Newfie June - The Circus Orphans

Any of you, who are familiar with the word "scallywag", understand that it particularly suits a certain kind of child. We all knew one growing up, didn't we? One of those kids who got into mischief, even if it was in church. Heck, they could invent mischief to get into if there wasn't any handy.

Some of us were blessed (or cursed, depending on which point of view you had) to have one in our family.

I've told you before that I came from a family of eight kids. Well, my family had not one, but two scallywags! My poor Mother, God rest her soul! I wonder how she ever raised the brood of us and lived to be seventy five.

Children numbers four and six were our glowing examples of "trouble on wheels". The older was a boy (Tom) and the younger a girl (Rita). Tom was a mischievous, fun-loving kid. He had a grin permanently plastered to his face. Rita was a tom boy who wouldn't let any boy get the better of her. She once took a dare and, hanging like a little monkey onto the gutter edges, went hand over hand along the edge of a barn. She was nine at the time! Rita could have done those commercials for athletic wear as she truly "knew no fear". Well, one afternoon, when Tom was about nine and Rita about six, Tom and a couple of his friends started talking about trying to "sneak" in to see the fair that was in town. The fair/circus had set up camp on what is today the site of the Arts building of Memorial University. Back then, it was a huge empty field way on the outside of town. All kids want to visit the circus and my brothers and sisters were no different, I'm sure, but our family was poor and there just wasn't the money to go. Tom and his friends were determined that they would get in to see that circus and Rita was determined not to be left behind. She started after them, but tripped on the edge of the walkway that ran in front of the apartment building we lived in, hitting the cement hard and skinning her elbow, but good ( in fact, she still bears the scar today). Although hurt and crying, she wouldn't go inside to get cleaned up as she knew her brother would take off without her. Instead, Rita followed the gang around back of the apartment building and espied a line of clothes on the lines that ran behind the place. Taking a child's shirt off the line, she swabbed away all the blood she could from her arm and tossed the shirt in through an open bedroom window of our ground floor apartment. Off she went to follow the boys. When the kids got to the gates of the fairgrounds they realized that you needed money to get in and they didn't have any. Just then, a bus pulled up and a group of noisy, excited children started to stream off. They were from one of the local orphanages and a couple of frazzled ladies were trying to keep some semblance of order and keep the kids together. They were putting a special little ball cap on each orphan to alert the ride operators that these children rode free. Rita and Tom and friends sidled up to the group of kids and calmly joined the crowd. They too got caps and were whisked inside the gates to an afternoon of free delights. They had a ball and even got a free ice cream cone and hotdog!

Life was good…until it came time to leave later in the afternoon. They got herded with the "other" orphans towards the gates and the waiting buses. Now what? They were starting to get very frightened and realized they were in over their heads now. So Tom and Rita decided they would get near the buses and then make a run for it when no one was watching. They scampered off into the tall grass of the field nearby and beat it for home.

They actually made it home and thought no one was the wiser.

Rita stoically said nothing about the cut on her arm. She wore long sleeves and kept quiet about it, even though it must have stung like crazy.

You know what gave them away? The shirt! Our Mom(who was a clean freak) found it a couple of days later. They came clean about the whole thing, got their spankings along with a stiff lecture about impersonating poor little orphans. You can imagine, our poor mother was mortified.

Many years later, however, the story has become a family treasure. Those two little rascals were exactly what the person who coined the word scallywag had in mind, don't you think?

© Newfie June




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