Take up Serpents: The Further Adventures of Firefly, the Tiny Detective

By Elaine Hatfield

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 26, 2007
• ISBN: 9781462805846

Elaine Hatfield

Elaine Hatfield, Professor of Psychology at the University of Hawaii, has written 12 books—two of which won the American Psychological Association’s National Media Award. Richard L. Rapson, Professor of History at the University of Hawaii, has also written a dozen books, most of which have focused on the psychology of American life, past and present. He has been a T.V. moderator, Dean of New College, and named by the Danforth Foundation as one of the nation’s best teachers. Together the authors have published a sextet of serious novels and detective stories.

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Copyright © 2006 by Elaine Hatfield & Richard L. Rapson.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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36634

Books by Elaine Hatfield and Richard L. Rapson

Fiction

Rosie

Recovered Memories

Darwin’s Law

Deadly Wager: A Kate MacKinnon Murder Mystery

Vengeance is Mine: A Kate MacKinnon Murder Mystery

The Adventures of Firefly, the Tiny Detective

Non-Fiction

Emotional Contagion

Love, Sex, and Intimacy: Their Psychology, Biology, and History

Love and Sex: Cross-cultural Perspectives

By Richard L. Rapson

Amazed by Life: Confessions of a Non-Religious Believer

Individualism and Conformity in the American Character

Britons View America: Travel Commentary, 1860-1935

The Cult of Youth in Middle-Class America

Major Interpretations of the American Past

Denials of Doubt: An Interpretation of American Hisstory

Fairly Lucky You Live Hawaii! Cultural Pluralism in the 50th State

American Yearnings: Love, Money, and Endless Possibility

By Elaine Hatfield

Interpersonal Attraction

Equity: Theory and Research

A New Look at Love

Human Sexual Behavior

Mirror, Mirror: The Importance of Looks in Everyday Life

Psychology of Emotion

Thou shall take up serpents

and if ye drink any deadly thing,

it shall not hurt thee.

—Mark16: 17-18—

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1 A FATEFUL LETTER: FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

2 A TREK TO PINE MOUNTAIN

3 PINE MOUNTAIN, KENTUCKY: TINY TIM’S SOLILOQUY

4 PINE MOUNTAIN, KENTUCKY: FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

5 A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

6 A WARNING

7 REPENTANCE: SWAMI’S SOLILOQUY

8 A CREAK IN THE NIGHT FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

9 MIDNIGHT TERRORS

10 TROUBLE

11 AND MORE TROUBLE

12 ON THE DARKNESS IN MEN’S SOULS: SWAMI’S SOLILOQUY

13 A VISIT TO A MOUNTAIN PROPHET

14 A SNAKE IN THE GARDEN

15 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST MIZZ RATLIFF’S SOLILOQUY

16 SMALL TOWN GOSSIPS: FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

17 MIZZ BISHOP’S FARM

18 ATTACKED BY REBS: TINY TIM’S SOLILOQUY

19 RETURN TO THE GARDEN: FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

20 FEUDIN’, FUSSIN’ AND FIGHTIN’

21 GOD ALMIGHTY BROWN’S SOLILOQUY

22 GOD ALMIGHTY’S SOLILOQUY: II

23 WELCOME TO THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST WITH SIGNS FOLLOWING: FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

24 WEEDON T. COLEMAN’S SOLILOQUY

25 WELCOME TO THE HARVEST JUBILEE: FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

26 A PICNIC UNDER THE TREES

27 THOU SHALL TAKE UP SERPENTS

28 SATAN STRIKES AGAIN

29 I SAY UNTO THEE: ARISE . . .

30 THE FUNERAL

31 A MEETING IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE

32 THE TRIAL BEGINS: MR. THORN REVIEWS THE FACTS OF THE CASE

33 THE TRIAL: THE BATTLE LINES ARE DRAWN

34 A QUESTION OF CHARACTER

35 THE TRIAL: A QUESTION OF CHARACTER: II

36 THE TRIAL: MR. THORN’S ELOQUENCE STUN

37 MIZZ RATLIFF’S SOLILOQUY

38 THE TRIAL: MR. THORN’S ELOQUENCE WEARIES FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

39 THE TRIAL: JUST A SIMPLE COUNTRY LAWYER

40 THE TRIAL: A RIVER IN TIME

41 THE TRIAL: MR. THORN’S CLOSING STATEMENT

42 THE VERDICT

43 THE VERDICT: MIZZ RATLIFF’S SOLILOQUY

44 THE VERDICT: PREACHER OBADIAH DUGGAN’S SOLILOQUY

45 THE VERDICT: ALMIGHTY BROWN’S SOLILOQUY

46 THE VERDICT: PREACHER WILLARD COLEMAN’S SOLILOQUY

47 THE VERDICT: DARLENE HARLIS BROWN’S SOLILOQUY

48 PEACE IN THE VALLEY: FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

49 MOVING ON

50 NEW YORK, NEW YORK!

Endnotes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Professor Kathryn Hoffmann, University of Hawai’i; Ms. Erin Foley, of the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin; Ms. Mary Morganti, Director of the Library and Archives at the California Historical Society; and the curators at the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum, and the Musée Dupuytren, the Medical Museum in Paris, France, for their patient historical research and insights on 19th century circus life. We also express our gratitude to Ms. Yen Chi Le, our friend and research assistant, for insuring that we got our facts straight.

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The Hatfield Clan in 1897

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Firefly

Thursday, August 13, 1891

1

A FATEFUL LETTER:

FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

Picking up the creamy envelope, I felt a thrill of excitement. I would have recognized that flowing handwriting anywhere. The missive came from the Swami the Snake charmer, a dear friend from Captain Barney’s Circus days.

The very word Swami aroused tender recollections. Once upon a time, I was plain old April Gladstone, provoker of prayer for my poor parents, a provider of gossip for our neighbors, and a source of endless merriment for the ruffians in Boone County, Nebraska, who jeered at me, branded me freak and monster, and pelted me with stones. Many’s the night I spent weeping over the fate I knew would befall me once I finished grade school and was cast out into the cruel world. Who would be willing to hire a mere slip of a girl—a little person who measured in at a scant two feet, eight inches? A girl/woman weighing only 32 pounds? As they say, Pigs may fly: but they are very unlikely birds.

Then came a miracle. On June 1, 1883, my parents took me to Captain Barney’s Circus, hoping that the sight of all those sideshow marvels, human oddities, and curiosities would help resign me to my sad fate. Captain Barney spotted me in the crowd and made my parents an offer—$300, cash on the barrelhead. Sign with Captain Barney’s Circus, he promised, and I’ll take good care of April—nay, ‘Firefly’—for the rest of her life.

My father wisely decided that Captain Barney’s Traveling Circus would be my salvation, and indeed for many years it so proved. Who wouldn’t prefer being a Peerless Prodigies star, admired and petted, to being reviled and tormented by the farm folks of Boone County? As Firefly: the World’s Tiniest Woman—although admittedly that claim is certainly a stark exaggeration—I commanded star billing. I was blessed with the queenly sum of $5 a week (at least when times were good) and I traveled America over. I’ve been to colorful mining towns like Murderer’s Gulch, Git-Up-And-Get, Dead Mule, Cold Ass Creek, and Who’d a’ Thought It. In our circus family, I was well respected. (In the world of the freak show, it’s the marks, rubes, suckers, and yokels who provoke merriment.)

Then came the fall. Two years ago, just after my 15th birthday—after a series of events so tragic and sordid I can’t bring myself to mention them—Captain Barney’s Circus closed forever.

When Captain Barney’s folded its tents (literally), we circus folk felt as if we’d stumbled into a jumbled hall of mirrors. What to do next? All over America traveling circuses were fast failing. Should we try to cling on? For Tiny Tim and I, the answer was a resounding No.

Tim, the most daring of us all, took a position at Mr. Samuel Martin’s Portrait Studio in San Francisco. Tim had always admired the amazing work of photographers like Eadweard Muybridge, Ferdinand Khnopff, and Etienne-Jules Marey—the creators of wonders that will last for all time. As Tim once said: The Master stands on a ridge in the Sierras or wades into a swiftly moving stream in the Yosemite, and ‘click.’ A golden moment is captured for all eternity!

All our friends scattered like dandelion fluff blown in the wind. How terrible it was! All in an instant, I’d lost my dearest family—father, mother, and a passel of warm-hearted kin. My real family had not been glimpsed since my ninth birthday, when my well-meaning parents took me to Captain Barney’s Circus and ended up biding me Farewell forever.

The demise of Captain Barney’s Circus was devastating. No longer could I spend my days chatting with my old-time mentors Captain Barney and Mr. Zlatko Dragovic. With JoJo the Dog Faced Boy, Sweet Baby Jane (the fat lady,) Mr. Bones (the thin man,) the Illustrated Man, Miss Neither Nor, and all the other marvels whom I so loved.

Oh, I can hear Tim now. Beloved mentors!!!! he’d cry. Captain Barney’s failed because the good Captain did a midnight bunk with all the circus money. And Mr. Dragovic is now serving a life sentence in Agnews’ Asylum for the Criminally Insane in Santa Clara, condemned to remain until claimed by death. I know. I know. Mentors are not to be thieves and killers… but all of us possess our little faults and they were kind in their day.

Last Christmas, Captain Barney’s folk got together for a brief revival. To our amazement, Barney Fox appeared, promising that someday soon Captain Barney’s Circus will come marching into San Francisco, the decorated calliope trilling and the circus folk strutting their stuff—but such joy is still more a hope than a reality. Can the leopard change its spots? I wouldn’t bet on it. As of now, the revival of Captain Barney’s Circus remains a dream.

Thus, this crumpled letter from the Swami, a circus man of all work, brought me great joy. Joy and a nameless dread, too, for his message seemed most strange.

Swami was in trouble. Can you come to Pine Mountain? he begged. He urgently needed the help of Firefly’s Detective Agency,—a jest, but a jest hiding a larger truth, I knew. There was no question as to complying. If Swami had he merely whispered, Come we would have obeyed. No man is more generous than James Ewald Weaver—his true name. When Tim and I first arrived at Captain Barney’s, it was Swami who made us welcome. When we got in scrapes, it was Swami who rushed in to save us. And how many women can claim to have been saved from a marauding lion by the bravery of a friend?—Swami, who risked his life to save mine.

Within a day, Tiny Tim and I had wired Swami that we were on our way. Bidding our fond farewells to Mr. Samuel Martin and Co., we picked up our tickets, packed portmanteau, bundles, and boxes, and were on our way—traveling on the Union Pacific’s Iron Monster, all the way from San Francisco to Swami’s cabin in Pine Mountain, Kentucky. Our only hope was that we could arrive before the imps of darkness struck our beloved Swami down.

Sunday, August 16, 1891

2

A TREK TO PINE MOUNTAIN

Now Tim and I were perched on plush velvet seats, watching the American West speed by. Traveling on the Union Pacific Express is indeed breathtaking! Mr. Brandywine, a frequent traveler, claims that on trip the Union sometimes averages a dizzying 44 miles per hour! God did not intend man to travel at these hellish speeds, claims Mrs. Hannibal Smith, who occupies the seat behind us. She warns us that such recklessness may engender consumption, dropsy, or shaking fits. Still, I notice she is traveling on the Union Pacific and not via clipper ship or stagecoach. For Tim and my part, we like it.

Crossing the Great Plains was hot—amazingly hot. Gospel preachers like to speechify about fire and brimstone. Well, we were getting a fair sampling of that today. As the Union Pacific steamed from San Francisco to Omaha and thence to St. Joseph, St. Louis, and beyond, a firestorm of soot and cinders rained down on the carriages. We yearned to slam down the windows (to protect us from that fiery barrage), but the minute we did, the stench of 30 people, crowded together in a small, airless carriage, soon had us flinging them wide open again. Even so, the cabin reeked of sickened humanity, sweat, and rotting provisions (everybody’s food, once packed so beautifully in fine wicker baskets, now lay moldering in the trash strewn aisles.)

Amid the roar and rattle, Tim turned to me. "Why you think Swami wrote to us?" he asked.

I gave him a quizzical look.

He pulled out Swami’s note—now creased and stained with soot—and ran his finger along the lines: Come quick! I’m in deep trouble and fixin’ to git in deeper! Moving down the soiled missive, he added: "And this part—‘If God Almighty Brown and the People of the Sign ain’t strung me up by the time you git here, we will have a high old time’?

God Almighty Brown? Tim asked, incredulous. People of the Sign?

Swami always did have a way with words, I said.

And this part: ‘Situation desperate. Come quick.’ I mean, doesn’t that make you think of, like, General Custer scribbling off a missive to Major Reno? ‘15,000 Sioux and Cheyenne surround us. Arrive in next few minutes or all is lost.’ Now that’s all well and good. God knows I owe Swami. If you’re in a fix, he’s always there to help. But if he really is in desperate straits, won’t we be arriving a little late?

I had to agree with Tim. Sometimes Swami’s logic is powerfully perplexing.

And then there’s this part, he said. He drew his tiny finger over: We’ll have a high old time. What’s that mean? He frowned in perplexity. I don’t quite get it. How can Swami and the two of us have ’a high old time’ if he’s in fear for his life?

I didn’t know, but I was of a mind to find out.

Amazingly enough, in spite of our worries for the Swami and the misery and hardships of cross-country travel, I must admit that Tiny Tim and I were already having a high old time. It’s like that when you’re young and in love. Everything seems a Considerable adventure.

On June 9, 1890, just after my 16th birthday, Tim asked if I would marry him. Then and there, I decided to cast my lot with him and indeed I’m profoundly happy at having done so.

As a wedding present, I purchased a $25.00 Kodak detective camera for Tim and since we’ve left San Francisco, he’s been busy as a bee in a tar barrel, taking portraits of our fellow travelers. As we are always as poor as mice in an empty grain mill, Tim and I had to ask Captain Barney’s folks to loan us the $47.00 it cost each of us for the transcontinental train fare, but luckily Tim has already earned our stake back—and more. Tim contrived a little scheme. What traveler wouldn’t want a souvenir portrait taken talking to a Wild West Buffalo Bill, in cowboy regalia, or a majestic Sitting Bull, sitting proud in feathered headdress and blanket? An innocent bit of hokum, to be sure. The Heroic cowboys are just wild town boys and the Majestic Indians are generally poor, raggedy creatures come to town to beg for a few coins—but the pictures make fine keepsakes. (The passengers pay us, we pay the cowboys and Indians at the railroad stops to pose, and it all works out fine.) And Land sakes! People all like to dream. What’s the harm in a little snake oil?

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Tiny Tim

Saturday, August 22, 1891

3

PINE MOUNTAIN, KENTUCKY:

TINY TIM’S SOLILOQUY

We arrived in Pine Mountain almost a week later—on Saturday, August 22nd, about 3:00 p.m.—weary, dirty, and feeling all-overish.

In San Francisco, Firefly’s beauty always garners a great deal of attention. She’s some pumpkins! A China doll with golden curls and cornflower blue eyes. But today, in Pine Mountain, all she got were suspicious, sidewise glances. Now I know what Swami meant when he said: This town’s got a monstrous bad name for meanery. True, Firefly and I looked as disreputable as Lucifer’s cat. I was sooty as a chimney sweep and Firefly wasn’t much better. We could ’a been artists in W. S. Cleveland’s Minstrel Singers, in all their blackface, struttin’, banjo-thumpin’ glory. That is, if Cleveland’s men stood a mere three feet six inches (that’s me) and two feet eight (that’s my sweetheart, Miss Firefly, Queen of the Night.) (Poor old Firefly. When her parents bequeathed her to the circus in 1883, at nine year, she stood only two feet, two inches tall. She soon blossomed to her full stature of two feet, eight inches. The joke is that she truly believes that in the years to come, she will grow into the sequoia-like three-feet-zero, for which she so profoundly yearns!)

Now, you and I might truly argue that appearances don’t a matter a blast, but try telling that to the denizens of Pine Mountain. In the best of times, curiosities like Firefly and me inspire awe and fascination—tinged with pity and horror, maybe—but these town folks were glaring at us as slit-eyed as if we were beneath the dirt they trod on.

Gawking I don’t mind. After all, what red-blooded American wouldn’t gawk when coming upon JoJo the Dog Faced Boy, Topknot, the Alligator Man, the Hottentot Venus, or Firefly and me, out for a morning constitutional? I would too. Gawking I don’t mind. It’s the malicious contempt that burns me. God-fearing Christians, who cry Shame when they see us—assuming we’re God’s punishment for a sinful world. Young mothers who hurry their children away, protecting them from the Gypsy’s evil eye. Gaggles of merry-eyed children, giggling and pointing, as if we were savages from The Fabulous Lost City of Iximaya. Young plug-uglies, who get liquored up and think it’s oh-so-funny to torment and bedevil circus folks.

That morning, strolling around Pine Mountain, Firefly and I pretended not to notice. Normally, I’d pitch a fit if anyone slighted Firefly, but we had more serious things to trouble about—namely was our friend Swami dead or alive? Had Swami’s prophesy that God Almighty Brown and the People of the Sign would string him up come true or was he waiting for us in Brother Dillard’s Feed Store, impatient to take us home?

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Pine Mountain

Saturday, August 22, 1891

4

PINE MOUNTAIN, KENTUCKY:

FIREFLY’S TESTIMONY

When we first stepped down from the Kentucky Midland passenger train, I’d felt a thrill of apprehension. Plenty of well-wishers were milling around on the platform, but was Swami among them? I discovered that he was not. Tim and I queried the station master, who drawled: Could be Mr. Weaver’s a-waiting on y’all in Brother Dillard’s’ Feed Store. He spit out a stream of tobacco juice, and added: Then again… (Here in Pine Mountain, Swami calls himself James Ewald Weaver—his true name, but a bit peculiar-sounding to my circus trained ears.)

After a week of worry, a relief indeed to discover that Swami had not been strung up!

We then made for Pine Mountain, proper. The Appalachian community wasn’t much. A few stores hunkered down over a dirty, trash-strewn street. These shacks, probably thrown up by the first settlers who came roaring through the Cumberland Gap, were such sad affairs that they seemed about to sigh and give up the ghost while you stood there watching. A few dark-eyed children sprawled on the stoop of Hiram Summerford, Prop., dispiritedly sipping Dr. Pepper out of soda pop bottles. Their clothes had a hand me down look.

We found our old friend at Hiram Summerford’s General Store. He and Brother Hiram were chatting—sitting on rickety backed chairs set up around a cold stove. Swami’s new magic act—James E. Weaver, that simple Kentucky farmer and schoolteacher.

How happy we were to see him!

You’re early! said Swami, showing Powerfully few signs of desperation.

We nodded. Amazing but true. We had raced across the continent, but Swami seemed in no particular hurry!

After a piece of polite chitchat, Swami led us into Summerford’s grassy back-lot, where Brownie, his piebald mare, was tied. Well, the sight of Swami’s old nag set me to giggling. Again: Imagine Swami, the worldly circus wild man, settling down in this staid Appalachian community.

With a joyous whoop, Swami swung Tim and me up, then tossed up our bundles and boxes, so we could stow them in the buckboard. Once settled, Swami snapped the reins, and Brownie started off at a nice trot for the cabin on Bitter Creek, which lay on the fringes of Pine Mountain.

Traveling over these dusty, rutted roads, sustaining a serious conversation proved impossible. Swami avowed how delighted he was to see us, and we gossiped a little about our adventures since leaving Captain Barney’s Circus—but even such chit-chat proved difficult. Swami kept a sharp eye out for the ruts and potholes that gouged the road. As we bounced along, a swirl of choking dust rose up, tearing our eyes and making our throats feel raw.

Passing by a scattering of Pentecostal churches, whose hand-lettered signs announced their convictions—The Church of Jesus Christ with Signs Following, People of the New Light, and Wood’s Hole Holiness Church—Swami attempted a historical exegesis on the minute scriptural differences dividing the congregations, but it proved very confusing. To a San Francisco patriot, who doesn’t care two figs about God and religion, such doctrinal nit-picking seems as worthless as Dr. Acker’s distinction between low-pap-a-high-rum and high-pap-a-low-rum. Mostly, though, Swami spent his time cursing at the many ruts that made the Pine Mountain trail as difficult to navigate as a badly plowed field.

Hitting a peaceful patch, Swami finally consented to tell us the story of his fall from grace in the Pine Mountain community and why he had sent us that missive begging us to leave our peaceful lives in civilization so abruptly.

When Captain Barney’s Circus fell on hard times, Swami, like all the rest of us, had to design a new life plan. Unlike most of us, he had a fistful of opportunities. In Captain Barney’s Circus, Swami (who is quite clever) had proved a man of all work. Swami is a peculiar fellow. Shy of women, shy of strangers—a man who will do anything to avoid a fight… and I mean anything. Yet, at Captain Barney’s he proved a popular schoolteacher (for the younger folk,) a fortune-teller, a magician, a sword swallower, and a fire-eater—depending on what the Captain needed that day. True, what he truly yearned to be was Swami the Indian Snake Charmer—one of those turbaned Hindees, who perch cross-legged on a reed mat, toddling a gourd flute. Slowly, as the strains of that exotic melody shiver through the air, a naja naja5 arises from a basket.

Magic. Mysterious. The ancient wisdom of the East—captured in this single moment.