SHE weighed four hundred pounds. Her neck, shoulders and arms bulged with muscle. Her torso was set on hips far broader than her shoulders. Her small head was covered with short curly flaxen hair that seemed continually damp. It looked as out of place on her mountain of body as a small knob on an immense potato. Her feet were usually spread apart as if in readiness for some impending shock. They were covered with pink sandals and fastened with silk ribbons about her giant ankles. The circus billed her as “The Female Hercules, The Strongest Lady in the World.” The flamboyant posters showed her as a young Juno with a face as placid as Queen Victoria’s.
Her face was not without attraction. Her eyes were blue and beautiful. They stared sadly at a world without understanding. She had a red moist underlip that trembled with suppressed hurt. She would toss her head saucily as if to show the world that she was feminine, with the hopes and dreams and longings of her sex.
Twenty-five years before she had first opened her eyes in a Hanoverian village. She was christened Lila. Life laughed at her kindly parents when the baby grew out of all proportions. At the age of twelve she could carry her father and mother. At thirteen she began to support the entire family as a weight lifter.
She came to America at the age of sixteen and first appeared in a Chicago Museum on South State street. After investing heavily in photographs, which did not sell, she broke her contract. The manager, a waspy little Greek, objected. She twisted his neck until he yelled for mercy in Greek and English. She then tore through the Museum like a raging elephant and left demolished paraphernalia all about her.
She joined out as a side show attraction with a traveling circus, and soon prospered. It was not long until she began to clothe herself in the fluffiest of dresses and the widest and most beribboned of hats. She imprisoned her body in the strongest of stays, and did everything to make herself as dainty as her little sisters.
Longing for love, she became an omnivorous reader of romance. Always scattered about her were paper-backed novels in German and English. They were worlds into which her tired soul escaped. Her lips would move constantly as she read. Every now and then a little sigh would escape her. It would be followed with a heavier sigh at the end of each chapter. She would wipe her blue eyes often at the impassioned words uttered by the hero. She would be out of patience at the vacillations of the heroine who could not recognize true love in the first few chapters. When the book had been finished and hero and heroine had been united in joy forever, she would shake her perspiring flaxen head slowly and wipe her eyes, then pat the cover of the book as if it were the cheek of a child. “Ach Gott! How Beeootiful. How Sfeet.” She would lay the book down gently and pick up another which told the same story in much the same way.
Lila had her dreams. And they were not of the circus, but always of the man who would come. She wanted to make sure and recognize him when he did. She often talked of him. At such times she would become shy and circumspect. But deep in her heavy breast a great urge was pounding.
She was wealthy as circus people go. She had a bundle of express money orders as big as her arm. Besides, she carried a “grouch bag” containing two thousand dollars. A grouch bag is usually carried suspended by a cord around the neck. It might be called the reserve bank of the circus rover. Lila often loaned money on proper security and with adequate interest. And often, though she became offended if anyone mentioned it, she gave money to those in need.
Life soon turned a page for Lila. On it were written many things.
The five Padronis sent for a new top-mounter to form the pinnacle of their human pyramid act. He left a stranded outfit to finish the season with us.
When Lila first saw Anton the world stood still for a moment. It then turned to chaos. He was the man. The great strong woman’s body became limp and flabby at sight of him. She was filled with an ineffable longing. Everything seemed different. She gave me five dollars to run an errand for her. She was a heroine in one of her paper-backed novels. She bought more finery—and shoes that hurt her feet. She began to wear a vivid red ribbon across her forehead. She also purchased two yards of fancy material with which to make new garters.
Anton sat at a table across from her in the cook house. She always watched him, fascinated. He was lithe, delicate, and furtive-eyed. Curly knots of brown hair formed at the nape of his neck. Lila made a mental photograph of him every day. She filled it with details of her own which she had garnered from the paper-back novels.
Alas, poor Lila, the pity of life and the wonder—the owls that would be eagles, and Amazons that would be sylphs.
Anton once played with his food as Lila watched. He felt superior to the fare placed in front of him. “The poor thing,” thought Lila, “maybe he’s sick.” She called the waiter and said, “Tell the chef to give you some of mine chicken unt to slice it up nice.” The waiter started toward the kitchen, nonplussed, when Lila called, “Give it to the nice-lookin’ man sidding over there,” pointing to Anton.
When the waiter placed the chicken in front of Anton, he looked up in surprise. When told that Lila had donated the delicacy, he bowed toward her.
Lila’s heart pumped faster.
“Who is the fat heifer?” he asked the waiter.
“Oh she’s the Female Hercules. She works in the side show. She ain’t a bad egg,” replied the waiter.
“Not half bad,” commented Anton. “Good chicken, too.”
Though contacts between those who work in the side show and those who listen to the applause of the big top is always limited, they soon became friends. When they first shook hands Anton expected crushed fingers. Instead, Lila’s handshake was so gentle it would not have crushed a rose-leaf. And when Anton smiled at Lila half in ridicule, it filled her whole life with joyful madness. She would look in his eyes and forget she was the Female Hercules. The starved woman’s soul in her fluttered and sang. When she turned away from Anton he would laugh sardonically. A woman in love is not an analyst. Else, whom would she marry? Her eyes held a soft light and her mammoth breast filled with desire to embrace the world at thought of Anton.
Trained to see the love-hunger of women, Anton made swift love to Lila. She responded, of course, as was her destiny.
She became more valuable to the side show; surpassing all previous efforts in weight lifting. Once, after Anton had petted her, she lifted eleven New York farmers and one editor.
With increasing strength came increasing dreams. She pictured herself in a little white-tiled German kitchen in the valley of the Rhine. She would sing to herself as she prepared food for Anton. She saw a garden with cabbages, kohlrabbi, carrots and onions, and white geese swimming on the river. She saw Anton, the master, riding a black stallion over their farm. And often as she dreamed a voice would break in on her reverie—“Inside, ladies an’ gentlemen, is the Female Hercules, the strongest woman in the world.”
Lila was a real woman and not subtle. She told Anton how much money she had saved. All unaware she immediately became more attractive to him.
The top-mounter never had money. The dice game in the stake and chain wagon was the principal reason. He owed five hundred dollars to Buddy Conroy, who operated the game. He had promised to pay so much each time the ghost walked. But he had not paid. Anton always expected to win a great sum at each game. Just why is quite unfathomable. Conroy was at the head of an able crew. Any of them could take a pair of dice and roll the scale—from two to twelve and back again. They would shoot dice all summer on the road and work in Chicago gambling houses during the winter.
And once Lila saw Anton dining with Marie, the bareback rider, who was slender and beautiful. She returned to her tent with heart as heavy as her body and picked up a paper-backed novel. She tried to read for a long time. Her blue eyes blurred.
“It be not fair,” she sobbed. “It be not fair.”
She tore the book in two and walked to the mirror. “Mein Gott,” she wailed, “you be not good to me.”
That agony passed quickly. For no woman was ever a realist long.
Lila soon had dreams again.
While the days merged into fall Anton was a busy person. He was winning with Lila and losing with Conroy. Somehow he never seemed able to pay Conroy anything. Lila had loaned him small sums which he always forced her to take back.
“No gentleman would take money for keeps from a woman, Lila, my little dear,” he would tell her. And once again Lila saw angels throwing roses from the sky.
It was the last pay-day before the circus closed. All wanted to win money for the winter. Excitement ran high.
“Now listen, Mounter, I want you to pay me after the game if you win,” said Conroy as he winked at a pal.
“All right, I will,” answered Anton. “I feel lucky today.”
Anton was really lucky at first. Then a pair of loaded dice entered the game. He lost four times in a row. The last pass took every cent he had.
After it was over Conroy said, “Listen Guy, you had your chance. Now’f you don’t pay me before the show closes, I’ll have the gang beat you up. See!”
“I’ll pay you, Buddy. Just give me time.”
“Well you better,” returned Conroy.
Anton wandered down the midway thinking of Lila. As he approached her stand inside the tent, she gave him a warm smile.
“Say listen, Lila. I’ve got something very important to talk to you about,” he said, as the band blared outside. “Can I see you tonight, Girlie?”
Lila’s heart leaped. She could hardly control herself.
“Why—why—yes—come right here after the show,” she said, ecstatically.
“All right, Lila,” replied Anton, a happy lilt in his voice.
“What a cinch,” he thought as he went to his dressing-room.
The evening dragged slowly for Lila. When the last show was over she hurried to her tent. She took her usual rub-down with more energy and then bathed herself with eau-de-cologne. She then dressed in her finest garments.
With trembling fingers she fastened snaps and tied bows. The big moment of her life was rapidly approaching. She listened joyfully to the band playing in the big show. She could tell by the number being played how far the show had advanced. It would not be long now till the finale. The races were now on. She must hurry. She floundered, rhinoceros like, about the tent. She looked in the mirror and for the tenth time dabbed powder on her face.
She then sat down on a specially-built canvas chair and tried to compose herself. All the drowned emotions of her life bubbled to the surface. She felt like singing. Twice she rose and looked out through the tent flap.
Then, as if to control her joy, she sang some melancholy German lines:
And if the stars in heaven
My sufferings could know,
Their light would soon be given
To lessen of my woe.
But none of them can know it—
One only knows my pain;
And only him could do it
Has rent my heart in twain.…
Her heavy voice boomed through the little tent as a sudden burst of wind flapped the covers of her paper-backed novels.
“Something very important”—her mind clung to the words. Then dreams again, more dreams, a long honeymoon. Maybe she’d just work at the fairs and let Anton run the little farm. Maybe she wouldn’t have to lift so many farmers on a plank at the fairs—three or four would be enough. That would be easy. And it didn’t make no difference if the place wasn’t on the Rhine. America was plenty good with Anton. A chicken coop chuck full of white hens. She closed her eyes and held her head backward.
Resting her great hands on the arms of the canvas chair, she sat quite still, her mountainous body dressed in delicate finery. Through her flaxen head roved dreams one after another. It was as if she sailed a beautiful river and saw one wonderful farm after another, with houses all white and slate roofs and gilded lightning rods and cattle lolling in the shade of red barns. Anton would like a farm in this country. He said so. She felt the money in her grouch bag.
The dream intoxicated her.
Then a voice said, “Hello, Lila, you sleepin’?”
“Oh no, Anton. I was chust dreamin’. Come on in an’ siddown. Here—over here—dot’s fine.”
Anton smiled confidently while Lila wiped her forehead with an insufficient square of lace.
“My ain’t it warm tonight?” she asked.
“It sure is,” replied Anton while actually wondering why she had no oil heater in her tent.
He moved closer to her. “Lila, you do like me, don’t you—you like me a lot, don’t you, dear—you’re my real friend, hain’t you, dear?”
She rubbed her heavy hands together.
“Oh more so than a friend do I like you, Anton—much more so than a friend—much more so—I wonder kin you know how much more so, Anton.”
“Yes, I know. That’s fine, dear,” returned Anton, looking about at the tent’s tawdry disarray.
“You know the season’s closing soon, don’t you, Lila?”
“Dot’s right,” assented Lila, moving closer to Anton.
“Well you see, Lila—I’m broke—and I wondered———”
“Oh never mind dot, Anton. I’m so much more than a friend, never don’t mind dot. I have got plenty for both.”
“That’s fine of you, Lila—you’re a peach—you’ll make a wonderful wife. You sure got it on Marie five ways from Sunday. I’m offa her the more I see of you, little one.” A pause.
“You know, Lila,” he resumed, “I get tired of the show business, as I told you before. I’d like to settle down, wouldn’t you? I gotta letter today from a buddy. He’s got the finest little piece of land with a lake on it.”
“Yah, yahh. Go on, go on,” said Lila.
“Well a fellow could get it for three thousand, and he could raise everything on it. Why they say the wild geese come there by the thousands. And you can sell ’em for a dollar apiece.
“It’s a trick lake, Lila. The geese light on it in the winter and it freezes over every night. Then all you have to do is to wait till morning and go out in a boat and load it with geese. You can catch forty thousand geese every winter that way. He told me about it because he’s got a gold mine near Pittsburgh and ain’t got time to work the farm any more. Says he’s tired of draggin’ geese offen the lake.”
“Is dot so? How good dot is,” smiled Lila.
“I’ll say it’s good, Lila. The house is on a big hill an’ you can see through the trees for miles and miles. Gosh, I never had such a good time. I sure wish I could buy the place, but then I ain’t got no money. You know I got hurt last year. Making the last mount, my foot slipped offa Benito’s shoulder an’ I spilled—cracked three ribs. It’s kep’ me broke ever since.”
“Why you poor boy,” said Lila, “poor boy. And yust to think you must work now.” She stroked his hair. “Why diden’ you ask for more money?”
“Well it is pretty tough, Lila, but, you know, I’m all man I am. I never whimper. I got an old mother an’ I’m good to her. She always says to me, she says, ‘A boy who’ll be good to his old mother’ll be good to any other woman,’ an’ I always pet her an’ say, ‘Shut up, ma, you old jollier.’ Course away down deep I admire women. If it wasn’t for women, how’d any of us get here?”
There never was such a light in Lila’s eyes before.
“You good, good boy,” she said, holding his head against her ample bosom, large enough for the miseries of the world. “Such a good boy—an’ dot little lake dat the geese come to—poor geese. We’ll let your mudder stay wit’ us too. An’ we won’t hurt the geese.”
“You know, Lila, I’m learnin’ to think a lot o’ you. You’re a mighty fine woman. You got a heart in you bigger’n all outdoors. I ain’t never seen a woman like you, I ain’t.”
Anton laid his arm on her immense shoulder. Her eyes closed. Little lines of joy ran around them.
“Oh, I am so happy,” she exclaimed, holding Anton to her as gentle as a mother holds a babe.
“I just knew—I just knew. I been a good girl all the time, Anton. Some man I knew would care for good girl. Oh, Anton, how good, how nice, how sweet you are.” She sobbed, her tremendous bosom moving.
“But, Lila, any man must care for you. How capable you are and how strong.”
“Oh, Anton, I do be strong, but you don’t know how hard it be before you come. So lonesome, all the time I sit an’ read an’ want my man too, an’ my little house an’ my lake an’ my geese an’ odder tings like odder women. An’ here all time I leeft men an’ cows an’ tings. Oh, I’m so hapee, so hapee.” She clapped her hands together. Anton jumped at the noise.
“I leeft sometimes an’ my shoulders they hurt, an’ nobody t’inks dot I ever be seeck. But oh, Anton, I do be sometime so seeck, I cannot see all du people who gawk at me a liftin’ farmers.”
“That’s a tough life, dearie, but you know it won’t last forever. There’s happier days ahead now.” He put his arms partly about her. “Wonderful woman,” he crooned, “just like a little girl.” There was a joyful pause for Lila.
“Can you cook, girlie?” asked Anton.
“Oh yes, yes, Anton, I can cook everyt’ing an’ can make lager be-er unt schmearkase—unt— unt———”
“Well, well that’ll be fine. I’ll tell you, Lila, what do you say we buy that little farm I told you about? I can wire my friend fifteen hundred if you say so. Then we can get married the last day of the circus here. And by that time my friend’ll have everything fixed for us, and we can go right there. It ain’t far to New York State from here. It’s only eleven now, an’ I can git down and wire the money before twelve.”
“Oh dot’ll be fine, Anton. Here, I give two thousand to you.” She took her grouch bage from her neck and handed the money to him. “Blessy boy, so good, so kind, so much more’n a friend. I love you—so much—much more. You breeng me happeeness.”
Anton’s hands shook as he took the twenty hundred dollar bills.
“Don’t shake, Anton Boy, I’m happier’n you,” Lila said as she rose and walked with him to the tent door.
“I’ll be back in an hour. It may take a little longer, but don’t worry, girlie, I’ll be here sure.” Anton smiled as he kissed her cheek.
She was too happy to read for the next hour.…
* * *
In three mornings they found her in crumpled finery. A little blue bottle was clenched in her right hand. Many paper-backed novels were piled near her trunk. It was packed as if for a long journey.