Drama -- History and criticism; Theater; Theater -- History
However much Huck was impressed by the Grand Entry, he seems to have
been more pleased by the surprising act, traditionally known as 'Pete
Jenkins,' and never better described than by Mark Twain's youthful hero.
"And by and by a drunk man tried to get into the ring--said he wanted to
ride; said he could ride as well as anybody that ever was. They argued
and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn't listen, and the whole show
came to a standstill. Then the people began to holler at him and make
fun of him.... So then the ring-master he made a little speech, and said
he hoped there wouldn't be no disturbance, and if the man would promise
he wouldn't make no more trouble, he would let him ride, if he thought
he could stay on the horse.... The minute he was on the horse he began
to rip and tear and jump and cavort around ... the drunk man hanging
onto his neck, and his heels flying in the air every jump.... But pretty
soon he struggled up astraddle and grabbed the bridle, a-reeling this
way and that; and the next minute he sprung up and stood! and the horse
a-going like a house afire, too. He just stood there, a-sailing around
as easy and as comfortable as if he warn't ever drunk in his life--and
then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling them. He shed them so
thick they kind of clogged up the air, and altogether he shed seventeen
suits. And then, here he was, slim and handsome, and dressed the
grandiest and prettiest you ever saw, and he lit into that horse and
made him hum--and finally skipped off and made his bow and danced off
to the dressing-room, and everybody just a-howling with pleasure and
astonishment. Then the ring-master, he see how he had been fooled, and
he was the sickest ring-master you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one
of his own men! He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and
never let on to nobody!"
Yet in this enjoyment of a practical joke, dear to every boy's heart,
Huck did not fail to note that the skilful rider who had pretended to be
intoxicated, stood up at last, "slim and handsome." Even Huck Finn,
neglected son of the town-drunkard, was quick to respond to the appeal
of the supple and well-proportioned figure of the rider after the
superimposed clothing had been discarded, just as he had felt the
attraction of the varied colors and the graceful evolutions of the Grand
Entry. At bottom, it was the beauty of the display that he appreciated
most keenly. By the side of this passage from Mark Twain's masterpiece
may be set a passage from Mr. Hamlin Garland's best story, 'Rose of
Dutcher's Coolly,' in which we find recorded the impressions of a girl
of about the same age, the daughter of a hard-working Wisconsin farmer.
Rose had never seen a circus before, and even the morning street parade
fired her imagination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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