The Schooner Bay Home for Indigent and Invalid Seamen
The Circus Comes to Town
by Julie Feldman
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and all its canon characters are the property of R.A. Dick and 20th Century Fox. I make no money from this work.
Chapter 1:
It was a bright sunny morning in late May, and as the ghost of Captain Daniel Gregg stood on the widow's walk, spy glass in hand, he predicted fair weather for the rest of the day and night. While the sun was sparkling on the water before him, he heard the whistle and the chug of the morning train behind him. It had come from Boston and would end it's trip in Bangor farther east. Schooner Bay was a small village, but at this time of year many passengers would be leaving the train at their small station. Of course there were the usual salesmen but by the middle of the month the "summer" people would start arriving as well.
He was of two minds about these visitors; on the one hand, he had pride in Schooner Bay, but on the other, the invasion of these landlubbers who hadn't the least feeling for the sea annoyed him. They crowded the streets and shops of the town, were scandelous on the beaches and fools on the water. Of course, the citizens of the town might agree with him in general, but the money they brought to the owners of the shops, restaurants and and guest houses were important.
Schooner Bay still had its fleet of trading schooners and fishing boats which had sustained the populace since the founding of the village before the revolutionary war. But "modern" times were bringing change faster than the ghost could have ever imagined. Why now there was that monstrosity of a summer rooming house called the Majestic Sea Side Hotel southwest of the town past the great houses of the Figgs, the Grovers and the Coopers. It had the astonishing number of 25 guest rooms and it sat right on the dunes, just waiting for a hurricane to wash it into the sea. And if that wasn't bad enough, across the dune road on the salt flats was the nearly completed Schooner Bay House. The Majestic opened for the season on May 1st and closed on September 30th, when its owners migrated to newly fashionable Florida to run their winter resort, the Majestic St. Augustine Hotel. Captain Gregg felt that the people who stayed in these sorts of establishments were even louder and more crass than those folks who paid the locals to stay in a room in their house for a week or two. And the bathing costumes! They were positively indecent! Men in striped underwear! Women with their lower arms exposed and short skirts over their stockings! It was absolutely maddening!
A jingling distracted him from these thoughts. "Ah," he thought to himself, "the circus is back!"
The circus had been an annual event since the end of the Civil War. He had attended once, just before his last voyage, and had enjoyed it greatly. The townsfolk viewed the arrival of the troop as a harbinger of spring and they were sure to pack the small tent every evening of the week that the circus was in town. First of course was the setting up of the tent and the management of the animals, which attracted many boys away from the school house. More than one made the decision then and there to run away with the circus folk at the end of the week and some years a boy did indeed leave with the troop as a roustabout. During the afternoons you could come by and see the more exotic animals, like a bear or monkeys or once even an elephant. For a penny you could get a bag of peanuts and feed a few of the less dangerous animals. The clowns would run around a bit and the man on stilts would walk around town rousing the local's appetite for the evening show. Once the tent was opened to the waiting crowd, they would be entertained with gymnasts, tightrope walkers, trained horses, dogs (and the one-time elephant) and of course, more clowns. For Schooner Bay, only the Strongest Man in New England Contest was a more special event.
Naturally, the inhabitants of The Home for Indigent and Invalid Seamen in Gull Cottage and Wren Cottage were just as eager to attend the circus festivities as any one else in town. Red Secor and his wife Amy talked of nothing but the monkeys, Peter Cannon and Charlie Fish were looking forward to the dancing horses, Hanibal Booth was preparing himself to escort the Home's Cook and Housekeepr Martha Grant and Socrates "Sock" Demetriou, Sam Tudor and Joe Costa were having naughty thoughts about the circus women in their short skirts that showed their ankles and even (gasp!) sometimes their calfs.
As he watched the circus parade to their temporary home at the far end of town, Daniel Gregg smiled to himself. Over the past year he had made his presence known to the townspeople, and if he was still an object of fascination, at least no one was afraid of him anymore. That meant that he could escort Carolyn Muir, the Matron of the home, to the event. What a lovely sight she would be in her best outfit! And she would be on his arm, and no one else's. The townspeople and the few early summer visitors would whisper and comment at how beautiful she was, but he knew that she only had eyes for him … and her charges, of course.
And he pitied the school children who could hear the sounds of the circus folk and their animals as they made their way past the town's newly enlarged school house. If their teachers were kind, they'd let their charges outside to watch the parade, but if someone was a scamp, they'd be left inside to wash the chalk board or clap the chalk dust out of the erasers!
