style="font-size:15px;"> But Adams was as firm as adamant and as resolute as a lion. Among the thousands who saw him dressed in his grotesque hunter’s suit, and witnessed the apparent vigor with which he “performed” the savage monsters, beating and whipping them into apparently the most perfect docility, probably not one suspected that this rough, fierce-looking, powerful demi-savage, as he appeared to be, was suffering intense pain from his broken skull and fevered system, and that nothing kept him from stretching himself on his deathbed but that most indomitable and extraordinary will of his.
After the exhibition had been open six weeks, the Doctor insisted that Adams should sell out his share in the animals and settle up all his worldly affairs; for he assured him that he was growing weaker every day, and his earthly existence must soon terminate.
“I shall live a good deal longer than you doctors think for,” replied Adams, doggedly; and then, seeming after all to realize the truth of the Doctor’s assertion, he turned to me and said: “Well, Mr. B., you must buy me out.” He named his price for his half of the “show,” and I accepted his offer. We had arranged to exhibit the bears in Connecticut and Massachusetts during the summer, in connection with a circus, and Adams insisted that I should hire him to travel for the summer, and exhibit the bears in their curious performances. He offered to go for $60 per week and traveling expenses of himself and wife.
I replied that I would gladly engage him as long as he could stand it, but I advised him to give up business and go to his home in Massachusetts; “for,” I remarked, “you are growing weaker every day, and at best cannot stand it more than a fortnight.”
“What will you give me extra if I will travel and exhibit the bears every day for ten weeks?” asked old Adams, eagerly.
“Five hundred dollars,” I replied, with a laugh.
“Done!” exclaimed Adams. “I will do it; so draw up an agreement to that effect at once. But mind you, draw it payable to my wife, for I may be too weak to attend to business after the ten weeks are up, and if I perform my part of the contract, I want her to get the $500 without any trouble.”
I drew up a contract to pay him $60 per week for his services, and if he continued to exhibit the bears for ten consecutive weeks I was then to hand him, or his wife $500 extra.
“You have lost your $500!” exclaimed Adams on taking the contract; “for I am bound to live and earn it.”
“I hope you may, with all my heart, and a hundred years more if you desire it,” I replied.
“Call me a fool if I don’t earn the $500!” exclaimed Adams, with a triumphant laugh.
The “show” started off in a few days, and at the end of a fortnight I met it at Hartford, Connecticut.
“Well,” says I, “Adams, you seem to stand it pretty well. I hope you and your wife are comfortable?”
“Yes,” he replied, with a laugh; “and you may as well try to be comfortable too, for your $500 is a goner.”
“All right,” I replied; “I hope you will grow better every day.”
But I saw by his pale face, and other indications, that he was rapidly failing.
In three weeks more, I met him again at New Bedford, Mass. It seemed to me, then, that he could not live a week, for his eyes were glassy and his hands trembled, but his pluck was great as ever.
“This hot weather is pretty bad for me,” he said, “but my ten weeks are half expired, and I am good for your $500, and, probably, a month or two longer.”
This was said with as much bravado as if he was offering to bet upon a horse-race. I offered to pay him half of the $500 if he would give up and go home; but he peremptorily declined making any compromise whatever.
I met him the ninth week in Boston. He had failed considerably since I last saw him, but he still continued to exhibit the bears and chuckled over his almost certain triumph. I laughed in return, and sincerely congratulated him on his nerve and probable success. I remained with him until the tenth week was finished, and handed him his $500. He took it with a leer of satisfaction, and remarked, that he was sorry I was a teetotaller, for he would like to stand treat!
Just before the menagerie left New York, I had paid $150 for a new hunting-suit, made of beaver-skins similar to the one which Adams had worn. This I intended for Herr Driesbach, the animal-tamer, who was engaged by me to take the place of Adams whenever he should be compelled to give up.
Adams, on starting from New York, asked me to loan this new dress to him to perform in once in a while in a fair day when we had a large audience, for his own costume was considerably soiled. I did so, and now when I handed him his $500 he remarked:
“Mr. B., I suppose you are going to give me this new hunting-dress.”
“Oh no,” I replied. “I got that for your successor, who will exhibit the bears to-morrow; besides, you have no possible use for it.”
“Now, don’t be mean, but lend me the dress, if you won’t give it to me, for I want to wear it home to my native village.”
I could not refuse the poor old man anything, and I therefore replied:
“Well, Adams, I will lend you the dress; but you will send it back to me.”
“Yes, when I have done with it,” he replied, with an evident chuckle of triumph.
I thought to myself, he will soon be done with it, and replied:
“That’s all right.”
A new idea evidently seized him, for, with a brightening look of satisfaction, he said:
“Now, Barnum, you have made a good thing out of the California menagerie, and so have I; but you will make a heap more. So, if you won’t give me this new hunter’s dress, just draw a little writing, and sign it, saying that I may wear it until I have done with it.”
Of course, I knew that in a few days at longest he would be “done” with this world altogether, and, to gratify him, I cheerfully drew and signed the paper.
“Come, old Yankee, I’ve got you this time—see if I hain’t!” exclaimed Adams, with a broad grin, as he took the paper.
I smiled, and said:
“All right, my dear fellow; the longer you live, the better I shall like it.”
We parted, and he went to Neponset, a small town near Boston, where his wife and daughter lived. He took at once to his bed, and never rose from it again. The excitement had passed away, and his vital energies could accomplish no more.
The fifth day after arriving home, the physician told him he could not live until the next morning. He received the announcement in perfect calmness, and with the most apparent indifference; then, turning to his wife, with a smile, he requested her to have him buried in the new hunting suit.
“For,” said he, “Barnum agreed to let me have it until I have done with it, and I was determined to fix his flint this time. He shall never see that dress again.”
His wife assured him that his request
