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train was never scheduled to go that way. 'It came up the main line via the Cedar Hill yards in New Haven on schedule.' "
It was a different show this year. John Ringling North was out, replaced by Robert Ringling, seemingly at the whim of his mother, Mrs. Edith Ringling, widow of Charles, one of the original five brothers.
The struggle for control of the show seesawed between two sets of heirs: John Ringling North and his brother Henry, who were nephews of John Ringling; and Mrs. Edith Ringling and her son Robert, joined by their ally Aubrey Ringling, widow of Richard (son of original brother Alf), and newly married to James Haley. The state of Florida also factored into the equation, since the childless John Ringling had left it his mansion, his art museum and 30 percent of the show. At first his will provided handsomely for the North boys and their mother—who along with her son John was named his executor—but when John Ringling had a falling out with them late in life, he signed a codicil taking away everything except $5,000 for their mother. The mistake John Ringling made was never removing the Norths as his executors. They took the will to court and in the meantime as trustees of the estate voted the 30 percent of the stock. To thwart John Ringling North's sometimes overwhelming ambition, Edith and Aubrey Ringling entered a pact known as the Ladies' Agreement; on all top-level matters they were legally bound to vote their shares together.
In this manner, Edith's son Robert—an opera singer with no circus

experience—came to replace the flamboyant John Ringling North. He pledged to return the show to its roots, doing away with North's blue four-poler and bringing back the pre-1939 six-pole white top. There was nothing as fabulous as Balanchine's elephant ballet during Robert's reign, but

the Broadway-style pageantry North favored remained, as did their problems with the Office of Defense Transportation, war rationing and a serious lack of manpower.
The war needed everyone; industry had even requisitioned some of the little people among the performers to work in tight spaces on aircraft assembly lines. In Providence, George W. Smith had 670 workingmen, well below the usual complement of 960, and it took three of these, he complained, to do the work of one good man. For the ushers and ticket sellers and concessionaires there was lots of "cherry pie," the circus term for the extra work of setting up the grandstand's wooden folding chairs. Troupers did double duty, helping tear down and set up, proving they were "with it and for it."
Maybe the lack of manpower was the reason they were late getting into Hartford, or maybe it was the Christmas celebration. It was only a matter of time before they missed a show. They'd been doing more evening-only dates since the beginning of the war, often performing just a late show on the day they arrived or just a matinee on the day they had to jump to another city. But the jump from Providence to Hartford was only ninety miles, and their schedule gave them more than six hours to cover that distance. It's possible that the circus fell back on its usual excuse of the trains out of sheer habit.
    It was bad luck blowing a show, and show folks were notoriously superstitious. Since the great aerialist Lillian Leitzel's fatal fall, Merle Evans, the conductor of the band, refused to play "Crimson Petal," her theme music. Scranton, where the show closed in the strike year, was a jinx town. Whistling in the dressing room was bad luck, and peanut shells on the floor, and the old camelback trunks, but blowing a show was the worst.
    The first section arrived at the Windsor Street siding at 9:45 Wednesday morning, nearly five hours late. The Flying Squadron, it was called, and it carried the menagerie cages and cookhouse wagons and the trucks and tractors and elephants to move them. A crowd of towners— adult circus buffs and children—watched the razorbacks unload the flats. Most followed the