

“He must be in love,” said the contortionist, banteringly.

Full many a jest is spoken in earnest, and I realized it that day. All the while we were traveling in the South. The weather was very hot and there had been a good deal of rain. Often the lot on which we showed was damp. I caught cold, fever developed, and I had to go to bed. But I stayed with the show. As I lay in my berth I dreamed, as all young lovers dream, that some day this beautiful bareback rider, hearing of my illness, would come to see me on our car; that she would lean over me with a wondrous smile on her face and say:

“Jules, forgive me. I have cared for you always, and now I shall never leave you again.”

One night, when I dreamed this very vividly, I woke with a start to find the moon shining in my face, and the car rattling over a long bridge. I was alone.

I got well, and took up my clowning again. The first day I was back in harness I went to my accustomed place, where so often I had seen the bareback lady. My heart was in my eyes, and they looked for one thing. But I did not see her. I went on for my first turn, with my mind all in a whirl. When I got back to the dressing-room I asked the boss clown about her.

“Humph,” he said, and shrugged his shoulders. “That woman?”

“Yes?” I replied, growing indignant.

“The less you ask about her the better,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Simply this,” he replied, “at Shreveport, last week, she skipped the show, and eloped with the hotel manager. She has a husband and two kids in Canada.” After a pause he added:

“Good riddance, I guess.”

It was a great shock to me. It seemed as if the ground had been cut away from my feet. I felt a pain in my heart, and stumbled over to my trunk and sat down. My temple of romance had come toppling down. I had been terribly disillusioned. But I said to myself:

“Brace up, Jules. There are plenty of other women in the world.” And I braced up.

I must say right here, in defense of the women of the circus, that the type I have just described is a very rare one. The women who work under the canvas are brave, loyal, and moral. Inured to physical hardship, and accustomed to meet all kinds of emergencies, they well know how to combat life’s cares. They are the gentlest of wives, the tenderest of mothers, and the best of comrades.

That early sentimental experience made a slight impress on me, I am glad to say. I was young and full of life. Some years later, when I was playing in a winter show in the West, I met a strong and noble woman. We became great friends. She was not of the circus, but had many friends in the profession. The next year I went back and married her. She has been my mate ever since, and each winter I go back to her to find a tender welcome and a heart filled with affection. Were it not for her I might to-day be a wanderer on the face of the earth.

They say a clown is a jester and has no soul. I will tell you of an incident in my own life. One of the joys that my home had given me was a little boy. I was away with the circus when he came into the world, and I recall how impatient I was for the end of the season to come, so I could go to him. We became great pals, this little chap and I. I called him Jules, and I wanted him to be a great circus performer. I had to be away from him all summer, but in November, when the show went into winter quarters at Baraboo, I hurried back to him. The family lived in New York then. I watched his little muscles develop. I would dress up in my clown clothes for him, go through all my stunts, and he had enchanted hours. He was the delight of my life.

One year the show opened very early. We were playing in a small Wisconsin town. It was a one-night stand, and the big tent was full. I had a brand-new act, and it was very funny. In it I carried a rag baby around in my arms. I was supposed to be taking it away from the nurse. After I had been out on the track for a little while, a clown came up and told me I was wanted in the pad room. When I got there I was handed a telegram from my wife. It read:

“Jules is dying.”

He was in New York; I was hundreds of miles away, and I could not go to him. The dearest thing in all the world to me was slipping away. Outside in the big tent the band was playing; whips were cracking; people were laughing; the whole circus fun was on. There I stood in fool’s garb, with the hot tears streaming down my make-up. I heard a voice say merrily:

“Come, Jules, we’re waiting for you.”

So I had to go out into that crowded arena with a breaking heart, and disport myself that the mob might laugh—playing with a dummy child while my own lay dying.

Can you wonder, then, that behind the jest of the clown there is often the pang of pain, the sear of sorrow? I have many chances to look into the heart of the circus, because I am the postman. I go down to the post-office in every town, and I bring out the mail. I know every performer by name, and I am the agent that brings joy or ache. Many eager hopes hang on those post-office trips of mine. The dashing bareback ladies and the daring trapeze performers look for letters that never come. Human nature is the same the world over, whether it is in the gilded palace or under the canvas of the big tent.

I send away the money orders for all the performers, and in this way I find out some of their secrets. The gruff strong man, whose giant muscles are the admiration of the crowd, sends part of his wages each week to his old mother in Germany; the bewildering little rider, who moves in a gay world of motion and color, has a sick husband, whom she supports. I become the friend and confidant of all of them, and it makes life richer and deeper and more worth while for me.

I have seen many things in my circus day to wring the heart. I told you of my own great sorrow. It reminds me of a sort of kindred grief that came to my old friend Garrett. He was one of the best fellows that ever lived, an Irishman of the real sort, and a good clown. Many a time we worked together in the sawdust. He married a very pretty slack-wire performer, named Dottie. She was a very lovable little thing, and everybody in the circus liked her. One night Garrett and I were working on the track, and Dottie had gone up for her act. We made merry as we went, and kept the crowd in a roar of laughter.

All of a sudden I heard a scream, but kept right on with my work. It is part of the unwritten rule of circus business to ignore fear and panic. So we kept on. But a curious hush fell on the crowd. I turned, and there on the middle stage I saw a group standing about a huddled figure. A man came rushing from the pad room, and I saw it was our doctor. By that time Garrett had turned, too. I saw his face turn ghastly, even under the white make-up. He gave a moan, and dashed over to the platform. There he found his wife dead. She had fallen from the wire and there was no net beneath.

Gently he picked her up, and carried her away, sobbing out his heart over her tinseled dress. But in a moment the music struck up, the whips cracked, and the circus was going again.