Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1900-02-09
r. N explanation it must be
III acknowledged that the

~ as white man and citi
zen would allow him to bear cheer.
fully. And for that reason he sulked
at table when the management and
the staff of the Bowery palace OF
illusions and Turkish Beauty Show
sat down together in their eating
room to luncheon Of bread and sau-
sages. 1t was the midday intermis-
sion. Below stairs, the barrel organ
was dumb. The wicket of the ticket
Office was empty of it's vision of bella
donna ewes and cornstarch shoulders.
The hall of illusions--of incandescent
lights AMI bewildering mirrors-was
dark and deserted. And the curtains
in the last compartment Of the exhibit
ton parted Imply on vacant stage
where two ancients in haxen wigs had
been posing against the shabby hang
ing of Turkish harem.
Here in the eating-room, the COM
pany was gathered about greasy
pine table that stood between the
cooking stove and the sink A feeble
light, filtering through the dirty win
dows upon the bare arms and bare
shoulders of the women. showed a
suspicious difference in color between
the rough arm that had not been
powdered and the tender white of the
neck that had. The lad who tortured
the agonized organ down stairs chewed
rhythmically on a tough crust of bread,
his head still turning tunes, his eyes
set in the vacant stare of an animal
at feed. A young girl beside him,
with smudged face and untidy hair,
choked on her sausage, and "Snipey, !"
the counterfeit Mexican for whom she
posed as the human target in the
great dagger throwing "stunt" of the
free performance, rallied her with q
facetious "Think yeh'd been swallowin'
swords"
The ticket-ofice beauty, who was
the managers wife, grinned at this
wit, and the scrawny beauties in the
tawny wigs lifted their pencilled eye
brows appreciatively-but with care.
The manager-he was the barker"
and the official "bouncer" in one
muscular person-directed the eyes of
the company to the sulking "Filipino"
with wink and nod. "Think he'd
been swallowing insults. he chuckled.
"Aguinaldo," as they called him,
pretended not to hear, bumped over
his plate and glowering at a knot in
the table. He had covered his paint
ed nudity with an overcoat and an
underskirt. He had pulled off his
rusty wig, and taken out the ring of
bone that had been pinched into his
nostrils. But around his eyes were
still two circles of yellow ochre. His
color was red brick dust to within an
inch of his fiat black hair, and there
it turned skin white. When he ate
his sausage, he drew back his painted
lips and took the food carefully be.
tween his teeth. The grimace set his
face for a savage snarl.
"'Eats human fesh," the manager
quoted at it, and laughed again con-
temptuously.
The ticket-ofice exhibit drew her
eyes over her husband slowly, and
swung a glance down the table at the
Filipino. "Aguinaldo" was staring at |
his tormentor dumbly.
"Looks as if he'd like to eat me,
don't he?" the latter whispered loudly |
to the table. They either laughed or
they did not. The organist did not
because he was thinking of nothing.
"Snipey" laughed to curry favor with
the management, and the two women
laughed because they understood the
game that was being played and
Knocked at it. They knew that
"Aguinaldo" did not dare to face an
open rupture for fear he should find
himself on the street. There was a
note in their cackling that was a chal-
lenge to the manager.
"Any time he likes to try a chaw at
me, I'm game" he clustered.
There was no answer.
: "I amt heard that Filipinos are
much on the fight" ''Snipey"
laughed.
''Aguinaldo" picked up his over
coat, and slouched away to his sleep
ing room, pattering down the hall
with bare feet. The organ grinder,
who shared tho room, followed him.
"Aguinaldo," in his room, cast off
the shirt he wore, and appeared in q
pair of knickerbockers, from which
the legs had been amputated high on
the thigh. He had only G. coat of
brown stain to protect the bulk of his
body from the chill air. 81 won't
stand it much longer" he said to him
self and the boy. "I'd sooner be a
sandwich man again" The imitation
bear skin which he hooked about his
hips did nothing to warm or con-
sole him. He put on the over t
coat again, and coughed tentatively. i
ga man nights we'll be in Jail as cocped |
mp in splintery psckin' case. An {
that fool pokin' fun at him."
He picked up the wig of red-black {
hair, and fitted it tightly to his scalp l
80 tightly that it pinched his skull as |
Il in vice, and pulled his eyebrows 1
high Oh his forehead. Then the bone /
ring found sore spot i'll his nostrils. S
He looked at himself in the glass. He +
lad hot itch of revolt in his blood a
The revolt of an irritated skin against n
he discomfort of a hair shirt-and ]
ne shook his fist savagely at his re- a
lection in the mirror. Then he went p
INTO the back Of the shop which
served to house the exhibition, and t
rom the wreck of a discarded peep j
'how drew out flask, 1t would Il