The rules were not strictly followed and the language not what one expected from female companions, but good cheer ruled the day, and I laughed heartily as I, too, bumbled through the game. If I half closed my eyes, the sunlight and the filmy dresses of my companions made this look like any other croquet game on any other front lawn across the country. When Cook and the kitchen girls carried out bowls of fresh-made ice cream, the afternoon was complete.
“Run and get Apollo,” said Mrs. Delaney. “He shouldn’t miss this treat.” When the puppy boy arrived, however, she positioned him under a large parasol so he would be hidden from the road.
“You know how ice cream is made, don’t you?” he told me, rolling his eyes. “You have to crank a handle.” This didn’t stop him from digging into a big bowl of strawberry and chocolate.
The sight of all those wantons licking their spoons with little pink tongues had me so distracted that I didn’t notice wagons approaching.
“Look!” cried a dark-haired girl called Mabel. “Isn’t that Lazarus Mink? What’s he doing back?”
Two canvas-covered wagons, with a wood-paneled wagon in the lead, rumbled down the road and came to a halt in front of the house. Two of the drivers were of standard build; the last, however, was a bearded dwarf. Each wagon canvas was emblazoned with the same proclamation: DR. MINK’S TRAVELING MONSTER MENAGERIE.
Well, I never, I thought, remembering the poster I had seen after I inquired about train fares home.
A man in a suit and tall hat climbed down from the lead wagon and came to the front gate. His clothes flapped oddly about him, as if he were a scarecrow made of twigs. Mrs. Delaney swept to meet him.
“Lazarus, my dear. How delightful,” she cried.
No wonder Mrs. Delaney was undisturbed by Apollo. She had friends in the business.
After a brief conversation Dr. Mink remounted, and the wagons pulled onto the field across the street.
“Shoo, everyone,” called Mrs. Delaney. “Get some rest and freshen up. We shall have a show tonight for our gentlemen.”
“A show!” cried Apollo, as if he’d not performed in them all his life. “Abel, there’s to be a show!”
“Well, stay out of their way, Apollo,” I said. “They don’t want you underfoot while they set up.” And after Mr. Northstar’s tale I wasn’t sure I trusted any itinerant showman. On the other hand, maybe they had need of a knife thrower. Here was my chance to get away, I realized. I could leave Apollo here and mail a letter home with his whereabouts. By the time someone came to collect him, I would be long gone. I almost laughed out loud.
In between my chores I checked on the progress across the road and noted where Apollo was. The wagon drivers raised a tent. In front of the tent a wall of brightly colored banners advertised the attractions within. A small bally platform was erected beside the banners. Apollo made no pretense of work, but sat under the bushes at the side of the house and watched the whole time, so I had no chance of visiting Dr. Mink unseen. Apollo was reluctant even to come in for supper, and afterward he ran outdoors to the bushes again. I might have to wait until he was in bed before I sought employment.
Finally it was time for the show. The ladies of the house were joined by men from town—upstanding gentlemen, by the cut of their clothes, pillars of the community, no doubt. Not one brought a wife or daughter. They all gathered in front of the bally platform in the evening sunlight, while the ladies giggled and nudged and pointed at the pictures on the banner. I knew from experience that these were exaggerations, but I was curious nevertheless. I was delighted to see no knife thrower depicted.
I looked around for Apollo and realized he was absent. After all the attention he had paid the setup, he was nowhere to be seen. Panic got the better of me. Should I search Dr. Mink’s wagons? But then Mrs. Delaney arrived with a small figure beside her, bundled in a cape and a floppy hat. I breathed a sigh of relief and felt quite foolish. I needed no clairvoyant powers to guess who the swathed figure might be, but why was he got up in that fashion? He must be stifling inside those wrappings. Perhaps Mrs. Delaney didn’t want Apollo to upstage the performers, or perhaps she was smarter than I and had disguised her pet from the eyes of a greedy showman.
The girls giggled behind their hands, and the gentlemen stared, but before anyone had a chance to inquire who the mystery guest was, a trumpet sounded from behind the banner and out walked Lazarus Mink in tails and top hat.
He was possibly the thinnest individual I had ever seen, almost as thin as the ebony cane he carried. He wore formfitting tights instead of trousers, which only served to emphasize his knees, which were like giant knots in his twiggy legs, and I noted that under his suit jacket he wore no shirt. He was a curious sight as he climbed the steps to the bally platform. His knobby wrists protruded from his coat sleeves like mere bones. His head appeared too large for his emaciated body and bobbed precariously on an unclad neck that was near as thin as his wrists. His caved-in cheeks, and eyes deep in their sockets, gave his pale face the appearance of a skull wearing a mustache and goatee.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or shiver. Here was the skeleton.
13
WELCOME, LAAAADIES AND gentlemen!” Dr. Mink wheezed and squeaked. “Welcome to the most amazing show you will ever have the privilege to observe.”
Would there be a dancing girl? I wondered. “A man of bones has kidnapped me,” the shadowy dancer had said in my strange waking dream before I joined the circus. “A skeleton man wi
ll come and take you to me,” she had told me as we walked down the railroad tracks. For a moment fear and excitement snatched my breath away. What would I do if it was true?
“Yiss,” Mink continued. “Today you have the opportunity to observe some of the most unusual human beings in existence. Only step inside and I will introduce you to the tallest man in the United States—eight feet tall and still growing. He has confounded the doctors in Philadelphia and stunned the experts in New York City. Here, too, you may shake the hand of the smallest woman you will ever meet and the most unusual bearded lady to be found.”
A squat bearded lady appeared on one of the banners, but no midget woman. Were there others inside not depicted on canvas—if not a dancing girl, maybe Mr. Northstar’s stolen son? I glanced at Apollo, glad he was disguised. Could I protect them both from burly roustabouts? Or even myself?
“See the alligator girl, cursed by the ancient Indian gods of the bayou, forever trapped as half human, half beast,” invited Dr. Mink. He pointed with his cane to a picture of a well-formed woman in evening dress with diamond-patterned green skin and the snout of a reptile. “Wonder at the living caterpillar man.” He gestured with a skeletal hand toward a picture of what appeared to be a large striped sock with a human head, smoking a cigarette. “‘How does a creature without limbs survive?’ you will ask yourselves. And finally, the most astounding person of all—no words can adequately describe this lusus naturae, this hideous freak of nature—the man with two heads.”
Curiosity got the better of my apprehension. I was eager to see what this two-headed man could really be.
Dr. Mink leaned toward the audience and lowered his creaky voice as if imparting a confidence. “Now, some people revile me for exploiting the unfortunate, they curse me for my lack of compassion, but I’ll let you be the judge. Am I heartless to show these wretches? Am I?” He swept his coat aside to reveal his chest, each rib as clear as if it had been carved in marble, and behind them, on his left side, a dark shadow throbbed beneath the almost transparent skin—his heart, beating in his chest.
The audience inhaled as one.