The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-10-08
Erening Story
A Circus Brahmin.
BY WILL T. AMES.

! there were only two men with the
show whose personalities had i'm
] pressed her in the least.
| One was Snyder, an elephant man,
who owned his own act and the troupe
of five bulls" that constituted it. He
was fair, but somehow gave the i'm
| precision that he should have been
swarthy; sleek and smooth, yet con-
veying the fantastic idea of velvet over
| jagged brass. He was utter master of
! his quintet of performing pachyderms
but Jane had noted terror in the eyes
1 of the beasts as they obeyed his soft
voice and inconspicuous hand signals.
Not a bit like any other elephant
man I ever saw reflected Jane.
Mostly they're like own brothers to
their beasts. This one has his scared
to DEATH"
| She did not like the man. She had
I not liked him from the first day, when
she encountered him in the perform
ers' entrance and his yelled eyes
searched her figure till she drew the
folds of her ring robe closer about her
and shivered.
The other mans name Jane did not
know. He was a circus nobody; one
of the jacks who, in fragrant red coats,
ran about with properties and, in
white lead and motley, permitted nim-
bier and funnier clowns to make foot
balls of them in the second entre-act.
This man, too. Jane had first no
ticed because he had conspicuously no.
ticed her-buts in a way very differ
ent from the way of Snyder.
Caste dominates the eircus-and
Jane was a circus Brahmin. Born to
the sawdust and canvas top, the
daughter of far-famed aerial acrobats,
she herself belonged to the top STRAIT
UNI of headline stars. Her solo trap
exc act was one Of the five great fea-
lures of the All-Arnerica.
When, therefore, it fell to the roust-
about, on the occasion of James first
performance, to tend the slack guy to
which she slid to the ground at the
end of her act, she was quite unpre-
pared to have the jack smile frankly
into her eyes as she finished her de-
scent.
In the circus or out of it, enthroned
womanhood asserts Its reputation OF
presumptuous familiarity with wide
eyes and brief, unfriendly stare. Par
don," said the man in a voice curiously
out of accord with the red coat, Il
was anxious. it is a dangerous act
for a woman"
Jane ignored the man and his apol-
ogy. But she could not forget him.
Hers was a lonely life. She was
Brahmin-and but two years from the
school she had left when the terrible
, news came of the circus train wreck
that had doubly orphaned her; If there
among the women of the great troupe
she had not found it.
So perhaps it was only natural that
Jane caught herself wondering, often,
how it came that slight, almost mid
die aged man whose speech denoted
| education should be holding her climb
| ing rope-and treating her with re-
. spect perfect in itself and yet, she
shrewdly told herself, carrying with
it no sense whatever of personal in
| feriority.
Perhaps the attitude of the rousta-
/ bout assumed a greater importance
from the circumstance that never,
since that first afternoon, had the ele-
phant man failed to seek to put him
/ SELF in her way. There was something
about this fellow that rasped her
nerves; that awakened a curious sem
sibility of secret power in the man, a
power tinctured with immense ruth
! lessness and that radiated from him
toward whoever or whatever he MADE
| the object of his purpose.
Jane was beginning to feel that she
knew, now, why his elephants obeyed
him. She was conscious, too, that
| SNYDER was deliberately bending his
will upon her. Does the brute think
| he can hypnotic me as he does his
stupid bulls?" she asked herself in
Idignantly.
She had no fear: she was fearless
| a
curious satisfaction, just the same, In
the humble if unflattering admiration
she now felt sure she had excited in
the depressed personality OF the cul-
tured roustabout
1t was late June. The show was
playing a big college town. The tent
was packed. James daring and unique
act on a trapeze swung from spar
! bolted to the center pole was pro-
grained simultaneously with Snyder
act in ring 1.
AS the girl stood at the curtain
awaiting her signal Snyoer stePp,s . y
thru the curtained opening. He spoke
rapidly in an undertone: 81 get what
1 want or something happens, always.
I want you I shall have you--or the
something will happen. Answer. IL
will be too late afterward."
For weeks Jane had been almost
AFRAID of this man. Now his cheap
melodrama suddenly made him seem
Ridiculous. She looked him boldly in
the face and laughed. did you ever
want the moon2" she asked. Then
I quick anger came to her ana she
added, "You-you 1ackal In a Won
sl<inI" Just then her call came and
she ran ont and mounted her trapeze
in blithe contempt of the elephant
mans threat.
Some feather brain threw lighted
firecracker from the seats into the
4 midst of Snyder's elephants. announcer
followed fusillade. The pachs
Thrown into panic. became trumpet
ing. milling mass of giant rlesn
Twenty old circus hands were among
them in a moment, combating the
tunuH. Out of the ruck charged old
Don, biggest of the herd. with Snyder
hanging desperately to his ear
Straight at the center pole the ele-
plant rushed, wrapping his trunk
about it in seeming frenzy striving to
tear it from it's place.
Snyder, jabbing the animal with his
} steel "persuader'' and shouting COM
mands in Hindoostanee. appeared
quite powerless to undo the beasts
crazed determination to rip out the
tents central support.
"Good God! The girl" Froms q
thousand lips the cry arose. For as the
elephant tore at the center pole it was