Back Aa

Careers of Danger and Daring

<hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>THE AËRIAL ACROBAT</h2> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>I</h2> <h3>SHOWING THAT IT TAKES MORE THAN MUSCLE AND SKILL TO WORK ON THE HIGH BARS</h3> <div class='cap'>A   FEW years ago I had the pleasure of traveling for ten days with a great circus, and in this way came to know some very interesting people—elephant-keepers, lion-tamers, trapeze performers, bareback riders, not to mention the bearded lady, the dog-faced boy, and other side-show celebrities who used to eat with us in the cook-tent—there was one gentleman, appareled in blue velvet, who ate with his feet, for the reason that he had no arms, and would reach across for salt or butter with an easy knee-and-ankle movement that was a perpetual surprise.</div> What strange things one sees traveling with a circus! Every night there is a mile of trains to be loaded, every morning a tented city to be built. Such hard work for everybody! Two performances a day, besides the street procession. And what a busy time in the tents! Leapers getting ready, double-somersault men getting ready, clowns stuffing out false stomachs and chalking their faces, kings of the air buckling on their spangles. Ouf! How glad we all were when five o'clock came, and the concert was over, and the "big top," with its spreading amphitheater and its four great center-poles, stood silent and empty! It was at this five-o'clock hour one day that I first saw little Nelson, the ten-year-old trapeze performer, and that picture remains among the pleasantest of my circus memories. I can recall more exciting things, like the fight between two jealous wrestlers, or the mystery of the lost Chinese giant, or the story of a wrecked train, when the wild animals escaped and the fat lady was rescued with difficulty from a burning car. And I can recall sad things, the case of that poor trapeze girl, two weeks a widow, who nevertheless went through her act twice a day and tripped away kissing her hands to the crowd while her heart was breaking. And saddest of all was the case of beautiful "Zazel," once the much-advertised "human cannonball," then suddenly a helpless cripple after a fall from the dome of the tent. Her husband, one of the circus men, told me how she lived for more than a year in a plaster case swung down from the ceiling, and of her sweetness and patience through it all. And she finally recovered, I am glad to say, so that she could walk—a pale, weak image of this once splendid circus queen. But let me come to Nelson. This sturdy little fellow was one of the circus children, "born on the sawdust," brought up to regard lion cages as the proper background for a nursery, and thinking of father and mother in connection with the flying bars and bareback feats. It was Nelson's ambition to follow in his father's steps and become a great artist on the trapeze. Indeed, at this time he felt himself already an artist, and at the hour of rest would walk forth into the middle ring all alone and with greatest dignity go through his practice. He would not be treated as a child, and scorned any suggestion that he go out and play. Play? He had work to do. Look here! Do you know any man who can throw a prettier row of flip-flaps than this? And wait! Here's a forward somersault! Is it well done or not? Did he come over with a good lift? Like his father, you think? Ah! I can still see his chest swell with pride. Nelson was not a regular member of the show; he was a child, and merely came along with his parents, the circus being his only home; but occasionally, after much teasing or as a reward for good behavior, his father would lead the boy forth before a real audience. And how they would applaud as the trim little figure in black-and-yellow tights rose slowly to the tent-top, feet together, body arched back, teeth set on the thong of the pulley-line that his father held anxiously! And how the women would catch their breath when Nelson, hanging by his knees in the long swing, would suddenly pretend to slip, seem to fall, then catch the bar cleverly by his heels and sweep far out over the spread of faces, arms folded, head back, and a look that said plainly: "Don't you people see what an artist I am?" This boy possessed the two great requisites in a trapeze performer, absolute fearlessness and a longing to perform in the air—which longing made him willing to take endless pains in learning. It would seem that acrobats differ from divers, steeple-climbers, lion-tamers, and the rest in this, that from their early years they have been strongly drawn to the career before them, to leaping, turning in the air, and difficult tricks on the trapeze and horizontal bars. The acrobat must be born an acrobat, not so much because his feats might not be learned by an ordinary man, but because the particular kind of courage needed to make an acrobat is not found in the ordinary man. In other words, to be an aërial leaper or an artist on the flying bars is quite as much a matter of heart as of agility and muscle. There are men who know how to do these things, but can't. In illustration of this let me present three of my circus friends, Weitzel and Zorella and Danny Ryan, trapeze professionals whose daring and skill are justly celebrated. Zorella's real name, I may say, is Nagel, and so far from being a dashing foreigner, he is a quiet-spoken young man from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he learned his first somersaults tumbling about on sawdust piles. And at sixteen he was the only boy in the region who could do the giant swing. Whereupon along came a circus with an acrobat who needed a "brother," and Nagel got the job. Two days later he began performing in the ring, and since then—that was ten years ago—he hasn't missed a circus day. <div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus61.jpg" width-obs="356" height-obs="600" alt=""AS THEY SHOOT TOWARD THE MAN HANGING FOR THE CATCH FROM THE LAST BAR."" title="" /> "AS THEY SHOOT TOWARD THE MAN HANGING FOR THE CATCH FROM THE LAST BAR."</div> The act that has given these three their fame includes a swing, a leap, and a catch, which seems simple enough until one learns the length and drop of that swing, and how the leapers turn in the air, and what momentum their bodies have as they shoot toward the man hanging for the catch from the last bar. It is Weitzel who catches the other two. He was "understander" in a "brother" act before he learned the trapeze; and the man who earns his living by holding two or three men on his head and shoulders while they do tricks of balancing is pretty sure to build up a strong body. And Weitzel needs all his strength when Danny springs from the pedestal over there at the tent-top fifty-two feet away, and, swinging through a half-circle thirty-six feet across, comes the last sixteen feet flying free, and turning twice as he comes. For all his brawny arms, Weitzel would be torn away by the clutch of that hurling mass, were not the strain eased by the stretch of fourteen thongs of rubber, seven on a side, that support his bar cords. And sometimes, as the leapers catch, the bar sags full four feet, and then, as they "snap off" down to the net, springs nine feet up, so that Weitzel's head has many a time bumped the top support. The catcher-man must hold himself ready for a dozen different leaps, must watch for the safety clutch where the four hands grip first at the elbows, then slide down the forearms to the wrists and hold there where the tight-bound handkerchiefs jam; he must know how to seize Zorella by the ankles when he shoots at him feet up after a backward double; he must know how to land Danny when he comes turning swiftly with eyes blindfolded and body bound in a sack. All these feats are hard enough to do, yet still harder, one might say, is the mere starting to do them. There are scores of acrobats, well skilled in doubles and shoots and twisters, who would not for their lives go up on the pedestal whence Ryan and Zorella make their spring, and simply take the first long swing hanging from the trapeze. Nothing else, simply take the swing! The fact is, there is an enormous difference between working on horizontal bars say ten feet above ground, and on the same bars thirty feet above ground, or between a trapeze act with leaps after a moderate swing, and the same act with leaps after a long swing. Often I have watched Ryan and Zorella poised on the pedestal just before the swing and holding the trapeze bar drawn so far over to one side that its supporting wires come up almost horizontal; and even on the ground it has made me dizzy to see them lean forward for the bar which falls short of the pedestal, so that they can barely catch it with the left-hand fingers, while the right hand clings to the pedestal brace. They need the send of that initial spring to give them speed, but— Well, there was a very powerful and active man in Columbus, Ohio, a kind of local athlete, who agreed, on a wager, to swing off from the pedestal as Danny and Zorella did. And one day a small company gathered at the practice hour to see him do it. He said it was easy enough. His friends chaffed him and vowed he "couldn't do it in a hundred years." The big man climbed up the swinging ladder to the starting-place, and stood there looking down. When you stand on the pedestal the ground seems a long way below you, and there is little comfort in the net. The big man said nothing, but began to get pale. He had the trapeze-bar all right with one hand; the thing was to let go with the other. For ten minutes the big man stood there. He said he wasn't in a hurry. His friends continued to joke him. One man urged him to come down. The professionals told him he'd better not try it if he was afraid—at which the others laughed, and that settled it, for the big man was afraid; but he was stubborn, too, and, rising on his toes, he threw his right arm forward and started. He caught the bar safely with his right hand, swept down like a great pendulum, and at the lowest point of the swing was ripped away from the bar with the jerk of his two hundred pounds, and went skating along the length of the net on his face until he was a sorry-looking big man with the scratch of the meshes. Not one athlete in twenty, they say, without special training, could hold that bar after such a drop. Zorella cited a case in point where a first-class acrobat was offered a much larger salary by a rival circus to become the partner of an expert on the high bars. "This man was crazy to accept," said Zorella, "and everything was practically settled. The two did their act together on the low bars in great shape. Then they tried it on the high bars, and the new man stuck right at the go-off. Queerest thing you ever saw. He had to start on the end bar with a giant swing,—that gives 'em their send, you know,—then do a backward single to the middle bar, then a shoot on to the last bar, and from there drop with somersaults down to the net. All this was easy for him on the low bars, but when he got up high—well, he hadn't the nerve to let go of the first bar after the giant swing. He kept going round and round, and just stuck there. Seemed as if his hands were nailed fast to that bar. We talked to him, and reasoned with him, and he tried over and over again, but it was no use. He could drop from the last bar, he could shoot from the middle bar, but to save his life he couldn't let go of the first bar. I don't know whether he was afraid, or what; but he couldn't do it, and the end of it was, he had to give up the offer, although it nearly broke his heart." And even acrobats accustomed to working at heights feel uneasy in the early spring when they begin practising for a new season. The old tricks have always in a measure to be learned over again, and they work gradually from simple things to harder ones—a straight leap, then one somersault, then two. And foot by foot the pedestal is lifted until the body overcomes its shrinking. Even so I saw Zorella one day scratched and bruised from many failures in the trick where Weitzel catches him by the ankles. Here, after the long swing, he must shoot ahead feet first as if for a backward somersault, and then, changing suddenly, do a turn and a half forward, and dive past Weitzel with body whirling so as to bring his legs over just right for the catch. And every time they missed of course he fell, and risked striking the net on his forehead, which is the most dangerous thing an acrobat can do. To save his neck he must squirm around, as a cat turns, and land on his back; which is not so easy in the fraction of a second, especially if you happen to be dazed by a glancing blow of the catcher-man's arm. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.