Struggles and Triumphs, P. T. Barnum [good books to read in english .txt] 📗

Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph, so as to complete the magic circle of thirteen?

“Do you not know that chapter thirteen of First Corinthians is the grandest in the Bible, with verse thirteen as the culmination of all religious thought? And can you read verse thirteen of the Fifth chapter of Revelation without the highest rapture?”

But my clerical friend had not heard of a certain curious circumstance which occurred to me after I had mailed my letter to him and before I received his answer.

On leaving Mount Vernon for Cedar Rapids the next morning, the landlord, Mr. Ballard, drove me to the railroad depot. As I was stepping upon the cars, Mr. Ballard shook my hand, and with a laugh exclaimed: “Goodbye, friend Barnum, I hope you won’t get room number thirteen at Cedar Rapids today.” “I hope not!” I replied earnestly, and yet with a smile. I reached Cedar Rapids in an hour. The lecture committee met and took me to the hotel. I entered my name, and the landlord immediately called out to the porter:

“Here John, take Mr. Barnum’s baggage, and show him to ‘number thirteen!’ ”

I confess that when I heard this I was startled. I remarked to the landlord that it was certainly very singular, but was nevertheless true, that “number thirteen” seemed to be about the only room that I could get in a hotel.

“We have a large meeting of railroad directors here at present,” he replied, “and ‘number thirteen’ is the only room unoccupied in my house.”

I proceeded to the room, and immediately wrote to Mr. Ballard at Mount Vernon, assuring him that my letter was written in “number thirteen,” and that this was the only room I could get in the hotel. During the remainder of my journey, I was put into “number thirteen” so often in the various hotels at which I stopped that it came to be quite a matter of course, though occasionally I was fortunate enough to secure some other number. Upon returning to New York, I related the foregoing adventures to my family, and told them I was really half afraid of “number thirteen.” Soon afterwards, I telegraphed to my daughter who was boarding at the Atlantic House in Bridgeport, asking her to engage a room for me to lodge there the next night, on my way to Boston. “Mr. Hale,” said she to the landlord, “father is coming up today; will you please reserve him a comfortable room?” “Certainly,” replied Mr. Hale, and he instantly ordered a fire in “room thirteen!” I went to Boston and proceeded to Lewiston, Maine, and thence to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the hotel register there has my name booked for “number thirteen.”

My experience with this number has by no means been confined to apartments. In 1867 a church in Bridgeport wanted to raise several thousand dollars in order to get freed from debt. I subscribed one thousand dollars, by aid of which they assured me they would certainly raise enough to pay off the debt. A few weeks subsequently, however, one of the “brethren” wrote me that they were still six hundred dollars short, with but little prospect of getting it. I replied that I would pay one-half of the sum required. The brother soon afterwards wrote me that he had obtained the other half, and I might forward him my subscription of “thirteen” hundred dollars. During the same season I attended a fair in Franklin Hall, Bridgeport, given by a temperance organization. Two of my little granddaughters accompanied me, and telling them to select what articles they desired, I paid the bill, twelve dollars and fifty cents. Whereupon I said to the children, “I am glad you did not make it thirteen dollars, and I will expend no more here tonight.” We sat awhile listening to the music, and finally started for home, and as we were going, a lady at one of the stands near the door, called out: “Mr. Barnum, you have not patronized me. Please take a chance in my lottery.” “Certainly,” I replied; “give me a ticket.” I paid her the price (fifty cents), and after I arrived home, I discovered that in spite of my expressed determination to the contrary, I had expended exactly “thirteen” dollars!

I invited a few friends to a “clambake” in the summer of 1868, and being determined the party should not be thirteen, I invited fifteen, and they all agreed to go. Of course, one man and his wife were “disappointed,” and could not go⁠—and my party numbered thirteen. At Christmas, in the same year, my children and grandchildren dined with me, and finding on “counting noses,” that they would number the inevitable thirteen, I expressly arranged to have a high chair placed at the table, and my youngest grandchild, seventeen months old, was placed in it, so that we should number fourteen. After the dinner was over, we discovered that my son-in-law, Thompson, had been detained down town, and the number at dinner table, notwithstanding my extra precautions, was exactly thirteen.

Thirteen was certainly an ominous number to me in 1865, for on the thirteenth day of July, the American Museum was burned to the ground, while the thirteenth day of November saw the opening of “Barnum’s New American Museum,” which was also subsequently destroyed by fire.

Having concluded this veritable history of superstitious coincidences in regard to thirteen, I read it to a clerical friend, who happened to be present; and after reading the manuscript, I paged it, when my friend and I were a little startled to find that the pages numbered exactly thirteen.

XLV A Story-Chapter

“Every Man to His Vocation” and “Nature Will Assert Herself”⁠—Rest by the Wayside⁠—A Half-Shaved Party⁠—Consternation of a Clergyman⁠—Natives in New York⁠—Doctoring a Corn-Doctor⁠—Religious Railways⁠—The Brighton Bugle Business⁠—Cash and Conscience⁠—Castles in the Air⁠—A Deluded Antiquarian⁠—Gambling and Politics⁠—Irish Wit⁠—About Conductors⁠—Dr. Chapin as a Punster⁠—Fowl Attempts⁠—A Pair O’ Ducks⁠—Cutting a Sick Friend⁠—Rev. Richard Varick Dey⁠—His Crime and Its Consequences⁠—Foreordination⁠—Practical Joking by My Father⁠—A Valuable