Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories. Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas онлайн

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This statement, without qualification, would hardly do justice to my old team-mate. Had we made it, the act would have been a honey. And had Charley not said, grandly, to a “skirted” audience, “This is going to be good. Keep your eyes pinned on this Johnny boy, the G-R-E-A-T and only—,” in real circus ballyhoo fashion, it might not have been a flop. Charley used a lot of circus terms in his work with us.

The trouble was, I “weakened”—just a wee bit, to be sure—at the moment when I took the air, and after making a complete turn came down also a wee bit tardy for Charley to get a firm hold on me, in his head-down swinging position. Had he caught me by the wrists, he would have tossed me, on the third swing, face about, back to the bar from which I had made the takeoff.

In practice, another boy — usually George Foreman, brother of Mrs. L. C. McVay and Mrs. R. A. DeForest — would stand by to right me, in case of a slip. George was tall and very active. Sometimes we would change positions in this act. I know now that this would have been a grand time for me to have called out, in the usual way, “Let George do it!”