Through the gloom of night and the dusk of early morning the heavy circus train labors on its journey to transient destination. The distance diminishes slowly. Sometimes the line of cars is shunted to one side and stands patient and inert while expresses clatter by; again, its dragging weight defies the straining efforts of the engine, and it is left in solitary helplessness while the iron horse scurries off for aid; often the cars are rattled together with body-racking violence. Farmers in the barnyards rub their eyes in mute astonishment at the moving spectacle, and cattle scamper from fright. Other trains are in hot pursuit. Their burden, too, is man and beast and varied showy paraphernalia. Four or five sections are required to transport the vast and wondrous effects of the circus.

A quiet, unpretending village has already begun to assume an air of stir and animation. Festal circus day is at hand. Parents and children line the railroad approach and eagerly seize upon all points of vantage. Keen curiosity and joyful anticipation are depicted on every face. The railroad yards are empty of rolling stock, and switchmen and engines are ready to receive and admit the travelling pageant and pilot it to a place convenient to its needs. No preparatory arrangement that human foresight can conceive has been neglected.

The intuitive welcoming shouts of boys and girls, a blurred slender outline in the distance, the screeching of railway whistles and the hurried orders of officials. Then a pressure of brakes, a crunching of wheels and a rattle of coupling pins. The circus has arrived!

One of the first to alight is the circus mail-carrier, who hurries off to the post-office. Important mail may await his coming and there must be no delay in its delivery. This is the first of three trips to the government station he will make that day, and between these journeys, which are frequently long and tedious, he will perform a variety of other work allotted to him at the lot. He knows by name every employee of the show, and his prompt and accurate service is rewarded at the close of each season with a purse of contributed money which invariably approaches a thousand dollars. At his heels is the general manager whose multifarious duties require early rising. The circus detective follows behind, scrutinizing faces and figures, conferring with railroad officials and approaching by easy stages the local police station. There are two sleeping-cars carrying performers and business staff on the first section. A great brushing of clothes and final completion of toilet, performed generally on the car platforms, precede their departure from the railroad yards.

The first section is known as the “baggage train.” It bears the paraphernalia necessary to the immediate wants of the encampment, as follows: stake and chain wagons, canvas wagons, side-pole and centre-pole wagons, side-show wagon, stable wagons, water-tank wagons, cook-tent and blacksmith wagons, chandelier wagon, about two hundred draft horses, all dressing-room necessities except the trunks, the two performers’ and business staff’s sleeping-cars and the cars of most of the workingmen and their horses.

In the second train are jack wagon, the tableaux wagons, the elephants and camels and their keepers, performing, ring and baggage horses, seat and stringer wagons, “property” wagons, and all the appliances for performers and their baggage. The third and other sections carry more sleeping-cars and all the cages.

Twenty-two horses are allotted to each stock car. There are animals of all kinds and colors and sizes, from the saucy ponies and fleet, slender chariot beasts to the big, white ring and the heavily harnessed draft horses. The circus carries close to half a thousand of these equines. They are so loaded that they must needs stand erect during the journey, for injury and perhaps death, experience has taught, is the inevitable result of one of the brutes disposing himself, by accident or design, in any other position. The packing of them so close together that the possibility of this disaster is precluded is a duty delegated to the “wedge horse” of each car. After every other animal has taken his accustomed place at night and when to the lay observer they are as tightly compressed as safety demands, the trained “wedge horse” scampers up the inclined plane and burrows his way between the two animals in the centre of the car. He shoves and pushes until he is accommodated, and not until then is the boss hostler satisfied that there will be no accident. Although it would appear that they are crowded to unnecessary extreme, the circus man understands that the compression in reality renders the railroad trip more comfortable, for the wrenches and jars incidental to the journey have far less deleterious effect upon them than would be the case if they were loosely loaded.

Each driver has his team of two, four, six, eight, or ten horses and he makes two trips to the exhibition ground. Each wagon has its number, and each day and night the same man and beasts have it in charge. The drivers seem to have an intuitive knowledge of topography. Often the lot is several miles distant from the place of arrival and unloading, but these men of the reins are never confused as to locality or direction. They make the most complicated journeys without hesitation or mistake, seldom resorting to interrogating the native residents. Roads curve and wind in a manner most bewildering, but they keep steadily toward the scene of exhibition. These rides through pretty suburban streets in the gray light of the morning are often very delightful and invigorating. Generally, sidewalks are lined and porches packed with people eager to get their first glance of the circus, though its beauty and grandeur are hid. Frequently the trains are shifted during the day, and night, with its blackness, finds the circus cars awaiting their loads in an entirely different section of the town. The drivers are informed of the change, but it is left to their keen perceptions to make the trip by the shortest route. This is no simple accomplishment, in the gloom of streets and with landmarks entirely unfamiliar, but it is performed without blunder or inaccuracy. The number of accidents to man and beast in these nocturnal wanderings is remarkably insignificant, due, in a great measure, to the skill of the reinsmen and their coolness in emergencies. Sometimes steep hills, rough roads, or sharp corners bring disaster, but not frequently. The wagons progress to their destination behind four-, six-, eight-, and ten-horse teams as smoothly, safely, and swiftly as the local doctor goes his rounds.The money wagon is early off the train and on its way to the lot. Inside is the assistant treasurer of the show, who has been shuffled about continually during the time allotted to slumber, but whom long service has inured to the racking. He is there to guard that part of the coin and bills which has not been expressed to New York. There is not an instance on record of a successful attempt to loot the money wagon of a circus, although many showmen wonder that the apparently inviting opportunity offered has not been seized. This immunity, I suppose, rests on the basis of knowledge that there are no more courageous, determined fighters than circus employees. For daring, hardihood, and bodily prowess they have no superiors. The boldest highwayman may, well hesitate before he takes liberties with the money wagon. He would find a man inside ready and experienced in gun play, and a party of circus workmen whose duty it is to be prepared for invaders would appear like men from the ground. If the marauder escaped with his life, much less the plunder he sought, the prediction often made would be inexact.

Arrived at the lot, the money wagon is a scene of stir and activity. The press agent is there to receive the money for newspaper advertising. Then all the bookkeeping which the circus demands in great variety must be accomplished, for the morning is the only period of the day which gives opportunity for the work. Later the sale of tickets and the balancing of accounts engrosses all time and attention. Pay day comes each week to every employee of the circus. The performers are paid on Saturday during the time between the afternoon and evening performances. On Wednesdays, during the afternoon show, the long line of workmen forms and several hours are consumed in the exchange of money. The operation is laborious, for sometimes the coming and leaving of the men is frequent. Each has a name and number for identification assurance, and the two men who make the payments are thoroughly exhausted when the operation is over.

The owner’s private car is attached to the last section, a position which makes it certain that the owner be on the scene if there is accident to the other sections. In case of breakdown or other railroad misfortune, his section would speedily overtake and he would thus be soon in personal command. The sections usually halt at the given point within a half hour of one another, and soon the last employee has stumbled over ties and rails toward the lot and all the wagons have departed from the scene. Long lines of empty cars await the repeated activity of night. These cars, incidentally, are as extended as safety and convenience permit, for railroad companies charge for transportation by the single car. The fewer cars drawn from town to town, the smaller the amount of money the circus is called upon to pay.

It is easy to distinguish the performer from his fellow employee as the men leave the cars. The acrobats and gymnasts limp down the car steps as if every bone and muscle were lame and sore, and progress with halting tread toward the lot, very different in aspect from the firm, elastic-stepped men who entered the place the night before. It is an unhappy condition in which every one of the athletes finds himself the morning after the violent exercise of the ring or bar. None of them takes any unusual precaution to guard against physical affliction, and the wonder is that often they are not more seriously handicapped after sleep. After a few preliminary exercises their sound, strong, vigorous constitutions assert themselves and they are ready and eager for any required feat.

The veteran circus man is superficially acquainted with the physical features of most of the towns visited. Alighting from the car, he surveys the landscape and heads straight for the lot. He has been there before and he recalls it all. Here a sleeping car was burned two years ago; in another town two elephants had a thrilling duel to the death; there is the jail where a ticket taker was locked up without just cause; “Mr. Lew” remembers the bank where he secured bonds when a man with a claim for damages attached the ring horses with the mistaken notion that he would be bought off for a large sum of money; through that low bridge a heavy pole wagon once crashed. Every place in the country is associated with some personal incident in the circus man’s mind.

I walk often to the lot with a gray-haired man whose form is unbent by age, whose eye is undimmed, and whose active manner still evinces readiness to plan and will to execute. He is one of the ringmasters and has other duties of the arena and the business office. He has dwelt his long life in circus precincts, and for him the whole circus fraternity cherishes a peculiar veneration. Honesty and godliness mark his career, and his is the example pointed out to the circus young. Well may they imitate his virtues and walk in his footsteps! His presence recalls the faint memory of overland journey and one ring, and the stern hardships of the days of long ago. Those were times when his name was familiar wherever the show tent penetrated, and when his exploits made him the marvel of the profession and the prominent feature of performances—for none in all the world could equal his feats of horsemanship and acrobatic skill. From the haunch of the white circus beast he executed revolutions which even the modern show has not duplicated, and aloft he tumbled and turned in dare-devil accomplishments which now only the reassuring stretches of the net concede.Simple modesty characterized his life of spectacular success, and now, when time has forbidden active participation and a new generation has entered upon the stage, he accepts with cheerful philosophy his relegation, to a uniform which bespeaks only the cracking of a whip. His wife, many years his junior, is one of the conspicuous performers, for he has taught her all the finish and art of bareback riding, and made her one of the cleverest wire-walkers with the show. He is always at her side when she performs, advising, correcting, praising, and, as she elicits admiring gaze, few in the audience recognize his figure as the one in whom so much sentimental interest centres. The press agent, extolling the youth and beauty and grace of the performer, points him out casually to the reporters as her “father” and flatters himself that he is subserving the interests of the show; but if the woman knew of the tale she would promptly put a stop to its circulation. She is proud of her kindly old husband and wants the world to know it. She boasts no circus pedigree, as do most of her comrades, and was schooled in the circus arena after she had reached her majority. She is a living refutation of the tradition that one must be born to the ring.

We watch her rehearsals in the spring with curiosity, and the other performers always profit by the directions and advice the veteran gives her. Sometimes, to his practised mind, she is awkward and slow of comprehension. Then I have seen him jump to his feet and leap to the horse’s back. He forgets his forbidding age, in the emotions of the past, and would fain give her the benefit of a demonstration. But his feet have lost their inspiration, his hold is unsteady and his muscles do not respond. He alights rather shamefacedly. The young athletes pat him kindly on the back and cheer him with words of his former glory; and his wife puts her arms around his neck and says he’s a dear old fellow. Love and loyalty will be his enduring memorial.

The inherent energy of the circus is never more fully demonstrated than when there is tardiness in arriving at the town of exhibition. The fault is seldom the circus’s and generally the railroad’s. Connections have been faulty, the engines inadequate to the requirements of the heavy trains, facilities for loading bad, or there has been delay in ferrying the sections. There are no faint hearts or falterers with the show and no weakness in these crises. Out of confusion worse confounded, order and convenience speedily reassert themselves, and the tremendous amount of preparation for the exhibition is rushed to wonderfully quick completion. Sometimes it has been nearly noon before we were able to drag a single wagon from the cars, but the programme for the day has been followed as implicitly as though there had been no hindrances. The parade emerged with customary roar and glare, the performance followed in regular sequence, and left behind was the same satisfactory trail of desolated pockets that the usual early coming would have accomplished.

Sunday is the circus man’s day of rest and relaxation. After the pitching of the menagerie and the smaller tents, necessary to the accommodation to the animals, the day is granted for freedom and enjoyment. The start from the Saturday stand is always made the same night, and the Sabbath respite is improved for long railroad runs. The route is so planned in advance that on no one night except Saturday is the journey so long that, everything favorable, there will be tardy arrival. It is not deemed expedient to risk a longer “jump” than eighty or ninety miles unless transportation facilities are unusually advantageous. The trips of one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles are reserved for the night which precedes the day of exemption. So it is that the circus folk, ending their slumber, find the train still on the move, with a possible prospect of several more hours in their cramped quarters. The sagacious ones have examined the railroad schedule the day before and laid in a supply of fruit and food for this contingency. They preconceive how sorely taxed will be the resources of the train restaurant, for circus appetites are voracious in the morning. Chairs are soon placed on platforms and at windows, and the workingmen gather in groups on car tops or under the ample spread of the wagons.