CHAPTER 9
Thus I was baptized, and became a follower of The Deaf Man’s Times. I soon learned what was going on in my world, what the “ Big Guns ” were doing, and what they wanted to do in the common interest of us all. I read columns of figures showing contributions to the fund of our organization, which I must soon join; and I saw many a paragraph devoted to the plans of this one and that one for the best use of the money. No two of these Big Guns agreed, and therein lay some humor.
Sometimes I would read the pleasantries our leaders would throw at one another, as politicians do. These remarks were very witty at times, and again very caustic. I was taking a genuine interest in affairs, and in that sheet, and in a controversy over methods of teaching the deaf. One day there appeared in the paper a poem bearing the title, “ Our Needs. ” It was signed Rob Roy, and the author’s real name was never made public. Here it is, I mean the poem, not the author’s name:
OUR NEEDS
Says a man in the East, “It is money we need —
‘Tis the lack of it keeps us behind;
Every deaf man on earth, whatever his birth,
Should know it and bear it in mind!
A dime from each fellow, or a coin bright and yellow,
A drop from each goblet, at best,
That wouldn’t be missed, and lo, presto, and hist!
There’s a sum that would stagger you blind.”
Says a man way up north of unlimited worth,
“I have figured it out with my pen.
We need dollars and cents to tear holes and big rents
In the chests of the pseudo-deaf men!
Just send me your cash, I’ll make boarding house hash
Out of them in two minutes, or ten!”
Says a man in the West, “Fifty thousand will do,
To honor our friend de l’Épée,
The most pressing need of the day.
Fifty thousand will do, I’ll make the monument, you,
You fellows can hustle to pay!”
Says the man on the banks of the Big Muddy stream,
“We need money for one thing, I’m sure,
I’m positive, certain, and sure,
To be used in the fight for the cause that is right,
Which is ending the Speech Trust dream!
Yes, money’s the thing, with its jingle and ring,
And I am the man with the wonderful plan
To handle the coin and the cure.”
Says the man who resides by the Sunny South tides,
“I’m a business man, and I offer a plan,
You must trust me with all you have got!
It’s hard to earn money to buy bread and honey,
So take my advice—I won’t give it twice —
And buy shares in my mine—or a lot!”
Says the man who is boss of the great N.A.D.,
“You have heard others ’ claims, now just listen to me.
Here’s a plan I have long had in mind,
Of a far-reaching, charity kind:
We need a house with a dome for the President’s home!
I have figured, considered, designed.
Forty thousand will do, and it’s now up to you —
We deaf, friends, are far, far behind.”
So let us keep on, we are young in the fight,
We are all honest men and our cause it is right;
May the good Lord direct us, and some day, I know,
We’ll strike the right thing and have money to blow!
At breakfast the next morning, the poem having gone the rounds, most of the students were discussing it. It happened that we had hash that very morning, and the boys, tired of the college variety, then and there claimed that the cook had made it out of “ pseudo-deaf men ”!
Two years of college life had rolled by when one night Dick came to my room and surprised me with the suggestion that we quit our studies and go West! Would I join him? Would I part with Dick? Poor fellow, he couldn’t see his way to cover college expenses any longer, so he meant to leave and strike out for a living. We stayed up long after the other students had retired; it was one the next morning when I finally turned off the light. Our plans were made. We would make the great hike. When a youth has his head filled with such plans for adventure, sleep does not come readily; so it happened that two very drowsy students toiled through their class work the next day.
College would soon close, and that was the date for the start of our great adventure. We made our decision known to the Faculty, then we made our rounds of the college, this taking several days. We went over the dormitory, bidding our student friends good-bye, looking at the familiar, romance-haunted rooms for the last time. We called on each member of the Faculty, we invaded the kitchens, ours and the co-ed’s, bidding the workers their farewell; we explored the vast basement and found the janitor, telling him our plans, rousing in him a sense of envy. We walked about the campus, bidding good-bye to the co-eds we met, we took a farewell plunge in the gymnasium pool, we looked over the athletic field. Then we walked back, slowly, reminiscently, to our dormitory, to our rooms, and began packing. Our college days and life were over. We had come, raw youths, half educated; we were leaving, better educated, wiser, kindlier, more matured—yet still young. Life was before us.
But we paused at the great gate, and looked back over the beautiful campus, at the aging buildings that had been our home, raised our hats, and said, “ Farewell. ”
To me the hardest part about going West was leaving Nell and dear old “ Mother. ” Dick had some difficulty prevailing upon his parents to let him go; and it was with no keen delight that I left the little town which had been so much to me, and those two dear faces that had been my all-in-all.
Dick and I met by arrangement at a town en route, and our wonderful journey began. Dick was a printer by training, and he seldom had to wait long for a job. With me it was different; I had not learned a trade, but I had my stipend, and when I wasn’t doing odd jobs in the towns or on a farm, I was studying and writing. My allowance, while not always enough for my needs, even with the added earnings, sometimes had to be divided with Dick. He would run short at times, but always he would promptly repay me when he was again earning. Dick was the squarest fellow I ever met. He would sleep under a haystack before he would hold back on a debt or an obligation when he could fulfill it.
The Far West was our goal, but we planned to make it by slow stages, earning on the way, and making long stays where we found life interesting. Sometimes we would get from one town to another by automobile, a good fellow picking us up, and even explaining to us the operation of the car. Again, we would walk, when money or generous autoists were lacking. In the larger towns and the cities we would locate the deaf colony, and to our disgust we would sometimes find someone among them that had read the stuff about me in The Deaf Man’s Times; the same paper had once printed something about Dick, to his injury. The unalterable stigma was upon us, I, the swellhead, and Dick the notorious borrower. This made our entry into a new colony of deaf people less welcome.
When fall came around again with its harvest of abundance, and its fairyland of leaves, leaves of brown, and of gold, and of flame spreading the roadsides, the lawns, the forest floor like a benediction of joy; and the crisp air, and in the country, the people resting from their summer toil, it found us in a small Middle West town. We had got off our train there thinking of farm work for a change. Our calculations were wrong. The town was asleep; farms were resting from plow and cultivator. Something like fear seized us, for we were almost broke, and the next city was far away.
We got a room in a little hotel. It was clean, and cost very little, and the keeper was friendly. We asked him about our prospects for work, and he had nothing encouraging to offer. We went out to look over the situation. The main street of this town was dusty. Some razorbacks with their sagging bellies and long snouts were snuffling along the curbs hunting for turnips or cabbage leaves that fall from farmers ’ wagons. Sitting on the curbs were farmers, discussing, we guessed, crops and their new colts. Some smoked corncob pipes, others chewed Star Plug sending graceful curves of liquid amber far out to the middle of the street. Groups of women in calico and light wraps stood on the sidewalk, discussing, we again guessed, the newest baby, or the coming pancake supper given by the Ladies ’ Aid Society. A big, rough-coated cur dog came trotting along, and a tom cat, seeing him, shot between an old man’s legs into a smelly grocery store, where it leaped upon the counter, upsetting an open can of sorghum, the dog in hot pursuit. And these people stared at us, strangers in their midst, people of a strange language. We found no work in two weeks; I never dreamed that a town could be so utterly stupid and inactive. We had no way to leave it, no motorists were on hand, we had no money for travel, and the next town was too far to attempt to walk—we were in Kansas.
Then something glorious happened. Something always happens in a crisis, you know. A circus was coming to town! If there is anything that will quicken the pulse of a dying community, even but temporarily, better and surer than a circus, I don’t know what it is. The town woke up as a sleeper might do if a hatpin were jabbed into him.
Dick and I watched the bill men plaster the town with alluring advertisements and gorgeous pictures. As we idly watched the wonderful proceedings our spirits mounted—we forgot our plight.
“ Now’s our chance! ” Dick startled me as he came running up, and catching my coat collar, he pulled me along to face an impressive poster. “ Look at that! ‘ Greatest Mystery on Earth! The Lady in the Jar! One Hundred Dollars Reward to Anyone That Can Solve It!’ ”
“ One hundred dollars! ” I spelled the words slowly, as hungry and anxious, I viewed the awe-inspiring poster. “ If there is anyone in this blasted town that needs that hundred more than we do, Dick, I—well, you and I don’t care to know it. I’m not exactly charitably disposed today. ”
The circus arrived the next week, very early in the morning, and Dick and I were on hand to welcome it, to give the manager the keys to the city, I mean town, and simultaneously to put in a very strong plea for a job. We got that job, and as luck would have it, it was no other than helping the owner of “ The Greatest Mystery on Earth ”! Our hearts throbbed with joy. We were to drive stakes, to assist in raising the tent, to help set up the low platform, to lift the great jar. The jar was thick, clear glass with a two inch bottom and a metal screw-on top, like a huge fruit jar. The cover had two spokes to facilitate screwing it on and off, and there was a thick rubber band jamb to preclude sound. It stood five feet six inches high. To get inside the jar one went up on steps, and down into it on similar steps, removed afterward. A low stool was set in it. This was the mystery: A young woman would be sealed tight inside and anyone might come up and speak to her, briefly, and after several had done so, the cap would be unscrewed and the marvel would tell them what they had said! If anyone doubted that sound was completely cut off, he was at liberty to get in the jar and see for himself, be convinced.
Kepp, the showman and manager of the Lady had taken a liking to us. At first we were puzzled, but later on we understood why, and we also marvelled that he should have been so careless as to employ us, as you shall later on see.
But the Mystery Lady! What was she, and where was she? Behind the show tent we had helped to set up was another and smaller one. Therein the Miracle reposed when not on show duty. She slept on the train with the other circus women. Dick and I were so interested in this show that we delved into every detail of it. But the mysterious being was safe from prying eyes and questioning tongues; but where, just then, we didn’t know. We called up visions of the Arabian Nights and the dark arts of India. We saw spirits, and if Kepp had understood our conversation, good-bye to our job!
We worked hard all day despite our covert investigations, and that evening Kepp gave us each a dollar and a ticket to the Big Top. No ticket for his show! “ Oh, ” he said, writing to us. “ It’s all talking and you can’t enjoy it. ” He dismissed us and went on with his work.
The next day, at two o’clock, the circus would begin. A grand street parade was to inaugurate the great day. The town paper gave a glowing account of the great show in store for the people, and Kepp had advertised his side show by a generous use of handbills and dodgers. By the eager way the townspeople read these intriguing handbills I thought more interest was centered in the Mystery than on the big tent. Then there was the handsome cash award for the lucky one that should solve the thing.
The parade started from the big tent where Dick and I had taken a position of vantage. To us, the more important thing was to see the Lady of the Jar. When we saw a circus wagon draw over toward Kepp’s tent, we too, went over, expecting to see the Lady. We grew uneasy lest we miss the parade in its full sweep through the town, yet determined to set eyes on that wonderful creature.
Then out came Kepp, short, radiant-faced, grandiose and pompous in his gaudy regalia. He walked briskly over to his main tent, and soon reappeared from the rear of his tent on a strange float of oriental design, with a little mosque-like dome over a gilded throne. As he neared his own tent, a female, wrapped in Turkish garb, her face partially concealed by a pink gossamer veil, stepped lightly and quickly forth and mounted the throne.
Dick gazed. I gazed, open-mouthed. Dick boldly took a few steps closer and looked hard at the veiled face with an expression of indescribable amazement. I wondered. What had possessed the boy? The woman, or girl, for she must have been around eighteen or twenty years, noting our pressing attention, turned her face and quickly mounted to her throne. Evidently she sensed our intentions.
We followed the crowd, and for an hour moved along with that train of wonders. The clowns cut up ridiculous antics, the calliope (I could feel it) belched forth sonorously, the acrobats, male and female, sat their highly groomed mounts with grace and dignity; the camels lurched along, the elephants, trunk to tail, moved ponderously behind the camels. The Indians whooped and flourished terrible tomahawks, the cowboys swung their graceful lariats, playfully roping the town belles who would cry with fear or delight as they were drawn up by the swarthy plainsmen to be liberated with a gallant swing of a huge sombrero. Oh, it was a glorious day, and a mighty circus!
But the last of that marvelous parade drew the people even closer as the Mystery of Mysteries made up the rear, and our Lady of the Turkish turnout sat on her throne and cast about her the spell of her unfathomableness.
“ Mickey, ” said Dick, gravely, and he always spelled my name when he was serious, “ tonight, ” he eyed me with an air of amused confidence, “ we’ll have that hundred, or my name’s not Dick Wagner. ”
“ What in the devil do you mean? ” I asked; yet I couldn’t help feeling that the boy was in dead earnest.
“ Exactly what I said—that hundred’s going to be ours—ours, yourn an ’ mine! ”
We walked back over the same route we had come by and Dick led me to a cafe. He opened the door and we entered. Then what did that boy do but order a two dollar dinner. Two dollars for our meal when we were all but broke! And he wouldn’t let me pay a penny. Surely, that boy was sure of his game, or he wouldn’t have blown his money like that. My conscience pricked me. I had an urge to run and tell Kepp to look out for Dick Wagner. Indeed, wasn’t the real Mystery of Mysteries right here before me? I got that idea. Dick was crazy.
At one o’clock we were back on the circus grounds where the crowd had arrived early. We patronized the side shows, the ten-cent kind, then went over to the Mystery tent where the rubbering country folk were gathered. Dick and I pushed through the mass and got near Kepp to watch him lunge forth in a vociferous address. How the tickets sold! Under a glass, in plain view, yet securely fixed against theft, was the hundred dollars, in gold, sure enough, the same gold pieces that had done duty the whole season with no claimant. The Mystery had been complete, dark and unsolvable. Judging from the way those excited and impressionable people filled the tent I judged that Kepp could well have afforded to put up a thousand dollars instead of one hundred.
We bought two tickets and entered the tent. Seated near the entrance, Dick produced his pad and pencil and struck up an acquaintance with an old fellow next to him. He wanted this man to tell him if the Mystery Lady really did as was claimed for her, and if she repeated the ideas and questions spoken to her, correctly; and while this bit of conversation was going on, I watched the tent fill to its capacity.
The tent was now jammed. The people leaned against the side walls, and they blocked the entrance, a solid phalanx there to assail the Mystery—to get the gold. Kepp entered and mounted the platform, inviting an inspection of the jar. Enter the Mystery. Silence—silence greater than the Mystery itself.
Dick kept his eyes on the girl. She raised the veil, to give the people a better view, as I first thought, but really to cast it aside as she entered the jar. She seated herself Turk fashion as the jar was righted. I noticed Dick’s head nod up and down. Kepp screwed on the cap—tight.
“ Now, ” began Kepp, with a generous flourish, “ not a sound can enter the jar, or reach the ears of the miraculous being within who possesses marvelous powers of discerning what others, beyond her hearing, are talking about. This power has rarely failed her. If one of you will kindly step forward and address her. ” (I am putting the words my own way after learning what Kepp said, from the old man next to Dick.) “ Slowly and briefly, she will tell us what you say. ”
A hundred questioning faces turned to one another. A woman rose and took her place as directed. She said, “ I wish I were back in Ireland. ” Another woman essayed, “ There must be some trick about this. ” Dick urged his friend to try, and he did. “ I wish I were young like you, Miss. ”
“ Now, ladies and gentlemen, ” said Kepp, “ we will open the jar. ” The cap was unscrewed, and the girl stood up, repeating in a loud voice what had been said.
“ She must have heard us, she surely heard us! ” exclaimed the skeptical woman who sighed for the Old Country.
“ If you feel that way, Madam, ” returned Kepp, “ you are at liberty to enter the jar, to be sealed up, and to try yourself. ” And in fact this woman did so. At least ten persons spoke to her, but she came out baffled, utterly unable to repeat a thing said to her. The crowd marvelled.
The show went on until the circus was about to begin, and the wondering people left Kepp and his Lady for the circus. We followed. But that night we returned to the Mystery tent. It was Dick’s admirable intention to let Kepp make all he could before throwing his bomb.
It was nearing the hour for the night performance of the circus. Kepp’s tent was, as usual, crowded. The people were wrought up to an unearthly pitch of excitement. The mystery was unsolved and that gold seemed sure to leave the old town as it had come. Again and again someone was sealed up in the jar, but not one could repeat a word spoken from without. Dick and I, well back, watched it all in great expectation. In ten minutes the circus proper would begin. It was the psychological moment. Dick raised his hand, and as he drew it in, nudged me and passed me an order. We walked up, and Kepp, glowing with success, talking, waving his arm, took no notice of us. The next moment we were confronting the Mystery. Then—the Mystery fainted and collapsed! The crowd rose to its feet. Kepp rushed to the jar. An attendant shouted for order. Told the people to pass out. Kepp motioned us, on seeing who we were, to help him release the girl. Confusion in the audience; excitement on the platform. The crowd jammed at the entrance, paused—milled out. We unscrewed the jar cap, tilted the huge glass. Kepp dashed water on his Miracle. She wriggled, opened her eyes. Kepp grabbed her legs and pulled her out. Lingering ones gawked and gasped, laughed. We got the girl on the platform and carried her to the rear tent. She astonished us by standing up and laughing aloud!
“ Listen, Kepp, listen! ” Her big, blue eyes sparkling as she beamed on the astonished Dick, “ Listen, I’ve saved your darned show! This boy, Dick Wagner, knows me, knew me at school back East. Knew I am a good lipreader—best one in our school. If I hadn’t faked a faint they’d have told the secret and good-bye to the show and your prosperity! The game would have been up! ” She caught Dick and me by the hands, wrung them, kissed Dick. She talked to us in signs, spelled, her face glowing with mirth and beauty. Dick and I were speechless—and happy! Kepp stood, amazed, speechless, glancing at us, then at the girl, Mabel Arthur, “ The Greatest Mystery on Earth. ” “ Give them the money, Kepp, they have won it, and I have saved your darn show. Keep still—and keep these boys still by giving them the hundred. ” Kepp was equal to it, a good sport. He did give us the money, and after the tent was cleared and all was quiet, after Mabel had changed to street dress, he took all three of us to the best place to eat in town and there ordered the best dinner the place could give us.
Next day, the circus having disappeared in the night, Dick and I bought needed things in the way of wearing apparel, and new fall hats. That evening we boarded a train like real travelers, and got a berth in a Tourist sleeper. We felt like a couple of kings, free from the cares of State, and happy.