Evening star., 1930-05-04
BY GILBERT SWAN.
Sketches by George CIark.

-HE big top" is on the move again
moving to the music Of creak-
ing wagon hubs and the click OF
steel rails moving TO the lick
er of torches and arcs; up with the
dawn and gone with the night moving
under storm and star dragging through
spoke-deep mud and skmming over ice-smooth
highways F.. +. meeting a thousand adver-
sites, and getting thousand breaks.
And always moving on, for the song OF the
big top is this: Il am the circus, here today
and gone tomorrow"
Along dusty country roads, barefoot boys
still stand in excited awe before the gaudy and
alluring posters of the wonders to be unfoded
in the big town which lies down the road.
Meanwhile as master of ceremonies of this
glamorous pageant, goes one Dexter w. Fellows,
the world champion circus exploiter, man
grown gray in the service of tinsel and carni-
val. No one individual in all the United States
knows many people. The newspaper editors
and the newspaper writer's from one end of the
land to the other greet him like some lost
brother. His arrival in any newspaper ofhce
is signal for half the staff to Jump from type
writer's and rush up with greeting. Ana
Dexter never forgets them. Three years after
a visit he'll ask some obscure editor about how
his sick wife is progressing.
When he first arrives in New York to pave
the way for the grand opening" of the season
in Madison Square Garden, it's the signal for
half the writers in Manhattan to rush over to
his hotel and exchange gossip about all the
newspaper affairs of the Nation. To be sure,
they exit with some few items about the tenn
permanental elephant and the tattooed wonder.
for Dexter has had some 40 years in which to
absorb the tales of the circus and its folk.
"EIRsT,' began Dexter, IN answer few
questions that people have been asking.
"There's been a lot of talk about motoriSing
the circuses Yes, some of the smaller outfits
now travel in motor trains. But we've stayed
circus and will Elephant and horsepower still
haul our wagons over the lots, and the trained
elephants still carry our stakes and poles.
don't know, but when you hit one of those
muddy lots with motor driven vehicle you're
always getting stuck. 1t takes elephants and
horses to drag 'em out. And then there's
circus flavor about the big horse teams.
THAT reminds me of a story.
"a few years ago we had an old fellow with
the big show who was particularly great
horseman. When it to teams there were
few to beat him in the world. A 10 or 20
horse team was nothing to him. And all his
life he had nursed an ambition. He wanted to
drive 40-horse team. The time came when
he got his chance. And was he proud? You
couldn't keep him away from them.
Every day he'd perch up in his seat, take
the reins and away he would go, the proudest
man in the world. Well, he was getting pretty
old, and it got to be part Of his life. He'd
bore every one to death with the story of his
horses, like father talks about the smart
things his child says.
stXX7E went into Winter quarters. All the
W horses were sent out, and the old fellow
was all by himself in Bridgeport, which was
then the Winter camping ground. All through
the Winter months he brooded Each day
came and he'd worry about his horses. We
began to be bothered about him.
But he got worse and worse--and one morn
ing they found him dead. He'd just naturally
broken his heart because he'd been separated