s 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
aerial 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.

[Illustration: "AS THEY SHOOT TOWARD THE MAN HANGING FOR THE CATCH FROM
THE LAST BAR."]

The act that has