Struggles and Triumphs · Chapter 42 (1/2)

During the summer of 1866, Mr. Edwin L. Brown, Corresponding Secretary of the “Associated Western Literary Societies,” opened a correspondence with me relative to delivering, in the ensuing season, my lecture on “Success in Life,” before some sixty lyceums, Young Men’s Christian Associations, and Literary Societies belonging to the union which Mr. Brown represented. The scheme embraced an extended tour through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa, and I was to receive one hundred dollars for every repetition of my lecture, with all my travelling expenses on the route. Agreeing to these terms, I commenced the engagement at the appointed time, and, averaging five lectures a week, I finished the prescribed round just before New Year’s. Before beginning this engagement, however, I gave the lecture for other associations at Wheeling, Virginia, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky. I also delivered the lecture in Chicago, for Professor Eastman, who at that time had one of his Business Colleges in that city. He engaged the celebrated Crosby Opera House for the occasion, and I think, with, perhaps, two exceptions, I never spoke before so large and intelligent an audience as was there assembled. It was estimated that from five to six thousand ladies and gentlemen were gathered in that capacious building; and nearly as many more went away unable to obtain admission. I was glad to observe by the action of the audience, and by the journals of the following day, that my efforts on that occasion were satisfactory. Indeed, though it is necessarily egotistical, I may truly say that with this lecture I always succeeded in pleasing my hearers. I may add, that I have invariably, as a rule, devoted to charitable purposes every penny I ever received for lecturing, except while I was under the great Jerome Clock cloud in England, when I needed all I could earn.

My western tour was delightful; indeed it was almost an ovation. I found, in fact, that when I had strayed so far from home, the curiosity exhibitor himself became quite a curiosity. On several occasions, in Iowa, I was introduced to ladies and gentlemen who had driven thirty miles in carriages to hear me. I insisted, however, that it was more to see than to hear; and I asked them if that was not really the case. In several instances they answered in the affirmative. In fact, one quaint old lady said: “Why, to tell you the truth, Mr. Barnum, we have read so much about you, and your Museum and your queer carryings-on, that we were not quite sure but you had horns and cloven feet, and so we came to satisfy our curiosity; but, la, me! I don’t see but what you look a good deal like other folks, after all.”

While at the West, I visited my sister, Mrs. Minerva Drew, and her family, at Bristol, Wisconsin, where they reside on a farm which I presented to her about twenty years ago. Her children having grown up and married, all except her son, Fairchild B. Drew, who had just attained his majority, his father (Ezekiel Drew) wished to retain his services on the farm. Fairchild, however, felt that the farm was not quite large enough for his aspirations. I found also that he coveted a neighboring farm, which, with its stock, was for sale for less than five thousand dollars. I bought it for him, on condition that he should continue the care of the old farm, and that the two should be worked together. I trust that the arrangement will prove beneficial to all concerned; for there is great pleasure in helping others who try to help themselves; without such effort on their part, all good offices in their favor are thrown away⁠—it is simply attempting to make a sieve hold water.

On my tour, in attempting to make the connection from Cleveland, Ohio, to Fort Wayne, Indiana, via Toledo, I arrived at the latter city at one o’clock, p.m., which was about two hours too late to catch the train in time for the hour announced for my lecture that evening. I went to Mr. Andrews, the superintendent of the Toledo, Wabash and Western Railway, and told him I wanted to hire a locomotive and car to run to Fort Wayne, as I must be there at eight o’clock at night.

“It is an impossibility,” said Mr. Andrews; “the distance is ninety-four miles, and no train leaves here till morning. The road is much occupied by freight trains, and we never run extra trains in this part of the country, unless the necessity is imperative.”

I suppose I looked astonished, as well as chagrined. I knew that if I missed lecturing in Fort Wayne that evening, I could not appoint another time for that purpose, for every night was engaged during the next two months. I also felt that a large number of persons in Fort Wayne would be disappointed, and I grew desperate. Drawing my wallet from my pocket, I said:

“I will give two hundred dollars, and even more, if you say so, to be put into Fort Wayne before eight o’clock tonight; and, really, I hope you will accommodate me.”

The superintendent looked me thoroughly over in half a minute, and I fancied he had come to the conclusion that I was a burglar, a counterfeiter, or something worse, fleeing from justice. My surmise was confirmed, when he slowly remarked:

“Your business must be very pressing, sir.”

“It is indeed,” I replied; “I am Barnum, the museum man, and am engaged to speak in Fort Wayne tonight.”

He evidently did not catch the whole of my response, for he immediately said:

“Oh, it is a show, eh? Where is old Barnum himself?”

“I am Barnum,” I replied, “and it is a lecture which I am advertised to give tonight; and I would not disappoint the people for anything.”

“Is this P. T. Barnum?” said the superintendent, starting to his feet.

“I am sorry to say it is,” I replied.

“Well, Mr. Barnum,” said he, earnestly, “if you can stand it to ride to Fort Wayne in the caboose of a freight train, your well-established reputation for punctuality in keeping your engagements shall not suffer on account of the Toledo, Wabash and Western Railroad.”

“Caboose!” said I, with a laugh, “I would ride to Fort Wayne astride of the engine, or boxed up and stowed away in a freight car, if necessary, in order to meet my engagement.”

A freight train was on the point of starting for Fort Wayne; all the cars were at once ordered to be switched off, except two, which the superintendent said were necessary to balance the train; the freight trains on the road were telegraphed to clear the track, and the polite superintendent pointing to the caboose, invited me to step in. I drew out my pocketbook to pay, but he smilingly shook his head, and said: “You have a through ticket from Cleveland to Fort Wayne; hand it to the freight agent on your arrival, and all will be right.” I was much moved by this unexpected mark of kindness, and expressing myself to that effect, I stepped into the caboose, and we started.

The excited state of mind which I had suffered while under the impression that the audience in Fort Wayne must be disappointed now changed, and I felt as happy as a king. In fact, I enjoyed a new sensation of imperial superiority, in that I was “monarch of all I surveyed,” emperor of my own train, switching all other trains from the main track, and making conductors all along the line wonder what grand mogul had thus taken complete possession and control of the road. Indeed, as we sped past each train, which stood quietly on a side track waiting for us to pass, I could not help smiling at the glances of excited curiosity which were thrown into our car by the agent and brakemen of the train which had been so peremptorily ordered to clear the track; and always stepping at the caboose door, I raised my hat, receiving in return an almost reverent salute, which the occupants of the waiting train thought due, no doubt, to the distinguished person for whom they were ordered by special telegram to make way.

I now began to reflect that the Fort Wayne lecture committee, upon discovering that I did not arrive by the regular passenger train, would not expect me at all, and that probably they might issue small bills announcing my failure to arrive. I therefore prepared the following telegram which I despatched to them on our arrival at Napoleon, the first station at which we stopped:

Lecture Committee, Fort Wayne:⁠—Rest perfectly tranquil. I am to be delivered at Fort Wayne by contract by half-past seven o’clock⁠—special train.

At the same station I received a telegram from Mr. Andrews, the superintendent, asking me how I liked the caboose. I replied:

The springs of the caboose are softer than down; I am as happy as a clam at high water; I am being carried towards Fort Wayne in a style never surpassed by Caesar’s triumphal march into Rome. Hurrah for the Toledo and Wabash Railroad!

At the invitation of the engineer, I took a ride of twenty miles upon the locomotive. It fairly made my head swim. I could not reconcile my mind to the idea that there was no danger; and intimating to the engineer that it would be a relief to get where I could not see ahead, I was permitted to crawl back again to the caboose.

I reached Fort Wayne in ample time for the lecture; and as the committee had discreetly kept to themselves the fact of my non-arrival by the regular train, probably not a dozen persons were aware of the trouble I had taken to fulfil my engagement, till in the course of my lecture, under the head of “perseverance,” I recounted my day’s adventures, as an illustration of exercising that quality when real necessity demanded. The Fort Wayne papers of the next day published accounts of “Barnum on a Locomotive,” and “A Journey in a Caboose”; and as I always had an eye to advertising, these articles were sent marked to newspapers in towns and cities where I was to lecture, and of course were copied⁠—thus producing the desired effects, first, of informing the public that the “showman” was coming, and next, assuring the lecture committee that Barnum would be punctually on hand as advertised, unless prevented by “circumstances over which he had no control.”

The managers of railroads running west from Chicago pretty rigidly enforce a rule excluding from certain reserved cars all gentlemen travelling without ladies. As I do not smoke, I avoided the smoking cars; and as the ladies’ car was sometimes more exclusive and always more comfortable than the other cars, I tried various expedients to smuggle myself in. If I saw a lady about to enter the car alone, I followed closely, hoping thus to elude the vigilance of the brakeman, who generally acted as doorkeeper. But the car Cerberus is pretty well up to all such dodges, and I did not always succeed. On one occasion, seeing a young couple, evidently just married, and starting on a bridal tour, about to enter the car, I followed closely, but was stopped by the doorkeeper, who called out:

“How many gentlemen are with this lady.”

I have always noticed that young newly-married people are very fond of saying “my husband” and “my wife;” they are new terms which sound pleasantly to the ears of those who utter them; so in answer to the peremptory inquiry of the doorkeeper, the bridegroom promptly responded:

“I am this lady’s husband.”

“And I guess you can see by the resemblance between the lady and myself,” said I to Cerberus, “that I am her father.”

The astounded husband and the blushing bride were too much taken aback to deny their newly-discovered parent, but the brakeman said, as he permitted the young couple to pass into the car:

“We can’t pass all creation with one lady.”

“I hope you will not deprive me of the company of my child during the little time we can remain together,” I said with a demure countenance. The brakeman evidently sympathized with the fond “parient” whose feelings were sufficiently lacerated at losing his daughter through her finding a husband, and I was permitted to pass. I immediately apologized to the young bride and her husband, and told them who I was, and my reasons for the assumed paternity, and they enjoyed the joke so heartily that they called me “father” during our entire journey together. Indeed, the husband privately and slyly hinted to me that the first boy should be christened “P. T.” My friend the Rev. Dr. Chapin, by the by an inveterate punster, is never tired of ringing the changes on the names in my family; he says that my wife and I are the most sympathetic couple he ever saw, since she is “Charity” and I am “Pity” (P. T.) On one occasion, at my house in New York, he called my attention to the monogram, P. T. B., on the door and said, “I did it,” “Did what,” I asked: “Why that,” replied the doctor, “P. T. B.⁠—Pull The Bell, of course,” thus literally ringing a new change on my initials.

At another time during my western lecturing trip, I was following closely in the wake of a lady who was entering the favorite car, when the brakeman exclaimed; “You can’t go in there, sir!”

“I rather guess I can go in with a lady,” said I, pointing to the one who had just entered.

“Not with that lady, old fellow; for I happen to know her, and that is more than you do; we are up to all these travellers’ tricks out here; it’s no go.”

I saw indeed that it was “no go,” and that I must try something else; “Look here, my dear fellow,” said I; “I am travelling every day on the railroads, on a lecturing tour throughout the West, and I really hope you will permit me to take a seat in the ladies’ car. I am Barnum, the Museum man from New York.”

Looking sharply at me for an instant, the altogether too wide-awake brakeman exclaimed: “Not by a d⁠⸺⁠n sight you ain’t! I know Barnum!”

I could not help laughing; and pulling several old letters from my pocket, and showing him the directions on the envelopes, I replied:

“Well, you may know him, but the old fellow has changed in his appearance, perhaps. You see by these letters that I am the ‘crittur.’ ”

The brakeman looked astonished, but finally said: “Well, that is a fact sure enough. I know you when I come to look again, but really I did not believe you at first. You see we have all sorts of tricks played on us, and we learn to doubt everybody. You are very welcome to go in, Mr. Barnum, and I am glad to see you,” and as this conversation was heard throughout the car, “Barnum, the showman,” was the subject of general observation and remark.

I fulfilled my entire engagement, which covered the lecturing season, and returned to New York greatly pleased with my Western tour. Public lecturing was by no means a new experience with me; for, apart from my labors in that direction in England, and occasional addresses before literary and agricultural associations at home, I had been prominently in the field for many years as a lecturer on temperance. My attention was turned to this subject in the following manner:

In the fall of 1847, while exhibiting General Tom Thumb at Saratoga Springs, where the New York State Fair was then being held, I saw so much intoxication among men of wealth and intellect, filling the highest positions in society, that I began to ask myself the question, What guarantee is there that I may not become a drunkard? and I forthwith pledged myself at that time never again to partake of any kind of spirituous liquors as a beverage. True, I continued to partake of wine, for I had been instructed, in my European tour, that this was one of the innocent and charming indispensables of life. I however regarded myself as a good temperance man, and soon began to persuade my friends to refrain from the intoxicating cup. Seeing need of reform in Bridgeport, I invited my friend, the Reverend Doctor E. H. Chapin, to visit us, for the purpose of giving a public temperance lecture. I had never heard him on that subject, but I knew that on whatever topic he spoke, he was as logical as he was eloquent.