The Rope Clothesline, According to Girl

The rope clothesline according to Girl: The story goes like this—Agnes was hanging clothes on her clothesline, which was attached to a pulley outside her fifth-floor flat. Years earlier she had worked for the circus as a beautiful artistic trapeze performer. She probably wore the standard pink leotards and sequined skimpy dresses. She had retired from the circus when she married the circus "horseshoer," at his insistence.

On this particular day, in December, 1905, as Agnes was hanging out the laundry from their apartment window, she reached for the next portion of empty clothesline, and the pulley broke loose from her house.

She determined that the freshly washed clothes were not to end up in the mud below, and she knew she could not re-attach the pulley. So, remembering her rope tricks with the trapeze, she held tightly on to the rope, wrapping it around her arm, protecting the clean laundry, she jumped toward the pole at the other end.

She missed the pole on her first attempt, but was able to land for a moment on the window of the adjoining apartment.

She jumped a second time, and this time she caught the pole. However, the impact nearly knocked her unconscious.

She gripped onto the pole with both hand and both legs, and lowered herself to the ground.

Slightly stunned and embarrassed (but with no bones broken), and with the help of neighbors, she was able to crawl back to her apartment, and cook dinner for her husband before he came home later that evening (New York Times, December 23, 1905).

Okay, so I never hung from the rope myself, however, it would be an adventure that I would certainly consider.

I am sure that there were others, in the years following Agnes (perhaps a bored, stay-at-home housewife that had a secret ambition to join the circus and walk the rope), who would stare at such a clothesline and wonder what might have been.

Maybe, it was a girl who just went to see the latest Spiderman or Superman movie; perhaps she had a superhero wish.

Perhaps, there might be the girl who just got back from Las Vegas, where she saw girls in Cirque du Soleil dancing high above the audience on ropes of silver and gold, all painted up, and wearing skimpy designer costumes; and a five-story clothesline caused her to dream of flying with the best of the performers.

Well, my imagination ended on the other side of the window.

I saw noisy kids, dog messes, and plaid drippy work shirts and towels.

Agnes’s story would go down in history. She was the performer. It was going to be her story and I liked it like that.