The Traveling Circus
The small crowd in the bar of the hotel sat quietly as the old storyteller took the floor. I listened intently to his tale about the time a circus passed through the district for the first time.
The travelling circus always created a lot of interest when it arrived at a country town. An advance agent visited the town beforehand and offered free tickets to shop keepers who put advertising posters in their front windows. The circus followed a week or so later and usually held a grand parade through the town before setting up in a vacant paddock on the outskirts. For most of the local people, it was the only opportunity they ever had to see exotic animals such as lions and tigers or the likes of bears and elephants.
A crowd always gathered at the location to watch the large marquee being erected. The circus staff including the performers all pitched in and with the help of the elephants, stood the giant poles that supported the enormous canvas enclosure. A well drilled and experienced team could get the whole thing up in a few hours, much to the amazement of the onlookers.
The posters, followed by the parade and then the setting up created an air of expectation. The monotonous routine for the circus people was an exciting event for the local inhabitants. Everyone would go to the circus. Children laughed at the clowns and gasped at the aerial performers while the parents adored the fancy costumes and athletic feats. It didn't matter the tent was draughty or the wooden plank seats were hard and uncomfortable.
It came to pass one day that a circus had finished its run through the country and decided to take a short cut back to the city. The short cut led the stream of caravans, mobile cages and wagons along a bush track in the outback. When the outfit came across an isolated bush pub, the publican arranged for the whole circus to camp in the hotel's horse paddock.
Apparently one of the elephants had a problem, so when the circus moved on the next day, the pachyderms and their minder remained at the hotel. The keeper intended to sort out whatever ailed the elephant before catching up with the rest of the circus. He reckoned he knew everything there is to know about animals and ignored the local stockmen who offered advice.
Although the keeper had a lot more experience with elephants than the stockmen, he wasn't to know they knew exactly how to fix the problem. His righteous and I know better than you attitude quickly got the stockmen offside and they decided to take matters into their own hands. The keeper might have known how to handle elephants, but he wasn't prepared for what the local wags had in store.
The story goes that Goliath, the largest of the elephants had constipation. The minder planned to feed the enormous animal with three bales of hay that had been soaking overnight in the beer slops from the hotel. He reckoned the fermented hay would loosen the elephant's bowels and make it empty out in the horse paddock. That way, it wouldn't mess up the wagon or other animals.
Unbeknown to the smart-arse keeper and in the middle of the night, two local wags emptied a whole keg of stale beer into the elephant's feed trough. Just to be sure their remedy would work, they also added ten doses of horse laxative for good measure. Everyone arose early the next morning to see if the night's work had done the trick.
The keeper looked aghast at the sight of his beloved animal staggering around the small paddock. It farted and burped constantly, letting out foul smelling gas that could be lit with a match. The giant pachyderm was as drunk as a skunk and it's belly bulged alarmingly!
In his haste to render Goliath some assistance, the keeper grabbed the elephant's tail and tried to guide the animal towards a straw covered area set aside as a bed. The moment he pulled on the twitching tail, the swollen pachyderm let fly with 200 pounds of steaming hot poop.
The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked the keeper to the ground. As he lay there in the slimy mess, the elephant continued evacuating its bowels on top of him.
"It took four of us and a front end loader to get that smart-arse keeper out of the truck load of elephant shit," the story teller concluded as he reached for another beer.