as he did, was the next thing to suicide. He caught a freight train leaving Colorado Springs for Denver just as it pulled out of the yard, but he didn’t climb up inside a boxcar because he was too small to catch hold. Instead he crawled onto the cowcatcher, whose big underslung iron jaw jutted out in front of the engine, and it was here that he spent the night.
He might have been all right had it not started to snow. By the time he reached Denver he was nearly frozen and in fact probably would have been if the yard men who checked the cars had not found him asleep on the cowcatcher.
In Denver he became a Jack-of-all-trades. He couldn’t join the circus right away because it was winter. Also, he knew his father would look for him among show people.
He began by going to work for a construction company as a lantern boy. It was his job to trim the wicks of the lanterns and fill them with coal oil each day for use out on the job each night
Next he worked in a butcher shop delivering meat. As it happened, the butcher had a sickly wife who often solicited Al’s help in the kitchen when she was too ill to prepare the meal herself, and in that way Al soon learned to cook.
The following summer he figured enough time had elapsed to make it safe for him to join the circus. When it came to Denver he found a job with a woman bareback rider. It became his duty to feed and water the horses and otherwise make himself useful.
When he wasn’t helping her he was free to help anyone else on the lot who needed him. He often managed to be free in time to perform the most coveted tasks, feeding and watering the elephants and assisting the roustabouts set up the tents. In reminiscing he said that far and away his biggest thrill came the day he got to drive a circus wagon.
It was a big twelve-horse team that pulled a cage of tigers. The driver had taken ill suddenly and someone was needed to take his place. Al was handy and willing even if he was small, so they turned the wagon over to him, and when he climbed up on the box he says he never felt so magnificent. His hands weren’t big enough to hold the reins for that many horses, but he was smart enough not to admit it. He simply knotted half of them together and wound them around a stanchion, after which he proceeded to guide the team with the other half. He then drove down Main Street to the music of the calliope and the circus band and gazed down on the hundreds of unfortunate school children who had not had the good sense to run away and join the circus.
He was with the circus about five years, and during that time he did everything from bareback riding to selling tickets to announcing the acts.
Al was nineteen when he decided to leave the circus and go around the world. By this time, of course, Dr. Carver had long since located his wandering son and given up trying to persuade him to go back to school. When Al returned from a world cruise (glad to be on land again after a typhoon), his father taught him to train horses for the diving act, which was a natural for Al with his circus background. After Dr. Carver’s death it wasn’t long before people in the business were referring to Al as “Doc” the way they had his father and looking to him for the same high-caliber performance his father had always provided. Thus the voice that announced me that night in Sacramento may have been different, but the regime was not.
Nine
Because we had been late getting started, the season passed very quickly, but for the first time since I had joined the troupe we did not go to Florida in the fall. Al and Lorena decided that we would go instead to Lorena’s farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
For years Al had fumed about the cost of transportation. “All we do,” he said, “is make money one place so we can take it down and hand it over to the railroad so they can take us someplace else.” His fuming was justified, because fares did cost a fortune. Dr. Carver would not consider traveling
He might have been all right had it not started to snow. By the time he reached Denver he was nearly frozen and in fact probably would have been if the yard men who checked the cars had not found him asleep on the cowcatcher.
In Denver he became a Jack-of-all-trades. He couldn’t join the circus right away because it was winter. Also, he knew his father would look for him among show people.
He began by going to work for a construction company as a lantern boy. It was his job to trim the wicks of the lanterns and fill them with coal oil each day for use out on the job each night
Next he worked in a butcher shop delivering meat. As it happened, the butcher had a sickly wife who often solicited Al’s help in the kitchen when she was too ill to prepare the meal herself, and in that way Al soon learned to cook.
The following summer he figured enough time had elapsed to make it safe for him to join the circus. When it came to Denver he found a job with a woman bareback rider. It became his duty to feed and water the horses and otherwise make himself useful.
When he wasn’t helping her he was free to help anyone else on the lot who needed him. He often managed to be free in time to perform the most coveted tasks, feeding and watering the elephants and assisting the roustabouts set up the tents. In reminiscing he said that far and away his biggest thrill came the day he got to drive a circus wagon.
It was a big twelve-horse team that pulled a cage of tigers. The driver had taken ill suddenly and someone was needed to take his place. Al was handy and willing even if he was small, so they turned the wagon over to him, and when he climbed up on the box he says he never felt so magnificent. His hands weren’t big enough to hold the reins for that many horses, but he was smart enough not to admit it. He simply knotted half of them together and wound them around a stanchion, after which he proceeded to guide the team with the other half. He then drove down Main Street to the music of the calliope and the circus band and gazed down on the hundreds of unfortunate school children who had not had the good sense to run away and join the circus.
He was with the circus about five years, and during that time he did everything from bareback riding to selling tickets to announcing the acts.
Al was nineteen when he decided to leave the circus and go around the world. By this time, of course, Dr. Carver had long since located his wandering son and given up trying to persuade him to go back to school. When Al returned from a world cruise (glad to be on land again after a typhoon), his father taught him to train horses for the diving act, which was a natural for Al with his circus background. After Dr. Carver’s death it wasn’t long before people in the business were referring to Al as “Doc” the way they had his father and looking to him for the same high-caliber performance his father had always provided. Thus the voice that announced me that night in Sacramento may have been different, but the regime was not.
Nine
Because we had been late getting started, the season passed very quickly, but for the first time since I had joined the troupe we did not go to Florida in the fall. Al and Lorena decided that we would go instead to Lorena’s farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
For years Al had fumed about the cost of transportation. “All we do,” he said, “is make money one place so we can take it down and hand it over to the railroad so they can take us someplace else.” His fuming was justified, because fares did cost a fortune. Dr. Carver would not consider traveling
Similar Books
