Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 272, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1919 — Sammy’s Sudden Shift [ARTICLE]

Sammy’s Sudden Shift

By JOHN HAMILTON

fct, 1»19, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) y Edwards, a taxi driver In town, fell under the spell of ust So In the autumn, when . ,tst of the four dClrcaaeijcame. ngerie superintendent for a ... sdick sent him to McGuire, • house” boss, and after talk,’i fGuire for ten minutes, Sam—qed back Into his taxi an ac- - " *icmber of the staff of the ,] Only, with orders to re- " ” iny morning. It was all settled, Sammy without any ado whatever, ' f Sir engagement. sit’s all the consideration I 1 you, Sam Edwards,” Kitty 4-jtly remarked, "all you get , after this Is none at ail. It’s Kff, and off for good. Here’s Kit,” expostulated Sammy, ’t get It at all. It’s only for ;......r. Look-it , I qualify as a v-ged keeper in a couple of 7S.Befoi-' the show goes out fancy trainer and go one trip « animal act —see? It'll get us )an I could save in three years E 7 old job—enough to start

"Two pu-pshaws and a pu-piflle!” Kitty, you see, worked in a paper-box factory. “Do you see much green in my eye? You’re going with the circus because you’ve gone nuts on it —like every little boy in this town. You in a ring act! In five months! You’ll be sweeping out cages the rest of your life—chambermaid to a smelly lot of animated old fur sets. You've lost out with me, Mr. Edwards. My husband’s gotta have a balance -wheel that can’t be queered by circus chariots. Goodby!” There was a finality about this that sent Sammy on his way without further word. Whereupon Kitty climbed two flights of stairs and wept copiously for art hour. Sammy didn’t spend all that winter just chamberinalding to cat animals. He got to be a keeper with a certain cage of peculiarly pernickety leopards as his most especial care. He soon learned, however, that he wouldn’t be in any ring act by next spring. It was January before McGuire would let him go into the leopard’s cage without a pointed iron bar in his hand, and February before he felt the least at home in that environment. But when March came, Sammy had got along so far that when he signed up for the touring season there was a clause in his contract giving him forty-five dollars a month extra for riding in that cage of spotted cats in the daily parade—and the show furnished the fleshings.

Opening in the “Garden” at New York, where circus parades have long been’ a thing of the past, the second booking was in the show’s —and Sammy’s—home town. As the fates would have it, -it rained pitchforks at the first day’s stand, and there was no parade. So that Sammy was called on to make his debut as an “animal king” before the eyes of his own townspeople. Also his first appearance in tights. ■ NowSaramyhad ? HOTei i Oease&tobe =^gS^ = Iff =^piflt =i nver == ffie Kitty Elwood. Even among the sylphs .whom he had encountered during the winter, praticing and rehearsing animal acts or careering about the ring in the equestrian pavilion, there had been none equal to thtf task” of displacing Kitty in his heart —and some very nice girls there were among them, at that. Wherefore, as Sammy climbed into his nest of feline revolutionists it was with mingled emotions that he assured himself that Kitty would certainly be somewhere in the street crowds and that she could not fail to see him. What would she think, he wondered. Jt. was < wav case. Cgt.atUmaUueX. nil kinds hate new surroundings—-wit-ness Tabby at home. It was. the first street parade. Caliph, the head devil of the leopard clan, detested the noise of band music. None of the family was overly fond of human beings, and crowds of them frazzled leopardian nerves completely. A leopard with rasped nerves is dangerous. To make it worse, the cats, thanks to delays in the costuming department, had never before seen Sammy in pink tights. And to top it all, Sammy was nervous himself — something a trainer has no earthly business to be, ever. And the more he thought of Kitty being somewhere in the crowd the more nervous he became. ,

The parade hadn’t gone two blocks before Caliph, sensing the unrest in his master, began to show his independence. He sulked every time he passed Sammy in that never ending promenade of the cage, glared at him sidewise and snarled —getting a rousing belt on the nose with Sammy’s rawhide that didn’t improve his temper. But Caliph wasn’t alone in his mood. Eliza, his big mate, never took her bftleful eyes off Sammy for an instant, While Hindoo, the biggest of the youngsters, kept his mouth open and his teeth bared two-thirds of the time. Eten Never and Forever, the hitherto fairly amiable cubs, frankly and open-

ly foreswore allegiance to the banner of King Edwards. It helped matters not at all that at the very first avenue crossing some one on the curb yelled: “Pipe Sammy Edwards all done up in pinkies! Gee, Sammy, but it briugs out the legs great!”—an extremely embarrassing remark, since Sammy from boyhood had been painfully conscious of his how limbs. Well, what with the’ animats katCg I " like the deuce and the kidding he got | from old acquaintances along the linfe, and what with —most of all — on tiie lookout for Kitty the eyes tha-y should have been attending very strict® ly indeed to the leopards, it happened.___ \ The fipotied beasts. -always the. bapu~~. of menagerie men’s existence at he’s • . _ were on the verge of getting out o hand when the cage reached that par ticular juncture of . two importan . „ thoroughfares where Sammy’s taxi ha been wont to stand o’ nights. Involuntarily Sammy let his eye divert from his snarling, feverishly pacing charges, to the old spot. An{. there, on the edge of the sidewalk stood Harriman, his old taxi days en ployer, and—evidently quite by acc. dent, just beside him —stood Kitty! Kitty was white, as Sammy’s glanc fell on her. Kitty was frightenee. For Kitty had been able to sense wha scarcely anybody in the crowd sus pected, for she had been investigatin; this animal business a deal in the las six months, had Kitty. She knew that things were goinj wrong in that cage. As h>r eyes an< Sammy’s met, she raised her hand Irone imperious, undeniable gest ire, anc through white lips screamed all |j the fanfare of the pageant, e’.Duck, " Sammy!” > r S|

Sammy ducked —and the razor-like claws of Caliph"*rnTssecT thinness of a whistle as thq snarling beast hurtled through the air. There -Tyras -whirl of tawny, black spotted bodies and a horrifying scrambling and snarling; an agile flashing of pink; one, two, three shots in the faces of — -< cats —and, like a ja of h,s box ’ Sammy emerge »g n( j 'the rear door of the cage, s’/one v m the hasp behind French uinps lie reached the sidCy* store ° Y or »/as no interlude. “Can I ip. my job back?” he demanded of .arrlmhn.

“You can,” replied Harriman. In just five seconds Sammy Edwards had quit one job and secured another. “Come on, Kitty,” he breathlessly urged, grasping .that almost fainting young woman by the arm; “I’ll borrow a raincoat in Ferguson's and we’ll go somewhere and have a little talk. You can’t kid me after the look that was on your face just now.” Kitty might, of course, have told him that she’d have felt just the same about a perfect stranger. But—oh, what was the use? She was too glad to.have him back alive.