The Snake-Oil Dickens Man. Ross Gilfillan
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the work of a minute to realise that I was bound by no conventional bonds but that I had, in the throes of troubled sleep, only wound myself up in my bedsheets. And could have wound myself tight as a halter as I recalled how my mother had brought humiliation upon my head with the stranger from out of town.
I could remember that much more clearly than I had any wish to. What was more opaque was the interval that followed, in which I believe I had gratefully accepted a glass of whisky from Irving, or Merriweather, or any one of the gentlemen then in high spirits in the Particular’s saloon. I had affected to pass off the incident lightly as if it were the custom or that I cared nothing that my mother had behaved as she had. With Wilkes and D’Orleans turned in, Merriweather and myself had become of augmented interest, being the only party present with any extra knowledge of P.T. Barnum and his imminent arrival in our town. Merriweather talked up the circus in a manner I believed might be worthy of Barnum himself and then became intimate with Mr Curry, who had recently been famously successful with a silver-mining speculation.
The faces about my table were still fired up with Barnum fever and plied me with whisky and hung upon my every word as I employed the little I knew to paint a gaudy picture of the amazing entertainment they had in store. I used the strongest colours to depict a scene in which elephants were as common as horses and giraffes left no one’s bedroom a place of certain privacy.
Why yes, I said, matter of fact, it was I who had persuaded the strangers that this was the perfect place for Barnum. I had charge of many of the necessary arrangements and it was in my power to ensure that the top folk were given the proper seats and maybe introduced personally to Phineas himself. Another whisky? Mighty kind. My mother? Not mine, sir. Mine had been an industrious wife and religious mother, raised on a small holding in the distant Shenandoah Valley, whose husband had been killed upholding the Union cause and who had herself died, cruelly, resisting a fate far worse than death, at the merciless hands of the Confederate army. Had a halter been handy on that next morning, I am sure I would have availed myself of the perfect peace it seemed to offer.
But such is the indefatigable nature of the human spirit that not my mother’s iniquity, nor my own admitted weaknesses, were proof against the clarion call of exciting and novel sounds that were wafted through my opened window to assail my ears on that bright summer’s day. I had been half-aware of the music and that a band of musicians was blowing their best somewhere just below my window but when I heard the unmistakable sounds of loud acrimony and squabbling not even drowning waves of guilt and inadequacy could suffocate the stirrings of wild curiosity and prevent me from stuffing my blue woollen workshirt in my pants and hopping into my single boot – the twin would be discovered in the horse trough, I was certain – and escaping downstairs to the street.
It mattered not that I had risen late as the gentlemen whose breakfast I should have served had other matters to occupy them than ham and eggs as they clamoured in the lobby, protesting their sudden evictions. I might have had sympathy for Merriweather as he quailed under a barrage of robust abuse had I not known that it was only another quandary born of his own greed. I snuck past these rioters, leaving Merriweather to untangle his own knots and caught a ride on a wagon that was heading for town.
II
There was no question that word of the great event had already spread. We passed trails of people upon the road and were passed ourselves by a number of faster vehicles. At the town limits, we crossed the wide plaza, where teamsters camped and horse auctions were held. This day it was swarming with people. I jumped down and threaded my way through men who were pacing off and pegging out the area of intended encampment and others who had gotten hold of the bunting and flags we used at election times and were stringing them between the grain store, the lightning tree and the liberty pole. Most folk who wandered about the plaza confined themselves to commenting on the operations and speculating upon the likely nature of the extravaganza itself. Overseeing the work was John Wilkes and my mouth dried and my heart missed a beat as he saw me and approached with outstretched hand. I had grasped it before I had thought to refuse.
‘I have to talk to you about last night,’ I began.
‘Billy, I just larned that the lady I entertained is your mother. Well, I was real shocked but I congratulate you upon having such a paragon for your guide in life. She is the very model of modern womanhood and she did me an unspeakable honour.’
He put an arm about my shoulder and said: ‘I’m sure you understand. Why, we’re men of the world. These things happen, as we know. Life goes on and today life is looking very bright indeed. Can I count on you to help, Billy?’
Looking back, I think I might have acted in a way that would have better preserved the dignities of both my mother and myself. But even had I the necessary resolution, the revolver I had bought solely as an accessory of fashion wasn’t over-choosy about its targets and I would most probably have hurt myself.
But it was hard not to be caught up in the excitement; impossible not to acknowledge the curiously friendly folk who had already accosted me with all manner of inquiry and entreaties for tickets. Rather than knocking him down or waving a gun in his direction I soon found myself up a ladder, with Wilkes up another as we tied a hastily-painted banner across a narrowing of the main street.
Then I was posting bills in shop windows, gossiping with traders and customers and relishing the celebrity and status my connection with Barnum had apparently brought me. To be the centre of anybody’s attention was a profoundly novel sensation. As I swaggered along Main Street, it seemed that every eye was upon me and every tongue forming my name.
All morning more people arrived. Wilkes had seen to it that the telegrapher was kept busy informing surrounding towns and rail stops that Barnum was here tonight. Already buggies, coaches and wagons were streaming in, horses were tethered all along the streets and long lines of people stood before the makeshift ticket office that Wilkes had arranged outside the Mayor’s office.
I watched as D’Orleans took their money and issued his tickets. When his customers had made their purchase they went back to milling about the town, wasting time looking at this and that, walking in and out of the stores and saloons, taking up good vantages on the plaza or just sitting on the sidewalk, shooting competing streams of tobacco juice into the dirt and reading the special issues of the Bugle that Amory had spent all night printing as soon as he knew what was afoot.
D’Orleans dealt his red and yellow tickets like cards from a deck but as fast as he could reduce one line, another had grown. From time to time he would stop and mount the table he had made from a couple of planks upon barrels, survey the crowd with concern and announce in a voice that carried to the ends of both lines, ‘Mr Barnum appreciates your interest, folks, he surely does, but there is only a limited number of seats available for tonight’s show. I must therefore prevail upon you to show forbearance and limit your purchases to six tickets per individual. Six tickets only, PLEASE!’
But that just got the crowd more agitated and more mothers with children attached, more farmers and merchants and drunkards and idlers pushed into the growing lines. When this was at its height, D’Orleans signalled me over to him and implored me to relieve him a while, while he attended to important business. It was maybe two hours before I saw him again, by which time I had significantly reduced the supply of tickets which were bundled in the carpet bag into which I put the takings. I had also had the enormous pleasure of being able to hand four of the coveted red tickets to Cissy Bullock. What would she make of me now, I wondered, as she floated back to her carriage?
It was hot and uncomfortable work, unrelieved by the warm breeze that had got up and gained in strength, flapping the big banner and sending hats skittering about the street and causing wise commentators to remark that Barnum had better have brought strong stakes, if he wanted to keep his tents. There was some local superstition about this zephyr, that it only came when things were on the change or something awful was about to happen to the town. But when I had spoken of this to Elijah, he only snorted his contempt and said that was all a fallacy.
But just as the wind seemed ready to snatch the tickets from my hands and my eyes were red-raw from the grit that had blown in upon them, D’Orleans reappeared. He told the remaining crowd there would be plenty more for everyone the next