Part 21 (1/2)
This brought up a fund of recollected circus stories, and from then on, until the train stopped on the siding near the grounds, the performers took turns in telling what they had known of wrecks and other accidents to the shows with which they had been connected. Joe listened eagerly.
It was all new to him.
”I only hope my gla.s.s tank isn't cracked,” said Benny again. He seemed quite worried about this.
”Well, if it's broken they'll have to get you another,” Joe told him.
The tank was carried in one of the cars of the derailed train.
”They might, and they might not,” said Benny. ”My act hasn't been going any too well of late, and maybe they'd be glad of a chance to drop it from the list. I only hope they don't, though, for I need the money.”
Benny spoke wistfully. He seemed greatly changed from the boy Joe had known at first. Benny had grown thinner, and he often put his hand to his head, as though suffering constant pain. Joe and Helen felt sorry for him.
Still there was little they could do, except to cheer him up. Benny had to do his own act--which was a unique one that he had evolved after years of practice. It was not alone the staying under water that made it popular, it was the tricks that the lad did.
”Well, we're here at last,” said Joe, as he and his friends alighted from their sleeping car. ”Better late than never, I suppose.”
Men were busy on the circus grounds, putting up tents, arranging the horses and other animals, putting the wagons in their proper places and doing the hundred and one things that need to be done.
”I wonder what's going on over there,” said Helen, as she pointed to a group of men about the place where the canvas for the main tent had been spread out in readiness for erection. ”It looks like trouble.”
”It does,” agreed Joe, as he saw Jim Tracy excitedly talking to the canvasmen. ”I'm going to see what it is.”
He approached the ring-master, who was also one of the owners of the show.
”Anything wrong?” Joe asked.
”Wrong? I should say so! As if I didn't already have troubles enough here, the tent-men go on a strike for more money. I never saw such luck!”
CHAPTER XVII
IN BEDFORD
Joe Strong looked from the group of sullen, lowering canvasmen to Jim Tracy. On the ring-master's face were signs of anxiety.
”Is it really a strike?” Joe asked.
”That's what they call it,” replied the circus owner. ”I didn't know they belonged to a union, and I don't believe they do. They just want to make trouble, and they take advantage of me at a time when I'm tied up because we're late with the show.”
”What is it they want?” asked Helen.
”More money,” Jim Tracy replied. ”I wouldn't mind giving it to them if I could afford it, or if they weren't getting the same wages that are paid other canvasmen in other circuses. But they are. As a matter of fact, they get more, and they have better grub. I can't understand such tactics!”
”It looks as if some of them were coming over to speak to you,”
remarked Joe, as he observed one of the strikers detach himself from the group, and approach the ring-master.
”Let him come,” snapped Jim. ”He'll get no satisfaction from me.”
The man seemed a bit embarra.s.sed as he approached, chewing a straw nervously. He ignored several of the circus performers, Joe and Helen among them, who were grouped about Jim Tracy, and, addressing the owner, asked: