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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16991-h.zip b/16991-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..431371f --- /dev/null +++ b/16991-h.zip diff --git a/16991-h/16991-h.htm b/16991-h/16991-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..86a392c --- /dev/null +++ b/16991-h/16991-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5450 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Circus Comes To Town, by Lebbeus Mitchell. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.25em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + img {border: 0;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; text-align: center;} + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 30%;padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:40%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Circus Comes to Town, by Lebbeus Mitchell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Circus Comes to Town + +Author: Lebbeus Mitchell + +Illustrator: Rhoda Chase + +Release Date: November 3, 2005 [EBook #16991] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/cover.jpg"><img src="./images/cover-tb.jpg" alt="Cover" title="Cover" /></a></div> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/frontfacing.jpg" alt="This is my book" title="This is my book" /></div> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/frontis.jpg" alt="JERRY KEPT FASCINATED EYES ON THAT CHALKY WHITE FACE." title="JERRY KEPT FASCINATED EYES ON THAT CHALKY WHITE FACE." /></div> + +<div class='center'>"JERRY KEPT FASCINATED EYES ON THAT CHALKY WHITE FACE."<br /> + +"The Circus Comes to Town." (See Page <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>)</div> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h1>The Circus Comes to Town</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>LEBBEUS MITCHELL</h2> + +<div class='center'>AUTHOR OF <br /> +"<i>One Boy Too Many</i>" and "<i>Here, Tricks, Here!</i>"</div> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/title.jpg" alt="Title" title="Title" /></div> + + +<div class='center'>CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY <br /> +PUBLISHERS - - - NEW YORK</div> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> + +<div class="figleft"> +<a href="./images/binding.jpg"><img src="./images/binding-tb.jpg" alt="Binding" title="Binding" /></a> +</div> +<div class="center"><br /><br /><br /><br />OTHER LEBBEUS MITCHELL<br /> +BOOKS PUBLISHED BY<br /> +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY<br /> +ARE</div> + +<div class="center"><br /><br />ONE BOY TOO MANY<br /> +<br /> +&<br /> +<br /> +HERE, TRICKS, HERE!</div> + + +<div class="center"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN<br /> +COPYRIGHT, 1921,<br /> +BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY<br /></div> + +<div class="center"><br /><br /><br /><i>PRINTED IN U.S.A.</i></div> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/contents.jpg" alt="Contents" title="Contents" /></div> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER</td> +<td align='left'></td> +<td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">"Ask Your Mother for Fifty Cents"</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Black Half-Dollar</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_18'>18</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Width of an Elephant's Tail</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_37'>37</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jerry Learns that O-U-T Spells Out</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_49'>49</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>V.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Green Elephant Buys an Audience</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_65'>65</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Children That Cried in the Lane</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_80'>80</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tickets to Paradise</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Crocodile Tears of Celia Jane</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_112'>112</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Clown of Clowns</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_127'>127</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>X.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">"Great Sult Anna O'Queen"</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_142'>142</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Boy Named Gary</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_157'>157</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dizzy Seat of Glory</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_171'>171</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td> +<td align='left'><span class="smcap">"—And Elephants to Ride Upon"</span></td> +<td align='right'><a href='#Page_188'>188</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2>THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN</h2> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>"<span class="smcap">Ask Your Mother for Fifty Cents</span>"</h3> + + +<p>The apple seemed to Jerry Elbow too big to be true.</p> + +<p>He held it out at arm's length to get a good squint at its bigness and +its redness. Then he turned to look wonderingly after the disappearing +automobile with the lady who had tossed him the apple for directing her +to the post office. A long trail of dust rose from the unpaved street +behind the motor car.</p> + +<p>Next he addressed himself to the business of eating the apple. He rubbed +it shiny against his patched trousers, carefully hunted out the reddest +spot on it, and took a big, luscious bite. Instead of chewing the morsel +at once, he crushed it against his palate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>just to feel the mellowness +of it and to get the full flavor of the first taste of juice. Then he +chewed vigorously.</p> + +<p>He started on to Mother 'Larkey's where he had made his home for nearly +three years, ever since Mr. Mullarkey, dead this year now, had found him +by the roadside one dark night. He had just started to take a second +bite when a shout stopped him.</p> + +<p>"Hi, Jerry! What you got?"</p> + +<p>Instinctively Jerry hid the apple behind him, for it was Danny +Mullarkey's voice that he had heard.</p> + +<p>"Jerry's got something to eat!" Danny called over his shoulder to some +one out of sight. "Come on, kids!"</p> + +<p>Jerry hastily swallowed the piece of apple in his mouth and bit off the +very largest chunk he could. He knew by long and bitter experience how +little would be left for him after the Mullarkey brood had all nibbled +at it.</p> + +<p>Danny, who was past nine, reached him before Jerry could gulp down that +mouthful and take another bite, as he had intended to do. Chris and Nora +followed at Danny's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>heels, with Celia Jane, as usual, far in the rear.</p> + +<p>"Save me a bite, Jerry!" called Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"Give me a bite of your apple, Jerry," coaxed Danny.</p> + +<p>"Me, too," echoed Chris.</p> + +<p>"It looks awful nice," observed Nora. "Where'd you get it?"</p> + +<p>Jerry explained and handed her the apple first because she had not asked +for a bite. Nora bit off a small piece and was passing it on to Celia +Jane, who ran panting up to them, when Jerry stopped her by urging:</p> + +<p>"Take a bigger bite than that, Nora. I want you to."</p> + +<p>"Not till after you've had your turn again," replied Nora, who was +nearly eight and was celebrated in the Mullarkey household for a finer +sense of fair play than any of the others possessed.</p> + +<p>Celia Jane was greedy and bit off so big a chunk that she could not cram +it into her mouth, despite her heroic efforts to accomplish that feat.</p> + +<p>"That ain't fair, Celia Jane," reproved Nora. "Mother told you never to +do that again."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's <i>two</i> bites!" cried Danny. "Take it out and bite it in two."</p> + +<p>Celia Jane's mouth was too full for utterance. She held out the apple to +Danny, then freed her mouth of its embarrassment of riches and proceeded +to bite it in two.</p> + +<p>"Here, Chris," invited Danny, "take your bite next."</p> + +<p>Jerry became immediately suspicious at such unaccustomed politeness on +Danny's part and he was not at all surprised when Danny, once the +remainder of the apple was again in his hands, took to his heels.</p> + +<p>"Save me a bite!" cried Celia Jane, swallowing the morsel in her mouth +so quickly that she came near to choking, and tagged after her older +brother as fast as she could run.</p> + +<p>"Danny!" cried Jerry. "That's no fair!"</p> + +<p>He started to run after the vanishing apple, but was quickly passed, +first by Chris and then by Nora, who called back to him: "Maybe I can +save the core for you, Jerry."</p> + +<p>Bitterness arose in Jerry's soul. He knew that he couldn't catch up with +Danny, but he kept on running. That old, odd <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>feeling that he did not +belong to the Mullarkeys, though living with them, came over him again, +and he had already begun to slow down his pace when he was brought to a +full and sudden stop by a picture blazoned on a billboard.</p> + +<p>He stared spellbound, without even winking. Of all delectable things, it +was the picture of an elephant! A purple elephant jumping over a green +fence, its trunk raised high in the air until it almost touched the +full, red moon at the top of the poster. The elephant had such a roguish +and knowing look in his small eyes and such a smirk on his funny little +mouth that Jerry began to smile without being the least bit conscious +that he was doing so.</p> + +<p>The smile kept spreading in complete understanding of the look on the +elephant's face and he probably would have laughed aloud had not the +picture somehow made him think of something, he couldn't just remember +what. A dim idea seemed to be trying to break into his mind but couldn't +find the right door. In his effort to puzzle out what it was the +elephant made him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>think of, Jerry entirely forgot the large red apple +and the perfidy of Danny.</p> + +<p>"What're you lookin' at?" called Danny, who had stopped half a block +farther on when he no longer heard Jerry's pursuing footsteps.</p> + +<p>Jerry did not answer. Instead, he squatted down on the grassy bank +between the sidewalk and the billboard and feasted his eyes on that +delightfully extravagant elephant which seemed almost to wink at him. +Jerry half expected to see the elephant grab the moon and balance it on +the end of his trunk, or toss it up into the sky and catch it again as +it fell.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Jerry, if you want the core," called Danny again. "That's all +that's left."</p> + +<p>"Don't want the core," said Jerry. "It was my apple. The lady gave it to +me." He didn't even look at Danny but kept staring at the very purple +elephant and the very red moon almost on the tip-end of his trunk. He +just wouldn't let Danny Mullarkey know that it made any difference to +him whether Danny and Chris and Nora and Celia Jane liked him very much +or not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>No, and he wouldn't feel so terribly bad if Mother 'Larkey and little +Kathleen didn't like him, either.</p> + +<p>"You ain't lost your tongue, have you?" cried Danny.</p> + +<p>"Maybe the cat's got it," said Celia Jane, following as usual her elder +brother's lead and laughing at her own wit.</p> + +<p>"What you starin' at so hard, Jerry?" called Chris.</p> + +<p>Jerry disdained to reply or to let his enraptured gaze wander for a +moment from the dazzling poster. Curiosity soon got the better of Chris +and he started to walk back.</p> + +<p>"El'funt!" shouted Chris, when he was near enough to see the poster. His +shout started the whole Mullarkey brood galloping towards the billboard.</p> + +<p>"The circus!" cried Danny, from the superior experience of his nine +years. "The circus is coming to town!" He threw himself on the grass by +Jerry and pressed the uneaten apple core into his hand.</p> + +<p>"I don't want it," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Aw, take it, Jerry. I didn't mean to eat so much of it, honest I +didn't. I just <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>wanted to tease you." He closed Jerry's fingers around +the core.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't say the circus is coming," Nora observed, pointing to some +lettering in one corner of the poster. Nora was nearly eight years old +and proud of her ability to read print, if the words weren't too +big,—an ability shared by none of the others except Danny.</p> + +<p>"It does, too!" contradicted Celia Jane, wrinkling up her nose +preparatory to crying with disappointment if the circus were not coming. +"There's some writin' on it."</p> + +<p>"What does it say, Danny?" eagerly asked Jerry, going close to the +billboard as though that might help him to make out what was printed on +it. "Ain't it coming?"</p> + +<p>"Read it quick, Danny! Please! I can't wait!" cried Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>Thus besought, Danny read somewhat haltingly, for the "writin'" was in +queerly formed letters, these words which are known to all children:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ask your mother for fifty cents<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To see the elephant jump the fence,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +<span class="i0">He jumped so high he hit the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And never came down till the Fourth of July.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Is that all?" asked Celia Jane, very much disappointed.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I just read it to you?" was Danny's rejoinder.</p> + +<p>"Then the circus ain't comin', is it?" said Chris.</p> + +<p>"It don't say so," replied Nora. "It don't say whether it's comin' or +whether it ain't."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't say it's a <i>circus</i>," said Danny. "It might be just an 'ad' +for—for any old thing."</p> + +<p>"For a menajeree?" asked Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"Or chewin' gum?" suggested Chris.</p> + +<p>"Or something," affirmed Danny decisively.</p> + +<p>Jerry forgot to be disappointed about the circus not coming, for he was +bothered about what it was that the picture of the elephant made him +almost think of. He tried and tried with all his might to think what it +was, but didn't succeed. Then something almost like faint music seemed +to hum in his ears and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>his lips unconsciously formed a word, "Oh, +queen," he murmured.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what?" said Danny sharply, turning to him.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know I said anything," replied Jerry. "I didn't mean to."</p> + +<p>"You did," said Celia Jane. "You said, 'Oh, queen.'"</p> + +<p>"What does that mean, 'Oh, queen'?" asked Danny.</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know," replied Jerry.</p> + +<p>"What did you say it for then?"</p> + +<p>Jerry felt that he was being treated unfairly when he wasn't conscious +of having said anything and he didn't answer. He was sorry that the +humming almost like music wouldn't come back,—it was so comforting.</p> + +<p>"If you don't know what 'Oh, queen' means, what did you <i>say</i> 'Oh, +queen' for?" persisted Danny.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Jerry replied, at a loss. Then he brightened, "I might +have heard it, sometime."</p> + +<p>"Maybe it was somebody's name?" suggested Nora.</p> + +<p>"I don't know."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + + +<p>"It's an Irish name, if it's got an O in front of it, and you said +'O'Queen'," Celia Jane stated.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever know an Irish man or Irish woman by the name of +'O'Queen'?" questioned Danny.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," repeated Jerry, his lips twisting in real distress at +not being able to think what could have made him say a thing like that.</p> + +<p>"You don't know anything, do you?" asked Danny in the teasing, +affronting tone he sometimes adopted with Jerry.</p> + +<p>"I do, too," affirmed Jerry, his lips tightening.</p> + +<p>"You don't know how old you are," said Celia Jane, following Danny's +lead.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what your name is?" asked Danny.</p> + +<p>"Jerry Elbow," replied Jerry, hot within at this making fun of his name +which always seemed to give Danny so much enjoyment.</p> + +<p>"Jerry <i>Elbow</i>," said Danny, putting so much sarcasm into pronouncing +the name as to make it almost unbelievable that it could be a name. +"What kind of a name is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>that—Elbow! Might as well be Neck—or Foot."</p> + +<p>"It's just as good as Danny Mullarkey!" declared Jerry.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing the matter with your name, Jerry," interposed Nora. +"Eat the core of your apple," she continued, pointing at it, forgotten, +but still clutched tightly in his fist.</p> + +<p>"I don't want the old core," said Jerry and threw it against the +billboard.</p> + +<p>Celia Jane ran after it, grabbed it eagerly, wiped it off on her skirt +and popped it into her mouth.</p> + +<p>"Celia Jane!" called Nora, "Don't you eat that core after it's been in +the dirt."</p> + +<p>But Celia Jane had quickly chewed and swallowed it. "It's gone," she +said. "Besides, it wasn't dirty enough to amount to anything."</p> + +<p>Jerry had returned to contemplation of the elephant jumping the fence, +when a youthful voice called from across the street, "Look at it good, +kid. I guess it's about all of the circus you'll see."</p> + +<p>Jerry and the Mullarkey children turned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>and faced the speaker. It was +"Darn" Darner, the ten-year old son of Timothy Darner, the county +overseer of the poor, and a more or less important personage, especially +in his own eyes. You had to be very particular how you spoke to "Darn" +unless you wanted to get into a fight, and unless you were as old and as +big as he was you had no desire to fight with him. He was especially +touchy about his name. He had been "Jimmie" at home but once at school +he had signed himself, in the full glory of his name, J. Darnton Darner, +perhaps to do honor to his grandfather, after whom he had been named. +Thereafter "Darn" was the only name that he was known by outside of the +classroom and his own home.</p> + +<p>He had fights innumerable trying to stop the boys calling him by that +name, but it persisted until at length he came to accept it. You could +call him "Darn" or shout "Oh, Darn!" and nothing would happen, but if, +in your excitement, you grew too emphatic and said "<i>Darn!</i>" or "Oh, +<i>Darn</i>!" you might have to run for the nearest refuge, or take a +pummeling from his fists.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>So now Jerry answered very politely. "It looks good," he said.</p> + +<p>"Is the circus coming?" asked Danny.</p> + +<p>"Of course it is. What do you suppose they've put up the posters for?"</p> + +<p>"It don't say so here," said Nora. "All it says is—"</p> + +<p>Darn interrupted. "Where've you kids been? That old poster has been up +for a week. Two new ones were pasted up to-day—one at Jenkins' corner +and the other on Jeffreys' barn. It's Burrows and Fairchild's mammoth +circus and menagerie and it's coming a week from Thursday."</p> + +<p>"Are you going, Darn?" asked Danny.</p> + +<p>"Am I going?" repeated that youth. "I should say I am going—in a box +seat."</p> + +<p>"Is it a big circus?" asked Chris.</p> + +<p>"It's one of the biggest there is," replied Darn, "with elephants and +clowns and a bearded lady and everything. I'll tell you all about it the +next day."</p> + +<p>Without more ado, he began to whistle and continued on his way. When he +was out of sight, Jerry turned back to the billboard, and the Mullarkey +children lined up at his side <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>and stood in silent contemplation of the +delights forecast in the picture. They felt a new respect for that +elephant.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose we can go," said Chris at length in a voice that +invited contradiction. His remark was met by silence and they continued +to stare at the elephant.</p> + +<p>Jerry was puzzled. "What does it want you to ask your mother for fifty +cents for?" he asked Danny.</p> + +<p>"To buy a ticket for the circus, of course."</p> + +<p>"Will she give you fifty cents?"</p> + +<p>Danny seemed struck by some sudden thought; whether or not his question +had inspired it Jerry was unable to tell. After pondering for a time, +Danny set out towards home on a run without having answered the +question.</p> + +<p>"Where're you goin'?" asked Chris, with a tinge of suspicion in his +voice.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' to ask mother and see."</p> + +<p>"That's no fair!" cried Chris. "You can run the fastest and 'll get to +ask her first."</p> + +<p>"She can't give fifty cents to all of us," replied Danny and kept on +running.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Danny Mullarkey! You're a mean old thing!" called Nora.</p> + +<p>Already Chris was racing after Danny; the contagion soon spread and +first Nora and then Celia Jane were running with all their might after +their brothers.</p> + +<p>Jerry started to run after them, but it was a half-hearted run and he +brought up a very laggard rear. He never tried to get anything for +himself that the clannish Mullarkey brood had in their possession, or to +which they could with any shred of justice lay claim. If he did, he knew +by experience that they would all unite against him—all except Mother +'Larkey, who, trying to earn money to support them all, could not always +know what was going on under her tired, kindly eyes, much less the +things that took place behind her back. And baby Kathleen, who was too +little to feel the claims of the Mullarkey blood and who loved +everybody.</p> + +<p>But Jerry was sure he had never seen a circus and he <i>did</i> want to go to +this one and see the elephant jump the fence. He felt very friendly to +that elephant and well acquainted with it. The roguish look in its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>eyes, in the picture, made it seem a very nice sort of elephant and he +knew he would like it.</p> + +<p>But he also knew that Mother 'Larkey found it very hard to make both +ends meet since her husband died—he had often heard her say so—but +there might be a possible chance that she would have several fifty-cent +pieces, so he started again to run after the other children, keeping +close enough to be in time if Mrs. Mullarkey <i>should</i> happen to be +distributing fifty-cent pieces among her brood and there <i>should</i> happen +to be an extra one for him. Even though she were not his mother, she +<i>might</i> give it to him, she had already done so many things for him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Black Half-dollar</span></h3> + + +<p>Jerry's progress was brought to a sudden halt and he was sent sprawling +to the ground by running full tilt into a man who tried to turn the same +corner at the same time Jerry did, but from the opposite direction. The +impact was so swift and so hard that Jerry was whirled clear around and +fell on his face, striking two small pieces of board lying near the +sidewalk and loosening a plank in the sidewalk itself.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" gasped the man's voice.</p> + +<p>Before Jerry could stir he heard a clink as of metal falling on board. +He half turned on his back and looked dazedly up at the man, who was +pressing both hands into the pit of his stomach. His face was very red. +He spoke to Jerry hesitatingly, as though he could not get his breath.</p> + +<p>'Are you—hurt—much?"</p> + +<p>"N-no, I guess not," Jerry replied, sitting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>up and feeling of a bruised +place on his arm.</p> + +<p>"You just about knocked the breath out of me," said the man in a more +natural voice and one which Jerry now recognized as belonging to Harry +Barton, the clerk at the corner drug store.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Barton. If I'd of seen you—"</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't have run into me," finished Mr. Barton. "Of course not. +There are a lot of things we wouldn't do if we could see what the +results were going to be. Why, bless me, it's Jerry Elbow! Well, I guess +there wasn't much harm done this time. You seemed to be in quite a +hurry. Have I delayed you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, I was in a hurry," Jerry answered. "Danny was running to ask +Mother 'Larkey for fifty cents to see the circus."</p> + +<p>"And what were you running for?"</p> + +<p>Jerry started to get up as he replied.</p> + +<p>"To see if she had fifty cents for Da—"</p> + +<p>He stopped speaking and stopped getting up at the same time. A glint of +silver on the sidewalk back of Mr. Barton caught his eye.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> It was a +half-dollar! Jerry sank to a sitting posture and gazed in rapt wonder at +this answer to an unsaid prayer.</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> hurt!" cried Mr. Barton solicitously and stooped to help +Jerry up. "Where does it pain you?"</p> + +<p>"It's fifty cents!" cried Jerry, his lips unsealed at last, and he +scrambled eagerly for the coin.</p> + +<p>"Well, there's nothing very painful in that, is there?" laughed Mr. +Barton.</p> + +<p>Jerry rose, clutching the dirty half-dollar tightly, a light of joyful +anticipation in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"There's not much need of asking what you will spend it for," observed +the drug clerk.</p> + +<p>"For a ticket to the circus!" cried Jerry, his eyes sparkling at the +thought of future delights.</p> + +<p>"I guessed it the first time," said Mr. Barton. "I thought I heard +something metallic fall on the sidewalk when you ran into me, but I had +such hard work getting my breath back that I forgot all about it."</p> + +<p>Such a harrowing thought now popped into Jerry's mind that unconsciously +he closed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>his fingers entirely around the precious half-dollar. What if +it were Mr. Barton's! Perhaps he had knocked it out of Mr. Barton's +pocket when he ran into him. He had heard the clink of its fall just +after the collision, as he lay on the ground.</p> + +<p>After a short but sharp struggle with himself, Jerry looked up and held +out the money to Mr. Barton. He tried to smile, but was conscious that +the twisting of his lips didn't look much like a smile.</p> + +<p>"It's yours, I guess, Mr. Barton."</p> + +<p>"Mine!" exclaimed the surprised drug clerk. "You saw it first."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I heard it fall just after I ran into you. I must of knocked +it out of your pocket. I didn't have no half-dollar."</p> + +<p>"No more did I," replied Mr. Barton.</p> + +<p>"You didn't!" exclaimed Jerry, and joy came unbidden back into his eyes +and there was a very different feel to his lips. He knew that it was a +real smile this time.</p> + +<p>"Not this late in the week," Mr. Barton informed him. "It's too long +after pay day for me to have that much money. I've got just thirty-five +cents."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p>He drew some small coins out of his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's all here. The half-dollar must have been lying on one of the +boards that you struck in falling. Let's see it."</p> + +<p>He took the money and examined it.</p> + +<p>"It was almost covered with dirt," he said. "So was one end of both +boards. Hello! That's a funny black mark on the other side. Looks as +though somebody had smeared it with black paint."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't hurt it any, does it?" asked Jerry in trepidation.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit! It's good for a ticket to the circus."</p> + +<p>"If I hadn't of run into you, I wouldn't get to go," observed Jerry.</p> + +<p>"That's so," responded Mr. Barton. "I wouldn't let any one know you +found the money. Just sneak off to the circus when it comes and buy your +ticket. Danny would find some way to get it away from you if he knew you +had it."</p> + +<p>"I guess mebbe he would," Jerry responded.</p> + +<p>"You just keep it to yourself and enjoy the circus," Mr. Barton advised +him and went on to the store.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jerry trudged slowly back toward Mrs. Mullarkey's, thinking intently.</p> + +<p>The gloom that pervaded the house was so deep that Jerry perceived it as +soon as he opened the door. Danny sat glowering by the window; Celia +Jane was weeping unashamed, while Chris and Nora were trying not to show +their disappointment.</p> + +<p>So Mother 'Larkey had not yet been able to make both ends meet—those +troublesome, refractory ends that made her life a continual round of +hard work—and there were no fifty-cent pieces for the children to buy +tickets with to see the elephant jump the fence. Jerry hugged himself +just to feel the half-dollar in his blouse pocket and a glow of +exultation ran over his body at the thought that he was going to get to +see the circus.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mullarkey, looking tired and worn, was ripping apart the dress for +Mrs. Green that she had just finished at noon. Baby Kathleen sat at her +feet, playing with the old rag doll that had once been Nora's and was +now claimed by Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>Jerry entered the room slowly and took a seat on the chair without a +back. He said <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>nothing at all and finally Mother 'Larkey looked up at +him.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you ask for fifty cents, too?" she inquired. "Don't you want +to see the circus?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm," replied Jerry, "but I ain't got no mother."</p> + +<p>"What difference does that make?" she asked, in a voice sharper than she +was accustomed to use in speaking to Jerry. "Haven't I done everything a +mother could—"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm," Jerry interrupted hastily, for he didn't want her to think he +thought <i>that</i>. "But it said to ask your <i>mother</i> for fifty cents and I +ain't got none to ask."</p> + +<p>"Sure and you haven't, you blessed boy," said Mother 'Larkey. "If I had +it to give, you wouldn't need a mother to ask it of. I wish I could send +all of you to the circus and go myself."</p> + +<p>"We never get to go no place," muttered Danny gloomily.</p> + +<p>"It costs money to go to places," his mother explained, "and there's no +money in the house. It's all I've been able to do to put enough food in +your hungry mouths to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>keep soul and body together and to get enough +clothes to keep you looking decent and respectable. I was counting on +some money from Mrs. Green to-day, to buy a little meat for supper and +get some more cough medicine for Kathleen, but she wasn't satisfied with +the dress and I've got to do part of it over before she will pay me."</p> + +<p>"Is Kathleen's cough medicine all gone?" Jerry asked, suddenly feeling +hot and uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and she ought to have some more right this minute. Summer coughs +are bad things for babies."</p> + +<p>Jerry went to Kathleen and she welcomed him by raising her arms and +gurgling at him. He put his face gently against hers and she patted his +head and tugged at his hair.</p> + +<p>And all the time Jerry felt guiltier and guiltier and the half-dollar in +his pocket seemed to become bigger and heavier. He was relieved when he +heard Celia Jane, recovered from her crying, asking:</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see a circus, Mother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, once. Dan took me to see one in the city right after we were +married. If he was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>living, he would find a way to take you all and him +liking the fun and the noise and the crowd and all."</p> + +<p>"Some day I'll be big enough to earn lots of money and take us all to +the circus," asserted Danny. "And Jerry, too."</p> + +<p>"Sure and you will," his mother said. "And now, if you children will +pick me some gooseberries, I'll make you a gooseberry pie for supper."</p> + +<p>Jerry did not join the rest in the scamper for cups and a pan nor follow +them out into the back yard. He patted Kathleen's head and then went +into the kitchen when he had heard the screen door slam and knew the +Mullarkey children were all out of the house. He took down a bottle from +the shelf by the table and slipped quietly out to the street.</p> + +<p>When he was out of sight of the house he looked to see if the +half-dollar were still in his pocket. The sight of it made him recall +vividly all the joys that he would miss if he didn't get to see the +circus. He took the coin out of his pocket and looked at it and the +longer he looked the slower grew his pace. Then he thought of Kathleen +and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>summer cough that Mother 'Larkey said was bad for babies, and +his lips suddenly closed in a firm, straight line. He clutched the +half-dollar tightly in one hand, the bottle in the other, and set out as +fast as his legs would carry him. He did not dare waste a moment for +fear the temptation to change his mind would prove too great to be +resisted.</p> + +<p>Not once did he slacken speed till he reached the corner drug store. +Speechless for lack of breath, he passed the bottle over the counter to +Mr. Barton.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jerry, what is it this time?" asked the clerk.</p> + +<p>Jerry panted a moment before he could reply.</p> + +<p>"Some more of—that cough medicine—for Kathleen."</p> + +<p>"That won't take long," said Mr. Barton. "All I've got to do is to pour +it from a big bottle into this little one."</p> + +<p>He disappeared behind the prescription case, but was back long before +Jerry's pulse had had time to slow down to its customary beat.</p> + +<p>"There you are," he said. "Forty-five cents."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jerry passed over the precious half-dollar. The pang of regret at the +thought of circus delights, once so nearly his, now beyond his reach, he +resolutely forced out of his mind every time he caught himself thinking +about it. He tried to whistle to help forget the circus, but to his +surprise not a sound issued from his lips. They were too dry to whistle. +Then he suddenly heard the drug clerk exclaim:</p> + +<p>"Gee whillikens! This is the identical half-dollar you found this +afternoon! I can tell it by the black mark on it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," Jerry admitted in a forlorn tone.</p> + +<p>"So you told about finding it—"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't," interrupted Jerry, "but Kathleen was all out of cough +medicine and Mother 'Larkey didn't have no money."</p> + +<p>"I see. Then you told what—"</p> + +<p>"No, I just got the bottle and brought it here."</p> + +<p>Mr. Barton whistled.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, you're some boy, and there's my hand on it."</p> + +<p>Jerry felt himself flushing as he took the proffered hand which shook +his warmly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Grit!" exclaimed Mr. Barton. "Pure grit. That's what I call it, if +anybody should ask you. And you won't get to see the circus at all."</p> + +<p>"I guess Kathleen's cough is more important than the circus," replied +Jerry. "Summer coughs are bad for babies."</p> + +<p>"You're right there, but I'm mighty sorry you can't go. I know how my +two boys will feel if they have to stay away."</p> + +<p>He rang up the forty-five cents and returned a nickel to Jerry.</p> + +<p>"There, I guess you've earned the right to spend the nickel on +yourself."</p> + +<p>"Give me a nickel's worth of cough drops—the kind with honey in 'em," +said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"You don't want cough drops, Jerry. Here's some good candy. It's got +lots of lemon in it."</p> + +<p>"Kathleen likes the cough drops with honey in 'em," explained Jerry. +"She doesn't cough so bad after eating one of them."</p> + +<p>"Well, you beat my time, Jerry! You must like Kathleen an awful lot."</p> + +<p>"I do," admitted Jerry in a low voice, as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>a customer entered the store. +He took the bag of cough drops and darted out through the door, but not +too quickly to overhear Mr. Barton saying to the man who had entered:</p> + +<p>"That boy's got enough sand to supply all the contractors in town. +Plucky as they make 'em."</p> + +<p>Jerry was not quite sure that he understood what Mr. Barton meant about +the sand, but his saying that he was plucky made him feel glad and +uncomfortable at the same time. Somehow it didn't seem quite so hard to +have given up seeing the circus. He wouldn't mind not seeing the +elephant jump the fence—well, not so very much. He could look at the +billboard poster all he wanted to and that would be almost as good.</p> + +<p>He started home on a run but soon slackened his speed, and the nearer he +got the slower became his pace. He didn't want Danny to know that he had +bought something for Kathleen, for Danny called him "Kathleen's pet" as +it was and he didn't like to be laughed at. Perhaps he could sneak in +without any of them seeing him and put the bottle back on the shelf and +no one would know how it got full.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Mullarkey children were still picking gooseberries and Mother +'Larkey was still in the living room sewing on Mrs. Green's dress. Jerry +tiptoed carefully into the kitchen, replaced the bottle, stuffed the +cough drops into his blouse pocket and went into the living room, where +he squatted down by Kathleen.</p> + +<p>Hardly had he done so when the voices of the other children coming back +to the house were heard.</p> + +<p>"Gooseberries all picked?" sighed Mrs. Mullarkey. "Then I must be +getting supper."</p> + +<p>When she left the room, Jerry fished a cough drop out of his pocket and +gave it to Kathleen. She smiled in delight at sight of it and at once +popped it into her mouth, cooing at Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Mother, why didn't you make Jerry help pick gooseberries?" asked Danny, +as soon as he entered and caught sight of Jerry.</p> + +<p>"He can't have any pie, can he, Mother?" said Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"Why, he was out with you," replied Mrs. Mullarkey. "He just this minute +came in."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He wasn't near the gooseberry patch," Danny informed her.</p> + +<p>"He didn't pick a single gooseberry," Celia Jane interpolated.</p> + +<p>"Nora," appealed their mother, "you always tell the truth. Didn't Jerry +help you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see him, Mother. Ask Jerry."</p> + +<p>"Did you help them, Jerry? Not that it makes any difference; you'll get +just as big a piece of pie as any of them."</p> + +<p>"No'm, I didn't," replied Jerry. His lips parted again as though he +wanted to say more but closed without a word.</p> + +<p>"You're such a willing worker, I thought Danny was just trying to get +even for something," said Mother 'Larkey.</p> + +<p>"Where'd you go, Jerry?" asked Chris.</p> + +<p>"Yah! Tell us that," demanded Danny.</p> + +<p>"I just thought I'd run over to the drug store," replied Jerry.</p> + +<p>"What did you want to go there for?"</p> + +<p>Jerry said nothing.</p> + +<p>"I bet he found a penny and bought himself some candy," cried Celia +Jane, falling into the habit that many older people have of judging +others by themselves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Tandy," said Kathleen, struck by that word, and she pulled the remnant +of the cough drop out of her mouth and displayed it proudly.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, you ate all the rest yourself!" accused Celia Jane. "Greedy, +greedy, greedy!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, did um buy some tandy for um's 'ittle Tatleen?" mocked Danny.</p> + +<p>"I want some," said Celia Jane. "Mother, make Jerry give me some candy."</p> + +<p>"It was cough drops for Kathleen," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Where'd you get the money?" Danny demanded sharply.</p> + +<p>"Found it after you ran home first to ask for fifty cents to see the +circus," Jerry explained.</p> + +<p>"Gee, I never find nothing!" ejaculated Danny. "How much was it?"</p> + +<p>Jerry did not reply immediately and Celia Jane, watching him sharply, +was at once full cry right on his trail.</p> + +<p>"I bet it was a whole lot more'n five cents an' he bought something for +himself. How much did you find, Jerry?"</p> + +<p>"It was half a dollar," Jerry stated, thus brought to bay.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Half a dollar!" exclaimed Danny and Chris.</p> + +<p>"Why, that's fifty cents!" Celia Jane cried.</p> + +<p>"Enough to buy a ticket to the circus!" Danny added. "Where is it? Let's +see it."</p> + +<p>"It's all gone," Jerry told his tormentors.</p> + +<p>"Fifty cents! And you spent all of it at once!" wailed Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"That must of bought a whole lot of candy," said Danny. "Fork out. No +fair holding any back."</p> + +<p>Jerry produced the small paper bag of cough drops and gave it to Mother +'Larkey.</p> + +<p>"They're cough drops with honey in 'em for Kathleen," he said. "I ain't +eaten one of them."</p> + +<p>"Give me one, Mother," pleaded Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"They're for Kathleen," replied her mother. "She needs them and you +don't."</p> + +<p>"Jerry's Kathleen's pet! Jerry's Kathleen's little honey cough-drop +boy!" chanted Danny.</p> + +<p>"Jerry's done more for Kathleen than her own brothers and sisters have +ever done, unless it's Nora," declared Mrs. Mullarkey. "It's no wonder +she loves him best."</p> + +<p>"That's not fifty cents' worth of cough <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>drops," Danny accused. "Where's +the rest of the money? Make him tell, Mother."</p> + +<p>Kathleen saved him the necessity of replying.</p> + +<p>"Toff meddy," she gurgled, looking up at the shelf where the bottle was +kept. "Tatleen want toff meddy."</p> + +<p>"It's all gone, Kathleen," her mother said soothingly.</p> + +<p>"No," said Kathleen, shaking her head and pointing up at the bottle.</p> + +<p>"Mercy sakes! It's full!" cried Mrs. Mullarkey. "I could have sworn I +emptied it this morning."</p> + +<p>Then she looked at Jerry, a sudden softening coming over her face and +into her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Jerry, you went and spent every cent of that half-dollar on Kathleen, +didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"You said there wasn't any money in the house," Jerry defended himself, +"and that Kathleen needed more medicine because summer coughs are bad +for babies."</p> + +<p>"The Lord love you, Jerry, I'm not scolding you. It's more apt to be +crying I am at the big heart of you. It's as big as my Dan's was. You're +more like him in heart <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>and disposition than any of his own children, +unless it's Nora. That's why I can't ever let them take you away, ever."</p> + +<p>"Who wants to take Jerry away?" It was Nora's startled voice that asked.</p> + +<p>Jerry's heart stood still. Had the man with the red scar on his face +found him at last? He looked up at Mother 'Larkey, his lips starting to +twist.</p> + +<p>"Nobody's going to take him away!" said Mrs. Mullarkey almost fiercely. +"Just let anybody try it!"</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell us you had fifty cents?" asked Danny. "I bet you +was going to spend it all for yourself for a ticket to the circus."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Barton told me not to tell," replied Jerry. "He said you'd get it +away from me if you knew I had found it and for me to go to the circus +all by myself."</p> + +<p>"And you gave that up just for Kathleen?" queried Mrs. Mullarkey.</p> + +<p>"I guess Kathleen's cough is much more important than any old circus," +said Jerry.</p> + +<p>Mother 'Larkey thereupon gathered Jerry up in her arms and kissed him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Width of an Elephant's Tail</span></h3> + + +<p>Jerry tried all the next day and the next to think what it was that the +picture of the elephant jumping the fence almost made him remember, but +it just wouldn't come and finally he gave up trying. After playing with +Kathleen until Mother 'Larkey put her in the crib for her afternoon nap, +he wandered out towards the woodshed from behind which he heard the +voices of Danny and Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>On the way an idea popped all of a sudden into his mind. The dazzling +splendor of it first brought him to a dead halt and then set him running +breathlessly to join the Mullarkey children. He found them all gathered +about Danny, hungrily watching him eat a green apple.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't we play circus!" he exclaimed, in eager excitement at the idea +that had come to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We could if we wanted to," replied Danny, in that superior, +ardor-dampening way of his.</p> + +<p>Jerry felt his enthusiasm for the idea oozing out of his bare toes. +"I—Don't we want to, Danny?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, let's!" cried Nora eagerly. "I'm tired of ante-over and +run-sheep-run and pump-pump-pull-away—"</p> + +<p>"And hidin'-go-seek and tree-tag," interrupted Celia Jane. She turned to +Jerry. "How do you play circus?"</p> + +<p>"You just—just <i>play</i> it," he answered. "'Maginary you're an el'funt +jumpin' a fence and all."</p> + +<p>"I'll be the el'funt!" cried Danny.</p> + +<p>"I want to be the el'funt," objected Chris.</p> + +<p>"The el'funt's mine," Jerry asserted and he closed his lips tightly. +Danny didn't have any right to that elephant. "I saw it first," he +added.</p> + +<p>"I said 'I'll be the el'funt' first, didn't I?" asked Danny.</p> + +<p>"Jerry orter have first choice," said Nora, the conciliator, "seein' it +was him thought of playin' circus."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess I can jump the highest, can't I?" Danny asked in a tone that +said as plain as day that that settled the matter.</p> + +<p>"It's my el'funt!" insisted Jerry.</p> + +<p>"You always take first choice," Chris complained.</p> + +<p>"You could take turns about being el'funt," Nora suggested.</p> + +<p>Jerry wanted with all his soul to play that sublime elephant jumping the +fence and he summoned up all his courage. "I won't play," cried he, with +a suspicious quiver of his lips. "I won't! I won't!"</p> + +<p>"I'll let you be el'funt part of the time," Danny promised, "just to +keep you from cryin'."</p> + +<p>"I ain't goin' to cry," returned Jerry hotly. "I ain't!"</p> + +<p>"We can't have a circus with just a el'funt," said Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"Of course, we can't," said Danny decisively and turned to Jerry. "What +else'll we have?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't we have more'n one el'funt?" Jerry asked hopefully.</p> + +<p>"What'd we want with more'n one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>el'funt?" Danny queried in scorn. "I +guess one el'funt's enough for one circus. Anyway, we want something +besides el'funts."</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Jerry. "I ain't never seen a circus."</p> + +<p>"No more have I," replied Danny.</p> + +<p>"Can't you 'maginary something?" asked Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"We could ''maginary things'," interposed Nora, "but they might not be +in a circus."</p> + +<p>"There's more'n one circus picture up," said Jerry. "Darn Darner said +there was one at Jenkins' corner and one on Jeffreys' barn. P'raps +they'll tell us what's in a circus."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Danny. "It's funny I didn't think of that. It's +usually me who thinks of everything. I'll be the first one at Jenkins' +corner," and he was off at a run.</p> + +<p>Thereupon they all followed at full speed. Any other rate of progress +was too slow for them. Jerry ran as hard as he could, leaving Celia Jane +behind and keeping right at Nora's side. It was more than a quarter of a +mile to Jenkins' corner and Jerry felt that his legs were ready to give +out and send him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>sprawling in the street before he got there, but he +kept running just the same. Celia Jane tagged along, far in the rear, +and called to Jerry to wait for her, but a boy couldn't stop and wait +for a girl without Danny's making fun of him, so, as much as Jerry would +have liked to rest, he kept pantingly on. He was glad to plump down flat +on the ground in front of the billboard and rest till Nora and Celia +Jane arrived.</p> + +<p>"Whoopee! I'll be the clown!" exclaimed Chris, pointing to the poster +which showed trapeze performers turning somersaults in the air, a clown +playing ringmaster to a dancing white pony and a girl walking a tight +rope.</p> + +<p>"I'll be the dancin' pony!" cried Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"I'll be the rope-walker," Nora said.</p> + +<p>"And what'll I be?" asked Jerry plaintively, feeling left entirely out +in the cold.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you speak up and grab onto something before they were all +taken?" asked Danny. "You've got a tongue, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"He could swing up in the air hanging by his hands," Celia Jane +suggested.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We ain't got no net like they have in the picture to catch him if he +falls," Nora objected.</p> + +<p>"That would be too dangerous for us kids to try," Danny stated. "Maybe +the picture on Jeffreys' barn will suggest something."</p> + +<p>Again they were off at a run. It was not far to the barn, where they all +squatted on the ground, nonplussed at the picture of half a dozen funny +little animals balancing toy balloons on their noses.</p> + +<p>"What are they?" Jerry asked.</p> + +<p>"They're some kind of a fish," returned Danny promptly.</p> + +<p>"Fish nothing!" exclaimed Chris. "Who ever saw a fish with hair on it? +They're some kind of animal."</p> + +<p>"They've got fins," retorted Danny. "I'd like to know what kind of +animals's got fins. Tell me that."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Chris confessed, "but what kind of fish has hair?"</p> + +<p>"This kind," said Danny authoritatively.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe it's half fish and half animal," Jerry ventured.</p> + +<p>"Who ever heard—" Danny began but was interrupted by Nora.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It tells under the picture what they are," she said. "Trained +s-e-a-l-s, seals. That's what rich women get their coats from."</p> + +<p>"Then Jerry can be a trained seal," said Danny. "He can have a ball of +carpet rags for a balloon to balance on his nose."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I could," Jerry protested. "I know it would fall off."</p> + +<p>"Not if you practise enough," returned Danny. "Besides, that's all +that's left for you. I guess if one seal can throw it to another and +that seal catch it on its nose like it does in the picture, you ought to +be able to <i>balance</i> it on <i>your</i> nose. All you'll have to do is to lie +on your stummick on the ground and throw back your head."</p> + +<p>So it was decided that Jerry should play the part of a trained seal in +their circus. Mother 'Larkey got out a ball of carpet rags, when they +reached home, for Jerry to balance on his nose in place of a balloon, +and gave Danny an old green wrapper, just ready to be cut up into carpet +rags, out of which to make his elephant costume. She made Chris a clown +costume out of a piece of old white <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>skirt upon which she sewed large +dots of red and blue cloth.</p> + +<p>The two following days were busy ones for Jerry if not quite so happy as +for the Mullarkey children. He had made up his mind, after practising +until his back, chest and neck ached from throwing his head back to +balance the ball of carpet rags on his nose, that he didn't like trained +seals and wasn't going to care to be one at the circus. Chris's clown +costume was finished and looked very much like a white union suit miles +too big for him.</p> + +<p>Nora had become quite proficient at walking the tight rope, stretched +between two poles in the yard about ten feet apart and two feet from the +ground, <i>if</i> she remembered to keep one end of her balancing pole +touching the ground all the time. Mrs. Mullarkey had decided that Celia +Jane didn't need any costume to play the part of the dancing pony except +her good, white dress that she probably wouldn't ruin this time as all +she had to do was to dance.</p> + +<p>Danny was having more than a peck of trouble. His elephant costume had +all sorts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>of queer mishaps. He wanted to make it all himself, even to +the sewing, and he couldn't sew for sour apples, as Nora very readily +told him. Two small palm-leaf fans, fastened to an old cap of his +father's so that they flopped with every movement, served as the +elephant's ears, while out of an old brown coat sleeve Danny had +fashioned what passed for an elephant's trunk. He fastened it with a +string to the visor of the cap.</p> + +<p>Danny was stuffing the leg of an old pair of blue trousers with straw, +flattening it out until it bore a faint resemblance to the paddle-shaped +tail of a beaver.</p> + +<p>"What is that you're making?" Jerry asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, that's the el'funt's tail!" said Danny. "Anybody could tell that."</p> + +<p>He held it proudly up, displaying it in all its blue glory.</p> + +<p>"El'funts' tails are small like a rope," Jerry remarked.</p> + +<p>Danny laughed derisively. "Much you know about it! I guess a el'funt's +about the biggest animal in the world and it wouldn't have a little ole +tail like a rope."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They are little, like a rope," Jerry insisted.</p> + +<p>"How do you know they are?" asked Danny. "Just tell me how you know +anything about it."</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but I know," Jerry said, feeling all his obstinacy +aroused by Danny's air of conscious superiority.</p> + +<p>"There, you just said you didn't know," Celia Jane interposed, going to +her elder brother's aid, as she always did in a dispute with Jerry.</p> + +<p>"I didn't neither," asseverated Jerry.</p> + +<p>"You said you didn't know," insisted Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how I know," said Jerry, "but I know el'funts have little +tails—like a rope."</p> + +<p>"Have you ever been to a circus?" asked Chris.</p> + +<p>"Not that I remember."</p> + +<p>"Have you ever seen a el'funt?" pursued Danny.</p> + +<p>"N-n-no, but it kind of seems as if I almost had."</p> + +<p>"I guess you'd know if you had seen a el'funt, wouldn't you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Y-y-yes," responded Jerry doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Then if you ain't ever been to a circus or seen a el'funt, I guess you +don't know what you are talking about."</p> + +<p>"El'funts' tails are little, like a rope," Jerry insisted.</p> + +<p>"Like a cow's tail?" asked Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>Jerry nodded assent. "Only they haven't so much hair on the end," he +added.</p> + +<p>"A el'funt's a hundred times as big as a cow, I guess," interposed +Danny, "an' it wouldn't have a little tail like a cow. I guess I know +more about it than you do. I'm older, ain't I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Jerry admitted, "but they are little."</p> + +<p>Nora now interposed. "Why don't you go see the picture of the elephant +jumpin' the fence and find out?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Chris. "The picture'll show whether they're small like +a rope or great big ones."</p> + +<p>"I'll beat you there," challenged Danny, as he dropped the flat, +beaver-like elephant's tail and darted at a run out of the woodshed, +followed by the others. As they lined up in front of the gaudy, +delectable poster, there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>came a simultaneous gasp of amazement from all +of them.</p> + +<p>"Why, it ain't got no tail at all!" exclaimed Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>True enough, there was no tail in evidence, as the elephant seemed to be +headed straight towards them. Jerry flushed as they all turned and +looked accusingly at him.</p> + +<p>"Yah!" exclaimed Danny. "Mr. Smarty Know-it-all didn't know so much, +after all!"</p> + +<p>"Mebbe you just can't see it, but it's there," suggested Nora.</p> + +<p>"That's so," Danny reluctantly admitted. "A el'funt's so big that when +you stand right in front of it, its tail might not show at all, no +matter how big it was."</p> + +<p>"A little tail wouldn't," Jerry said quickly.</p> + +<p>"A big one wouldn't either," Celia Jane asserted, taking sides against +Jerry. "A el'funt's enough bigger to hide its tail."</p> + +<p>"If it was very big it would show," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"The el'funt I play is goin' to have a tail all right," Danny informed +the children collectively. "I ain't goin' to all the work of makin' a +tail and then not wear it. I guess a el'funt's got some kind of a tail, +anyway."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Jerry Learns that o-u-t Spells Out</span></h3> + + +<p>The first and, as it turned out, the last performance of their circus +took place that afternoon. Jerry felt a thrill of expectancy as they +began to don their costumes. Once he thought he almost heard again that +low, cheerful strumming that had seemed to beat upon his ears when he +first saw the poster of the elephant jumping the fence. He said nothing +about it and soon lost all recollection of the rollicking strains in the +anticipation of the circus joys that he was about to behold.</p> + +<p>Chris and Danny got into their costumes in the woodshed while Celia Jane +went into the house and put on her white dress, the one she wore on +Sundays. Mrs. Mullarkey had decided that Nora didn't need any special +costume to be a rope-walker and that all Jerry needed to be a trained +seal was a sort of apron made out of a gunny sack to protect his clothes +while he crawled about on his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>stomach. He did not put this on at once +but watched Danny getting into the skin of the elephant, wishing with +all his heart that he might be the elephant, even if its tail was big +and flat instead of being small like a rope.</p> + +<p>It might have proved a mirth-provoking elephant to others had there been +others present to see it, but to Jerry's eager imagination there was +nothing laughable about it. The green wrapper hung most loosely about +Danny's small, slim figure, great folds almost touching the ground, +while the brown trunk and the blue, beaver-like tail waggled and wiggled +about until they met between the front and hind legs of the elephant.</p> + +<p>There was something about that awkward elephant that made Jerry feel all +friendly inside and struck the chord of envy in his heart. He was not at +all inclined to laugh when the cap with the very floppy +palm-leaf-fan-ears attached fell off, as Danny started to gallop around +the woodshed on all fours to see if the costume was all right.</p> + +<p>Celia Jane now came dancing out of the house in her white frock, her +hair loose and flowing for the pony's mane, while pinned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>to the back of +her dress, at the waist line, was her mother's switch to represent the +pony's tail. The strands of gray in the black hair did not match with +the brown of the pony's mane, but that presented no difficulties to the +imagination of the circus performers.</p> + +<p>"Come on!" Celia Jane called. "Let's play circus. I'm all ready."</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, can't you?" complained Danny. "I guess I'm the head of +this circus. I've got the biggest part and I ain't quite ready. Just +hold your horses."</p> + +<p>"Whoa!" cried Celia Jane. "I'm just one pony. Get up!" She flapped her +side with one hand, as though urging a horse to quicken his pace, and +galloped out back of the woodshed where the circus "tent" had been set +up and began prancing and dancing and preening about. Jerry was torn +between desire to watch her graceful whirling and pirouetting and to +keep fascinated eyes on the green elephant. He just had to stay and see +if the elephant's ears fell off again. But Danny was equal to the +occasion and tied the cap on with a piece of string.</p> + +<p>"Celia Jane, you just come back here,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> he called. "I guess the elephant +has to enter the circus ahead of the horse. Horses always get scared of +el'funts unless they're behind where they can see them. How do you +expect us to parade if you're there already?"</p> + +<p>"All right," replied Celia Jane and came prancing back into the +woodshed, "but hurry."</p> + +<p>"I'll be first," said Danny, "an—"</p> + +<p>"An' I'll be second!" cried Chris.</p> + +<p>"I'm third!" Nora and Celia Jane exclaimed together.</p> + +<p>Jerry said nothing. He knew where his place would be,—the very tail end +of the parade.</p> + +<p>"Boom!" sang out Danny and again, "Boom!"</p> + +<p>"What's that for?" asked Chris.</p> + +<p>"It's the music so that the people will know the circus is about to +begin," replied Danny. "They always have music for the parade an' +everything. Darn Darner said so."</p> + +<p>"Let's sing then," suggested Nora.</p> + +<p>"Sing what?" queried Danny crossly, seeing a threat to diminish his +importance in the circus.</p> + +<p>"We might sing 'Heigho, the cherry-o,'" said Celia Jane.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'I Went to the Animal Fair' will be much more appropriate," Nora +suggested.</p> + +<p>"All right, sing," consented Danny, "but the crowd's gettin' restless; I +can hear them stampin' and whistlin'!"</p> + +<p>"I'll start it," said Nora. "All ready."</p> + +<p>Thus the parade started and entered the main circus tent, which +consisted of a pole in the center, with no canvas at all, to the strain +of,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I went to the animal fair;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The birds and the beasts were there;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The little raccoon, by the light of the moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was combing his auburn hair.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The monkey he got drunk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ran up the elephant's trunk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what became of the monkey-monkey-monk?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Jerry tried to sing, too, but he had a very hard time, for he couldn't +crawl as fast as the others walked and the carpet-rag balloon wouldn't +stay balanced on his nose but kept rolling off to the ground. The rest +of the parade was halfway around the ring (marked by a circle of sawdust +which Danny had made after sawing wood energetically for half a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>day to +get enough sawdust) when the trained seal had just reached the main +entrance.</p> + +<p>"Run and catch up with the parade," came Danny's voice through the +circus music. "We can't have the parade split in two that way."</p> + +<p>The trained seal jumped up on his hind feet carrying the balloon under a +forefoot, and ran until he caught up with Celia Jane; then he plumped +down on his stomach again.</p> + +<p>Jerry was very hot and flushed and the muscles of his back and neck +ached. He tried desperately to balance the ball of carpet rags on his +nose, but it kept rolling off, and Jerry had to scramble after it and +the parade was soon away ahead again. In desperation, he held the +balloon on his nose with one hand and tried to creep ahead with but one +arm and his legs as motive power. His progress was slower than ever.</p> + +<p>He could see Danny—or, rather, the elephant—stalking majestically +ahead to the strains of "I Went to the Animal Fair," his trunk and his +tail wobbling about until they met under his body, and the palm-leaf +ears flopping with every step. Jerry felt hurt <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>and out of sorts as he +panted from the exertion of trying to crawl on one arm. He had suggested +playing circus and he ought to have been allowed to play the part of the +elephant. There was no fun in being a trained seal balancing a balloon +on its nose, as there was in being a green elephant with floppy ears and +wobbly tail and trunk. It would serve that greedy Danny just right if he +should refuse to play in his old circus.</p> + +<p>Jerry saw that he was again falling far in the rear and tried to +scramble on faster. Then, of course, the balloon fell off and Jerry was +almost in tears as he jumped after it.</p> + +<p>Then the music of the parade came to a sudden end. The rest of the +performers were at the main entrance, having marched clear around the +ring while Jerry had not covered much more than half the distance.</p> + +<p>"Can't you hurry any?" asked Danny. "You're spoilin' the circus all the +time, 'way behind like that."</p> + +<p>"I can't crawl as fast as you can walk," answered Jerry, in a voice that +threatened to break into a sob.</p> + +<p>"I guess a trained seal had orter crawl as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>fast as a man can walk," +said Danny, "or how could they have them in circuses?"</p> + +<p>"I'm comin' as fast as I can," returned Jerry. "I wish you'd just try +bein' a trained seal for a time and see how fast you can crawl on your +stummick." Jerry rose to his hands and knees, holding the ball of carpet +rags in his teeth, and progressed much faster.</p> + +<p>"Who ever heard of a trained seal carryin' a balloon in his teeth?" +Danny protested. "I guess his teeth would go through the balloon and let +all the air out."</p> + +<p>"Let's not have no trained seal," pleaded Jerry. "It ain't no fun."</p> + +<p>"We got to have a trained seal," replied Danny.</p> + +<p>"You be it then," suggested Jerry, "an' let me be the el'funt. You said +I could part of the time."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to be the el'funt," proclaimed Danny. "The circus ain't even +begun yet."</p> + +<p>"I won't be a trained seal, so I won't," said Jerry, at last catching up +with the parade. "The balloon won't stay on my nose and my neck hurts +and I've cut my hand on a piece of glass or a splinter or something +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>till it bleeds." He held up one hand with a little trickle of blood on +it. "I want to be something else. I won't play if I've got to be a +trained seal any more."</p> + +<p>"All right," Danny acquiesced, after a moment's thought, "you can be the +audience. We need an audience to clap their hands and holler so's we'll +know the crowd likes us and we're doin' all right. This circus can get +along without no trained seal."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to be the audience," replied Jerry dismally, seeing that, +as the audience, he would have nothing to do with the circus.</p> + +<p>Nora now put in a word. "Let's count out," she said, "and the one who's +counted out will be the audience."</p> + +<p>"I guess not," replied Danny emphatically, but after Celia Jane had +whispered something in his ear, he considered a moment, looked at Jerry +and then whispered something to Nora.</p> + +<p>Nora looked at Jerry and counted on her fingers rapidly. Then she +counted on her fingers again, after a quick glance at Danny. She nodded +to Danny, who said:</p> + +<p>"All right, whoever's counted out will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>be the audience. You count out, +Nora." Starting with Danny and pointing to a child in rotation with each +word, Nora chanted and counted:</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="O-u-t spells out"> +<tr><td align='left'>"'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">All good children go to heaven.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">O-u-t spells out.'"</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Her finger was pointing at Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Jerry's out!" cried Celia Jane, skipping about. "He's the audience!"</p> + +<p>"I won't be no audience," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to be," asserted Danny, "you was counted out."</p> + +<p>"I won't be! I won't play!" cried Jerry. He threw down his carpet-rag +balloon, took off the gunny-sack apron, tossed it on top of the balloon +and ran to the house.</p> + +<p>"Cry baby!" shouted Danny after him, but Jerry did not even wait to +refute that charge, for he knew he was in danger of proving it if he +remained out there a moment longer.</p> + +<p>Jerry felt the hot tears start to come as the screen door slammed after +him. He dashed them angrily out of his eyes and ran up the stairs to the +room he shared with Danny and Chris. If Mother 'Larkey had been at home +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>and not away sewing for Mrs. Moran, he would have gone to her in his +bitter disappointment, sure of finding comfort in her arms as he had so +many times.</p> + +<p>It was not fair for Danny to take the part of the elephant away from him +and not even let him play it for a teeny little while, as he had +promised he would. For two cents he would run away as he had from the +man with the—the scarred face. He looked quickly around, half-fearful, +as always, that <i>that</i> man might have learned where he was and be +lurking around the corner ready to pounce upon him. The room was empty +and he took a long breath. He would run away if it weren't for Mother +'Larkey and for little Kathleen who always cried when he even said +anything about running away. He heard the screen door slam shut after a +time and Nora's gentle footsteps coming up the stairway. He turned his +back to the door.</p> + +<p>"Jerry," pleaded Nora's coaxing voice, "come on out and play. Danny +didn't mean anything."</p> + +<p>Jerry did not answer. He did not even look around.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Danny wants you to play with us," continued Nora. "Won't you?"</p> + +<p>"No," Jerry replied at length.</p> + +<p>"Why won't you?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't play fair."</p> + +<p>"I'll count over again, Jerry, so's I'll be the—" The voice stopped and +then continued chokily, "—the audience."</p> + +<p>Jerry knew what it cost her to say that, but he hardened his heart. "I +don't want to play no more," he said.</p> + +<p>"Please do, Jerry. I'm sorry I didn't play fair, Jerry."</p> + +<p>"I won't," pouted Jerry. "He said I could be the el'funt some of the +time."</p> + +<p>"Mebbe he'll let you after while, after he's tired of playin' it," +suggested Nora, without any great fervor of conviction in her voice. +"I'll ask him to."</p> + +<p>With that Nora left the room. He wondered if she could persuade Danny to +let him be the elephant part of the time. He might play then, if Danny +coaxed him to.</p> + +<p>He heard the screen slam after Nora and waited, listening for it to go +slam-bang much louder. That would mean that Danny was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>coming to let him +play elephant. Danny always let the door go shut slam-bang. He waited a +long time and then he heard the shouting of the children. They were +playing circus without him! Danny wouldn't let him be the elephant. Very +well, if they didn't want him around and wouldn't let him play with +them, he would run away. Danny would be sorry then. Perhaps he would be +killed on a railway track or something and Danny would cry over his dead +body, he'd be so sorry he didn't let him be the elephant.</p> + +<p>That thought comforted him and he began gathering up the things he +wanted to take with him. There was the fur cap that Mother 'Larkey had +made for him out of an old muff of hers, the winter before. He couldn't +leave that behind, nor yet the overcoat which she had made for him out +of an old coat of her husband's just after Mr. Mullarkey had died. The +other things he didn't care much about. Yes, after all, he would take +the ragged, fuzzy cloth dog that Kathleen had insisted on giving him. +The dog had lost an ear, a forepaw and one eye; still he cherished it +because Kathleen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>had given it to him of her own free will, something +that Danny nor Chris nor Celia Jane nor even Nora had ever done.</p> + +<p>He would wear the cap and overcoat, even if it was summer; then he +wouldn't get so tired carrying them. He put on the fur cap, pulling it +well down over his ears, and slipped into the overcoat. Slowly he took +up the woolly dog and started down the stairs. Then he remembered the +red mittens which a lady had brought him at Christmas, and returned to +get them. He put them on carefully, smoothing them over his hands, and +then went downstairs and out by the front door, prepared for any kind of +weather.</p> + +<p>He was going to run away again, as he had from that man with the scarred +face. He heard the children shouting at their play and decided he would +first watch them a minute and perhaps let Danny know what he had driven +him into doing. He went down the alley which led past the woodshed, +behind which the circus performance was going on, and stopped to watch +with his face wedged between two pickets of the fence.</p> + +<p>Nora was walking the rope slowly. She <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>was doing it very well as long as +she kept one end of the balancing pole on the ground, but when she got +halfway across the rope, the end of the pole was so far behind that she +couldn't steady herself with it. She tried to drag it up even with her +and in so doing lost her balance and had to jump to the ground. As she +straightened up, she saw Jerry's face between the palings.</p> + +<p>"There's Jerry!" she called to Danny.</p> + +<p>"Thought you would play, after all," Danny remarked.</p> + +<p>"I'm not," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"He's got his cap on!" laughed Celia Jane. "What've you got your cap on +for, Jerry?"</p> + +<p>"And your overcoat?" said Nora.</p> + +<p>"And your mittens?" chimed in Chris. "You ain't cold, are you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm running away," Jerry responded, addressing no one in particular. He +tried to say it indifferently as though it were a matter of everyday +occurrence, this running away, but in spite of himself a note of pride +crept into his voice. None of them had ever run away.</p> + +<p>"Running away!" gasped Celia Jane in an awed voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Jerry, don't!" pleaded Nora.</p> + +<p>Danny stared at him in open-mouthed amazement.</p> + +<p>"I'm running away," Jerry repeated and sat down on the ground by the +fence where he had an unobstructed view of the circus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Green Elephant Buys an Audience</span></h3> + + +<p>The Mullarkey children regarded Jerry for a long time without a word.</p> + +<p>Jerry, knowing that for once he had Danny at a disadvantage, wanted to +prolong that pleasant sensation.</p> + +<p>"I'm running away," he repeated, without stirring from the fence.</p> + +<p>"What'll mother do?" Danny asked from underneath the elephant's trunk +and Jerry knew from the earnestness of his voice that Danny was scared. +"What do you want to run away for?"</p> + +<p>"Because," replied Jerry.</p> + +<p>"That's no reason," Chris stated.</p> + +<p>"What'll become of you?" Danny asked, drawing closer to the fence, the +elephant's beaver-like blue tail dragging forlornly on the ground.</p> + +<p>"I dunno," Jerry replied carelessly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You won't find many folks who'd bring you home like father did and keep +you," Danny pursued.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to run away," was all that Jerry replied.</p> + +<p>"What'll you do for something to eat?" demanded Chris, in a tone that +showed admiration for a boy not afraid to run away, even if he wasn't a +Mullarkey.</p> + +<p>"I dunno," said Jerry, "but I'll find a way."</p> + +<p>"Come on an' play, Jerry," coaxed Danny, "an' you can be the el'funt the +next time we play circus."</p> + +<p>"I want to be the el'funt this time," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"You can't be this time, because you're too little for the costume to +fit you," Danny told him. "It'll have to be cut down an' made over for +you. It's a little too big for me an' it's awfully hard work actin' as a +el'funt would when your skin's so loose it gets in the way of your feet +when you walk."</p> + +<p>Jerry hadn't thought of that but it looked reasonable to him. He +hesitated and Danny, seeing his advantage, was quick to push it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Besides, mother wouldn't like it if you ran away. She'd think I was to +blame when I'm not at all. I never even once thought of your runnin' +away. You thought of it yourself, now didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Jerry admitted.</p> + +<p>"Mother'd think I had done something to you when I ain't, have I?" Danny +appealed.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't let me play—" Jerry began but was interrupted by Danny's +saying quickly:</p> + +<p>"You can next time we play circus, when I've had a chance to make the +el'funt skin over for you."</p> + +<p>That did not seem inducement enough for Jerry and he decided to continue +his interrupted running away. He rose and turned slowly away from the +fence and tried to imitate Darn Darner's off-hand style of leave-taking. +"Well, so long, fellows," he called nonchalantly over his shoulders, "I +must be on my way."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Jerry," said Nora.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jerry! Don't go!" pleaded Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"You stay an' be audience for this circus," said Danny quickly, "an' +I'll give you one of my tops."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jerry returned to the fence. "The one with the red on it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No, the other one."</p> + +<p>"It's broken," Jerry objected.</p> + +<p>"An' I'll give you two fishhooks," Danny hurriedly promised, "an' a line +an' pole, an' a horseshoe nail."</p> + +<p>"The rusty one!" cried Jerry, in a tone that was sarcastic.</p> + +<p>Danny hesitated, swallowed quickly and responded, "No, the shiny one."</p> + +<p>"I don't want no fishin' pole an' all," said Jerry; "an' the broken top +an' the shiny horseshoe ain't enough."</p> + +<p>"I'll give you my toy pistol," said Danny.</p> + +<p>"The trigger's gone," Jerry objected, "an' a pistol ain't no good +without a trigger."</p> + +<p>"The golf ball I found in the weeds," Danny offered.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how to play golf."</p> + +<p>"Aw, be reasonable, Jerry. I can't give you what you want. I bought it +with the money I got for mowin' old man Barnes's yard for a month."</p> + +<p>"I'll be the audience for your white rabbit," Jerry bargained, "an' I +won't run away."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You want too much," Danny objected. "'Tain't as if I could get another +rabbit right away."</p> + +<p>"An' then Mother 'Larkey won't think you made me run away," pursued +Jerry, pressing home his advantage. "I won't say nothin' to her nohow +about that."</p> + +<p>Danny did not reply at once and Jerry spoke again.</p> + +<p>"You can keep your top an' your shiny horseshoe nail, too."</p> + +<p>"You won't say nothin' to mother a-tall?" Danny weakened.</p> + +<p>"No," Jerry assured him.</p> + +<p>"Cross your heart, hope to die an' spit?"</p> + +<p>"Cross my heart, hope to die an' spit," repeated Jerry, suiting the +action to the word.</p> + +<p>"All right, you can have the ole rabbit. You'll have to feed it, though. +I wouldn't raise my finger to feed it, not if it was starvin' to death. +I'd got kinda sick of always havin' to feed it whenever I wanted to do +something else, anyway."</p> + +<p>"All right, I'll be the audience," Jerry promised, "but the rabbit's +mine."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then go in the house and put away your cap an' coat an' mittens, so's +mother won't suspect nothin'. An', Chris, don't you dare ever tell, nor +you, Nora, nor you, Celia Jane. I'll get even with you if it takes to my +last livin' day if you do."</p> + +<p>"We won't ever tell," his brother and sisters assured him.</p> + +<p>Jerry flew back to the house, and put away his winter clothes and the +cloth dog Kathleen had given him, and then dashed out to the circus +ground and climbed upon an old barrel which Danny and Chris had turned +upside down for a seat. He kicked his heels against its sides and +whistled as best he could as a sign of the audience's impatience for the +circus to begin.</p> + +<p>"We'll begin all over again," announced Danny and marshaled his three +fellow performers back to the woodshed and led them forth in parade to +the strains of "I Went to the Animal Fair." Jerry duly applauded the +parade and waited for the real performance.</p> + +<p>Then the green elephant rose up on his hind legs and with one front leg +pushed his trunk to one side while the voice of Danny<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> Mullarkey +announced, "Ladies and gents, I'm pleased to make you acquainted with +Flora, the lady tight-rope walker, who will now walk the tight rope for +you an' I hope you'll like her."</p> + +<p>This time, by dragging one end of her balancing pole on the ground as +she walked forward on the rope, Nora, or, as the circus-master called +her, Flora, managed to walk the ten feet to the opposite post without +falling off.</p> + +<p>Jerry, rejoicing over the possession of the white rabbit, applauded her +generously.</p> + +<p>"The el'funt will now jump the fence," came the voice of Danny, issuing +from the mouth of the green elephant. "Hey, you kids! Get the boards for +the fence," he called to Chris and Celia Jane, who had sat down on the +ground while Nora walked the rope.</p> + +<p>With a front foot, the elephant put his trunk in place and took a +curious little huddled run on all fours up to the very low fence made of +two boards, together not more than ten inches high, which Chris and +Celia Jane held for him, and then half rose on his hind legs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>and leaped +over the fence, palm-leaf-fan-ears flopping and brown trunk and blue +tail wobbling. No elephant jumping up into the sky and balancing the +moon on the end of his trunk was this, truly, but, Jerry thrilled at the +first jump, imagining what it might have been.</p> + +<p>"Whee!" trumpeted the elephant as he turned back and jumped the fence +again. He seemed to develop a very passion for wheeing and jumping the +fence, returning to the charge again and again.</p> + +<p>Jerry clapped his hands and kicked the sides of the barrel in approval +and laughed at the ungainly antics of the jumping elephant, but by dint +of the frequent repetition of the jumping he began to become +disappointed that Danny didn't jump higher. He grew tired of the +performance before Danny wearied of jumping the fence.</p> + +<p>"It's my turn now!" Chris called, after Danny had jumped for the twelfth +time. "Come on, Celia Jane."</p> + +<p>They dropped the fence and, as there was nothing for the green elephant +to jump unless he could clear the tight rope, two feet from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>the ground, +Danny perforce gave way to the dancing pony and the clown.</p> + +<p>Chris was trying to crack an old whip which he and Danny had made by +braiding three strands of leather, with a "cracker" at the end, and +Celia Jane was dancing gracefully about the ring, her tail switching and +her mane blowing, when the unexpected voice of Darn Darner from the +alley brought the circus to a sudden halt.</p> + +<p>"Hullo! What do you kids think you're doin'?" he asked, in the gruff +voice which he adopted when he wanted to be particularly disagreeable.</p> + +<p>Jerry squirmed around on the barrel until he could see Darn. "We're +playin' circus," he answered with a feeble, placating smile, before the +others had recovered from their surprise.</p> + +<p>"Yah! You call <i>that</i> a circus? Chris can't even crack the whip."</p> + +<p>"I can, too, sometimes," Chris disputed.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you how to do it," Darn offered, clambering over the fence. +"Here, give me the whip!"</p> + +<p>He took it out of Chris's surprised and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>reluctant fingers and began +circling it over his head and giving it a sudden jerk. It didn't crack +at first, but soon he got the knack of it and cracked it loudly as close +to Celia Jane's ears and ankles as he could come without touching her.</p> + +<p>"Giddap!" he commanded the dancing pony. "Show your paces." That time he +tried to crack the whip too near Celia Jane and the end of the lash +wound around her leg.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Oh!" cried the dancing pony, hopping about on one leg. "That hurt! +It ain't no fair makin' it crack so close an' I won't play no more." +Half crying from the pain, Celia Jane ran to the house, followed by +Nora.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to hurt you," Darn called to Celia Jane. "The whip must +be a little too long, or I wouldn't have sized up the distance wrong." +He turned to Danny. "What do you think you are?"</p> + +<p>"I'm a el'funt," said Danny proudly, "an' I jump the fence like the +circus el'funt."</p> + +<p>"An el'funt!" cried Darn, turning his eyes up to the sky. "And he calls +that an' el'funt!"</p> + +<p>"It is a el'funt," protested Jerry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>Darn Darner laughed derisively.</p> + +<p>"You can 'maginary it's a el'funt," Chris explained.</p> + +<p>"It would take some imagination," was Darn's only comment on that.</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with it?" asked Danny. "I bet you couldn't do any better."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with it!" exclaimed Darn. "Ask me what's right with it. +Everything's wrong with it."</p> + +<p>"It looks like the picture of the el'funt—almost," defended Jerry.</p> + +<p>"It looks as much like that as I do like a giraffe."</p> + +<p>Danny turned his back on Darn and the latter exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"What's that blue pants leg for, hangin' down from your coat tail?"</p> + +<p>"Why—why—that's the el'funt's tail," Danny replied reluctantly.</p> + +<p>"My gorry!" cried Darn, giving way to shrieks of laughter so that he had +to sit down on the ground and double up with the paroxysms of mirth. +"<i>An el'funt's tail!</i> Oh, my gorry!" and again he rocked back and forth, +holding his sides. Then he was attacked by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>a fit of coughing and +finally, when he got his breath, he said:</p> + +<p>"Don't you kids know nothing of national history? Hain't you ever seen a +picture of an el'funt? Its tail is nothing like that a-tall."</p> + +<p>"How's it different?" Danny asked in a very meek voice.</p> + +<p>"It's small and round, like a rope," Jerry interposed quickly.</p> + +<p>"Of course it is," was Darn's comment.</p> + +<p>"I told him so!" exclaimed Jerry.</p> + +<p>"But how'd I know that you knew," asked Danny, aggrieved, "when you +didn't know how you knew?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," was all the explanation that Jerry could give.</p> + +<p>"All I can say is, you'd better study national history, Danny, and learn +how the four-footed friends of man are made," remarked Darn.</p> + +<p>"How do <i>you</i> know el'funts' tails are small and round?" asked Chris.</p> + +<p>"Because I'm no dumb-head and learn things."</p> + +<p>"I ain't no dumb-head," protested Chris and at the same time Danny +asserted:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Chris ain't no dumb-head."</p> + +<p>Jerry saw the green elephant's front feet double up and he jumped down +from the barrel, a little bit scared.</p> + +<p>"He is, too," said Darn, "and so are you. Jerry Elbow there's got more +sense than both of you put together, even if he ain't got no father and +mother."</p> + +<p>"I haven't either," said Jerry. "I jest somehow knew one thing Danny +didn't about el'funts' tails. Danny knows lots more'n I do."</p> + +<p>"I guess you'd better take that back about Chris bein' a dumb-head," +threatened Danny, scowling from under the elephant's trunk.</p> + +<p>"An' you'd better take it back about Danny's bein' one," remarked Chris.</p> + +<p>"I won't any such thing," retorted Darn.</p> + +<p>"We'll make you," challenged Danny, all his Irish fighting blood up.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see the kid could make me do anything I didn't want to," +and Darn doubled up his fists and flung them out in the air at an +imaginary adversary.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you," Danny boasted and quickly divested himself of the +elephant's skin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Take a board," cautioned Chris, "an' then you can keep him from runnin' +in on you." Chris followed his own advice and Darn, seeing himself +attacked from two sides, one of his foes armed, decided he would live to +fight another day and scrambled over the fence.</p> + +<p>"Yah!" he cried in derision from the alley. "Dumb-heads! Dumb-heads! Oh, +Chris, you blue-eyed beauty, turn around and do your duty! Blue-eyed +beauty!"</p> + +<p>He dodged just in time to avoid the board which Chris, incensed at that +most horrible of epithets—for his eyes were blue—had hurled at him +with all his might.</p> + +<p>"Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed beauty! Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed +beauty!" chanted Darn, thrusting his face between two palings of the +fence and sticking out his tongue.</p> + +<p>Then Danny picked up a board and, flanked by Chris, advanced to the +fence, whereat Darn took to his heels, shouting, "Blue-eyed beauty! Ole +Danny dumb-head!" as loud as he could.</p> + +<p>At the end of the alley he turned and shouted,</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>"A pants' leg for an el'funt's tail! Oh, my gorry!"</p> + +<p>When he disappeared from sight, the three boys surveyed the elephant's +skin lying on the ground.</p> + +<p>"Let's not play any more," said Danny.</p> + +<p>"I'm tired of the ole circus, anyway," replied Chris.</p> + +<p>They went into the house, Jerry slowly following them. Even he could not +'maginary the old green wrapper and the stuffed brown coat sleeve and +blue trouser leg into an elephant any more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Children That Cried in the Lane</span></h3> + + +<p>The days slipped by and none of the children played circus again. Jerry +thought of it often and would have liked to be the elephant just once, +but he never said anything. That made him dream all the more about the +real circus which was coming and wish that he could see it. He was very +careful not to put his longing into words, so he wouldn't remind Mother +'Larkey of the ends that wouldn't meet and make her feel badly. One day +she came across the old green wrapper elephant skin in the woodshed.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you children play circus any more?" she asked Danny.</p> + +<p>"El'funts don't look like that," he asserted, pointing disdainfully at +the discarded costume. "Their tails are small like a rope."</p> + +<p>"Are they now?" she asked. "And how might you be after knowing that?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>"National history says so," Danny replied in a very decisive tone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mullarkey gave one of those low, fleeting laughs that always made +Jerry feel so good inside and which had become so rare of late. "Yes, I +guess national history would be after telling about the elephant's tail +as long as it deals with elephants and eagles and donkeys and camels and +all."</p> + +<p>Jerry felt there must be something funny in what Mother 'Larkey said, +because her nose went all crinkly, and he smiled in sympathy anyway, +although he didn't understand.</p> + +<p>But playing circus no longer appealed to the Mullarkey children. Darn +Darner had had a blighting influence on the power of their imaginations, +and Danny in the elephant costume would have been to them now only a +little boy in an old green wrapper much too large for him, dragging +about a stuffed blue trouser leg for a tail,—a very ridiculous +spectacle. Jerry realized that there would never be a next time and that +he would never play the elephant.</p> + +<p>A few days before the circus was to come <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>to town Jerry and the +Mullarkey children were returning from the woods by the creek, where +they had gone to see what the prospects were for a good yield of hazel +and hickory nuts in the fall, and had just entered the edge of town when +they saw Darn Darner approaching. They had not set eyes on him since the +day he broke up their circus and they were doubtful as to how he would +behave towards them.</p> + +<p>"Just pretend as though nothing had never happened," Nora suggested.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's best," Danny agreed. "Let him speak first."</p> + +<p>They watched Darn's nearer approach without seeming to do so. They tried +to keep talking and laughing so he wouldn't think they were the least +little bit afraid of him, but Jerry and Celia Jane first fell silent and +then Chris and Nora, and finally Danny, so that when they met Darn they +were as quiet and subdued as a funeral party.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" said Darn, as they were in the act of passing. "Where you kids +been?"</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Darn," replied Danny. "We just been out in the woods."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There's goin' to be lots of hazelnuts in the fall," Nora informed him, +in a voice which she tried to make genial.</p> + +<p>"And hickory nuts too," added Jerry, feeling that such good news would +help keep Darn in his present state of good humor and from thinking +about what had happened at their circus.</p> + +<p>"That don't interest me much just now," Darn remarked. "I'm goin' to the +circus. We're goin' to have reserved seats, a dollar and a half apiece. +There ain't no better to be had."</p> + +<p>"A dollar an' a half for one seat!" exclaimed Celia Jane. "I thought it +cost only fifty cents to see the circus."</p> + +<p>"That's just to get in and set on an ole board without any back to it," +Darn informed her. "We're goin' to have reserved seats in the boxes, +with chairs to sit on."</p> + +<p>"A fifty-cent seat would suit me all right," observed Danny.</p> + +<p>"An' me, too," echoed Chris and Nora and Celia Jane and Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Are you kids goin' to see the circus unload?" asked Darn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Will they let you get close enough to see?" questioned Danny in turn.</p> + +<p>"Of course. They can't keep you from lookin', I guess."</p> + +<p>"No, I guess not." Danny answered his own question as though it had been +asked by Chris. "Anybody knows he could look."</p> + +<p>"Could you see the el'funt?" Jerry asked timidly.</p> + +<p>"You could if you had eyes," replied Darn loftily.</p> + +<p>"Where're they goin' to unload?" Danny queried.</p> + +<p>"On the sidetrack by Smith's house, just back of the depot, at five +o'clock in the morning. I'm goin' to see them unload."</p> + +<p>"So'm I!" cried Danny.</p> + +<p>"An' me, too!" asserted Chris.</p> + +<p>"An' me, too!" Jerry hurried to make that statement so that Danny could +not say he couldn't go because he had not chosen to go when there was a +chance.</p> + +<p>"No, you're not," Darn asserted with a sudden frown.</p> + +<p>"I am, too!" cried Jerry. Then after a moment he asked plaintively, "Why +ain't I?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess you ain't got nothin' to say about whether Jerry goes or not," +Danny interposed quickly. "He can go if he wants to."</p> + +<p>"No, he can't," contradicted Darn.</p> + +<p>"Why can't he?" Nora asked.</p> + +<p>"They don't let anybody in the poor farm go to the circus," was Darn's +unexpected reply.</p> + +<p>"That's not got nothin' to do with Jerry!" cried Danny hotly. "I guess +he ain't in no poor farm."</p> + +<p>"He's goin' to be, though," pursued Darn calmly, in that restrained, +superior, informative manner which sometimes can be so maddening.</p> + +<p>"I ain't either, am I, Danny?" Jerry appealed dolefully.</p> + +<p>"No, you ain't," Danny assured him. "Darn's jest tryin' to make you cry. +Don't you let him scare you."</p> + +<p>"Jerry Elbow's goin' to the poor farm before the circus gets here," +stated Darn.</p> + +<p>"I ain't!" cried Jerry in a shaky voice. "I won't go! So there!"</p> + +<p>"They'll take you," Darn informed him, "and you won't have anything to +say about it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mother 'Larkey won't let them take me, will she, Danny?" asked Jerry in +a voice that was becoming shrill and high from fear.</p> + +<p>"No, she won't," asserted Danny. "Darn Darner, you jest let Jerry be. +You ain't got no right to scare a orfum boy like that."</p> + +<p>"We won't let them take you," comforted Celia Jane, suddenly +affectionate, and put her arm about Jerry's neck.</p> + +<p>Darn stepped directly in front of Jerry and stared coolly down at him +until Jerry was so uncomfortable that he couldn't raise his eyes from +the ground.</p> + +<p>"You're goin' to the poor farm Wednesday morning," he said calmly, +"because Mrs. Mullarkey's too poor to keep you any longer. She can't +make enough to keep her own kids."</p> + +<p>Jerry felt suddenly very little and all alone in a big cold world. Fear +had entered his heart. He felt that Mrs. Mullarkey not only hadn't been +able to make both ends meet but that she was never going to be able to +do it. He some way knew that Darn Darner was telling the truth and that +soon he would be torn away from the only home he could remember. His +lips twisted and he felt the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>hot tears filling his eyes. Yet he denied +Darn's statement with all his soul.</p> + +<p>"They won't! They shan't take me! I'll run away first!"</p> + +<p>"Much good that would do you," commented Darn unsympathetically. "It'd +be easy enough to find you."</p> + +<p>"How do you know they're goin' to take Jerry away?" asked Chris.</p> + +<p>"He don't know it!" cried Nora. "He's jest tryin' to scare us."</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't," denied Darn. "My father's overseer of the poor in this +county and I guess I heard him tell mamma last night that he was goin' +to take Jerry to the poor farm Wednesday morning. He said Mrs. Mullarkey +had agreed as to how she'd hafta let him take Jerry because her +insurance money from Mr. Mullarkey was all gone and she couldn't make +enough to support her own kids."</p> + +<p>"It ain't so!" blustered Jerry, but all the time terribly frightened. He +tried to think of something to say that would show he was not afraid of +Darn Darner, who was always picking on little boys.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You shan't go!" Celia Jane cried, tears running down her cheeks. She +flung both arms around Jerry's neck and squeezed him passionately.</p> + +<p>"What will Kathleen do without Jerry?" asked Nora in a choked voice.</p> + +<p>Jerry looked up and saw that she was quietly weeping, too. They believed +it! Believed that Mother 'Larkey would let them take him away! He had +been somewhat comforted by their stout assertions that Darn's words were +false, but now—!</p> + +<p>He was stunned. Then his lips twisted and twitched and the tears that +had been forming in his eyes spilled silently over.</p> + +<p>"Don't get scared, Jerry," Danny tried to comfort him. Then he turned to +the tormentor. "<i>Darn</i> you, Darn, why can't you let him be!"</p> + +<p>There it was! Just what Jerry wanted to show Darn he couldn't scare him. +His oozing courage flamed up in a final flare of desperation. Through +his tears and the choke in his throat he cried:</p> + +<p>"<i>Darn</i> Darn Darner! Darn! Darn! Darn! <i>Darn</i> Darn Darner!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's about enough from you, Jerry Elbow!" shouted Darn. He gave Jerry +a resounding slap in the face. "No kid like you can call me that without +takin' the biggest lickin' he ever got."</p> + +<p>"No, you don't!" cried Danny and quick as a flash he rushed at Darn and +began pounding him over the head and shoulders with his fists. Chris and +Nora went to Danny's aid and the three pairs of fists caused Darn to +duck and run a short distance.</p> + +<p>Jerry slumped down into the dust of the road, weeping bitterly, and +Celia Jane flopped down by him, hugging him tight and mingling her tears +with his.</p> + +<p>Danny and Chris and even the usually gentle Nora, but for once with all +her gentleness vanished, gave vent to their feelings against Darn by +making a chant out of his name.</p> + +<p>"<i>Darn</i> Darn Darner! Darn! Darn! Darn! <i>Darn</i> Darn Darner! Darn! Darn! +Darn!"</p> + +<p>Into that chant boiled over all their pent-up dislike for him which had +been simmering under cover for so long. Darn started back <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>towards them, +angry through and through, but stopped as they rushed to meet him, fists +doubled up ready for battle. He had fought many boys bigger than +himself, but he fled before the numerical strength of the present enemy, +flinging back over his shoulder from a safe distance, "Blue-eyed beauty! +Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed beauty! Ole Danny dumb-head! Yah! You'll +<i>hafta</i> go to the poor farm if you want to see Jerry Elbow after +Wednesday."</p> + +<p>Upon hearing Darn's words Jerry stretched out at full length in the road +and his voice rose in a quavering wail of anguish. Celia Jane emitted a +thinner, shriller wail. Nora came back to comfort them and was caught by +the contagion so that she too plumped down in the road and wept.</p> + +<p>Danny and Chris, being boys, were ashamed to give vent to their emotions +in a similar way and stood looking down at the huddled forms in the +road. Chris, after a time, found himself weeping in sympathy and openly +rubbed away the tears with his shirt sleeve. Even Danny swallowed hard +and dabbed at his eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be horn-swoggled!" exclaimed a startled, mystified voice +back of the children.</p> + +<p>Jerry opened his eyes on a blurred picture of Danny and Chris turning +suddenly about and of Nora springing to her feet. A man was just getting +out of a two-seated buggy. All sound of his approach had been drowned +out by the vociferous lamentations of Jerry and Celia Jane, which still +continued.</p> + +<p>"What's the trouble here?" asked the man in a deep, pleasant voice that +carried even through the clamor into Jerry's consciousness. He raised +his head and looked up through swollen and tear-drenched eyes at the +man.</p> + +<p>"They're g-goin' to take Jerry Elbow to the p-p-poor farm Wednesday +morning," Danny stutteringly explained.</p> + +<p>"Then you must be the Mullarkey children," observed the man, speaking to +the group.</p> + +<p>"I'm Danny," said Danny, and Chris identified himself.</p> + +<p>"Then this must be Jerry Elbow," the man remarked, stooping to pick +Jerry up.</p> + +<p>Jerry flung his arms about the man's neck and clung there desperately.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, he's Jerry," Nora explained, as Celia Jane got up out of the +road and brushed the dust from her dress.</p> + +<p>"My name's Tom Phillips," said their new friend. "I knew your father, +Dan Mullarkey, very well. He told me once how he found you by the +roadside one stormy night far from any house, Jerry Elbow."</p> + +<p>Jerry felt comforted in the strong arms of Mr. Phillips and at the +pleasant, deep quality of his voice. He stopped crying except for the +long, shuddering sobs that always came at intervals after he had cried +so hard.</p> + +<p>"Who said anything about taking you to the poor farm?" he asked Jerry.</p> + +<p>"D-D-Darn," Jerry sobbed out.</p> + +<p>"Darn!" said Mr. Phillips, puzzled. "I say darn, too, but who was it?"</p> + +<p>"It was Darn Darner," Danny told him.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Phillips. "That scalawag!"</p> + +<p>"He said his father said so," Nora explained.</p> + +<p>"That will have to be looked into," Mr. Phillips remarked. "Now you +children climb into the buggy and I will take you home. I want to have a +talk with your mother."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She's not to home," said Chris.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe she'll be back," observed Nora, looking at the sun. "It's gettin' +on towards supper time."</p> + +<p>"We'll see," was Mr. Phillips' only comment as he placed Jerry on the +front seat and helped Celia Jane in beside him.</p> + +<p>Danny and Chris and Nora, in the meantime, had climbed into the back +seat. Mr. Phillips clucked to the horses and they trotted off into town.</p> + +<p>Jerry felt greatly comforted to be riding home with this big, pleasant +man, and the cruel edge of Darn's words began to wear off. He felt that +this new friend's words, "That will have to be looked into," meant +almost as much as though he had said, "I'll see that nothing of the sort +happens."</p> + +<p>His body was still shaken, at longer and longer intervals, by shuddering +sobs, but when the Mullarkey home was reached, they had subsided and he +was enjoying the unaccustomed buggy ride.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mullarkey was home, and she came running out to see why her +children were being brought back in a buggy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who's hurt," she asked anxiously, "that you're bringing them home in a +buggy?"</p> + +<p>"None of them is hurt, Mrs. Mullarkey," Mr. Phillips assured her +quickly, and helped the children out. "I'm Tom Phillips. I knew your +husband quite well. I found these children crying in the road because +Mr. Darner's young scalawag of a son had told them that Jerry Elbow was +to be taken to the poor farm."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jerry, you blessed child!" crooned Mother 'Larkey, taking Jerry in +her arms. "And you to find it out from some one else when I'd been +trying for this week past to get up courage enough to tell you."</p> + +<p>"Mother!" cried Nora in a shocked voice.</p> + +<p>"It's true, then?" asked Mr. Phillips.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Mrs. Mullarkey, drawing Jerry tightly to her. "I don't +want to let you go, Jerry, but Dan's insurance money is all gone and how +I am to make enough to keep the bodies and souls of all you children +together I don't know. I love you as though you were my own, you're that +sweet and gentle."</p> + +<p>Jerry began crying again, but softly this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>time, because he knew Mother +'Larkey wouldn't let him go if she could help it. She kissed him and +turned to Mr. Phillips.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Darner told me I'd sooner or later have to let some of my own +children go there or be adopted out, if I didn't consent to Jerry's +going. I'm at the end of my string."</p> + +<p>"I see," observed Mr. Phillips gently. "I didn't know just how Dan +Mullarkey left you fixed, but I can do something to help you. Darner can +be made to listen to reason and I can bring some influence to bear upon +him. I don't see why the county can't let you have as much as it would +cost it to keep Jerry at the farm. I belong to the same lodge as Dan did +and we'll help you some there. I'll find something for Danny to do. He +can be earning a little money in the summer time and help you out that +way."</p> + +<p>"You're an angel if ever there was one in this world, Mr. Phillips," +said Mrs. Mullarkey. "If the county will allow me for Jerry's keep, I'll +take better care of him than he'd get at any institution and it would +help me in keeping the brood together."</p> + +<p>"I'll see what I can do," said Mr. Phillips.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then Jerry won't hafta go?" Celia Jane questioned.</p> + +<p>"I hope not," he replied. "Keep a stiff upper lip, Jerry!"</p> + +<p>"I—I'll try," Jerry promised, already feeling certain that the danger +which threatened him had passed.</p> + +<p>"I'll come back in a day or two," said Mr. Phillips, "and let you know +what I have been able to do."</p> + +<p>Jerry watched him from over Mother 'Larkey's shoulder as he drove off. +He thought he had never seen a man who looked so big and strong and as +though he could make people do just as he wanted them to.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Tickets to Paradise</span></h3> + + +<p>On Wednesday Mr. Phillips reported that while the matter of allowing +Mrs. Mullarkey to keep Jerry had not been decided, he would not be taken +to the poor farm on that day at least and he thought it could be +arranged that he shouldn't go there at all. Consequently it was with a +joyous heart that Jerry awoke early on the morning of the great day that +the circus was to reach town. He had slept fitfully all night, thinking +of the circus and fearing that he might not wake up in time. Mrs. +Mullarkey had promised to call him, but for once Jerry had waked up +himself.</p> + +<p>He heard a stir downstairs and called to Mother 'Larkey that he was up. +He roused Chris, who in turn called Danny, but Danny was a sound sleeper +and merely turned on his side. Chris and Jerry then rolled him over and +pulled the covers off and finally pum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>meled the sleeper into a state of +semi-consciousness.</p> + +<p>"It's time for the circus to unload," they told him. "We're all dressed, +ready to go."</p> + +<p>Danny opened one swollen, sleepy eye, "Aw, it's not time yet," he +muttered drowsily and went back to sleep.</p> + +<p>"All right, let him be," said Chris in disgust. "We ain't got time to +wake him. We'll miss the unloadin' if we do."</p> + +<p>So Jerry and Chris tiptoed carefully downstairs, for they knew Mrs. +Mullarkey had gone back to bed, and ran through the dim light of dawn to +the railway station.</p> + +<p>The circus train was in and the unloading had already begun. Nearly all +the small boys in town seemed to be perched on fences, roofs, and in +trees, watching the proceedings. The circus men were tired and cross and +made the children keep out of the way.</p> + +<p>Jerry was dreadfully excited and exhilarated upon seeing four elephants +on the opposite side of the train, and his delight knew no bounds when +one of them was hitched to a heavy circus wagon on a car and pulled it +down a board incline to the road. The funny, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>awkward animal walked +right along as though the wagon were as light as a feather. Many of the +boys complained because the sides of the wagons in which the wild +animals were kept were closed, but not so Jerry. As long as he could +feast his eyes on the elephants he was content. He had but a passing +glance for the humpbacked camels and the two long-necked giraffes until +after the elephants had been taken away.</p> + +<p>When the train had been unloaded and the last wagons were hauled away, +the troop of small boys—and many older ones and grown men as +well—followed them out to the circus ground.</p> + +<p>Already one big tent and several smaller ones had been erected and the +elephants and the other animals were not to be seen. There was a +delightfully circusy smell of oils and sawdust and hay and animals +pervading the air. Then through it all came another smell that made +Jerry and Chris and many of the boys and men sniff. It was the smell of +bacon and eggs frying. The cooks were preparing breakfast for the circus +troupe.</p> + +<p>"I'm hungry," said a man back of Jerry to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>the two boys with him. "We'd +better get home. Mother will be waiting breakfast for us." They left the +circus grounds reluctantly, the two boys stopping every now and then to +look back.</p> + +<p>That inviting odor of frying bacon and eggs was a clarion call to +breakfast to scores of the onlookers, and the crowd fairly melted away +until not more than a dozen boys were left, among whom Jerry saw Darn +Darner.</p> + +<p>"I'm awful hungry," said Chris, after they had wandered around half an +hour longer. "Let's go home. I guess we've seen about all there is to +see."</p> + +<p>Jerry protested. "Let's wait a while longer an' mebbe they'll bring the +el'funts out."</p> + +<p>"Mebbe they will," said Chris and seemed straightway to forget all about +his hunger. They went about the tents again and once caught sight of the +elephants and camels in the second largest tent, as one of the canvasmen +came out and held back the flaps. He was followed by another man with a +thick, black beard, who wore something that flashed in his shirt front.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Gee, look at the size of that diamond!" exclaimed Darn Darner's voice +back of Jerry.</p> + +<p>The man looked sharply about. Jerry thought he seemed very much +surprised and was afraid he might be angry because he and Chris were so +close to the tent. He started to go away, but upon hearing the man speak +he stood rooted to the spot.</p> + +<p>"What in the world has become of all the small boys?" the black-bearded +man had asked the other. "There were hundreds about a few minutes ago. +Don't they know they can get to see the circus if they want to carry +water for the elephants?"</p> + +<p>"I guess the boys in this town never saw a circus before, Mr. Burrows," +replied the canvasman.</p> + +<p>"Here, you," Mr. Burrows called to Darn. "Want to earn a ticket to the +circus?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Darn loftily. "I've got a reserved box seat." He turned and +walked off.</p> + +<p>"What did I tell you, Sam?" laughed Mr. Burrows. "There's money in this +jay town and we're going to get a bunch of it."</p> + +<p>Jerry stepped hastily forward, a light of joy dancing in his eyes, with +Chris treading <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>on his heels. "Please, mister," said Jerry eagerly, +"we'll carry water for the elephants."</p> + +<p>"We want to see the circus," added Chris.</p> + +<p>"You're too little to carry water," said Sam. "Where're all the bigger +kids?"</p> + +<p>"They've gone home to breakfast," replied Chris. "Please, mister, we can +carry water. I'm big enough."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I guess you're big enough," said the man with the diamond in his +shirt, "but the elephants are awful thirsty and it will take you a long +time. Sam, you see if you can find some other boys to help you."</p> + +<p>Sam departed instantly.</p> + +<p>"Where'll we get the water?" asked Chris.</p> + +<p>"From that house across the road. You'll have to pump it. Your brother +there had better go home; he's too little to carry water."</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't, mister," said Jerry eagerly. "I'm awful strong for my +age."</p> + +<p>"How old are you?" asked the man.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Jerry confessed. Then, fearful of losing this +opportunity to see the circus, he continued, "I guess I'm almost seven +or mebbe eight."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You don't know how old you are!" exclaimed the man. "You look much +younger than seven or eight."</p> + +<p>"He's not my brother," Chris explained. "He's a orfum my father found +when he was alive. My brother's at home with mother and my sisters. We +couldn't wake him up. But Jerry's awful strong."</p> + +<p>"A orfum, hey? And awful strong?" said the man and seemed to be studying +over something in his mind. "Have you ever seen a circus?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No, sir," they both assured him and Chris continued: "Mother did once, +just after she was married to father. She wished she could bring us all +to the circus but she didn't have money enough."</p> + +<p>"H'm," said the man. "I used to be a orfum myself and I know how you +feel."</p> + +<p>"Did you?" asked Jerry, and he smiled up at the man, unafraid, with a +sort of fellow feeling.</p> + +<p>"I sure did," the man smiled down at Jerry. "I got to see my first +circus through carrying water for the elephants."</p> + +<p>At this moment Sam returned with four <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>other boys, all older than either +Jerry or Chris.</p> + +<p>"I never saw boys so shy of a circus before, Mr. Burrows," he said. +"They've melted away as though the circus were a plague. But I guess we +can get along with these."</p> + +<p>"All right, Sam," replied Mr. Burrows, "but I want you to pump the water +and let the boys do the carrying. These two boys," and he put a hand on +Jerry's head and one on Chris's shoulder, "have never seen a circus. +They'll help carry water and be sure that they get a matinee ticket +apiece."</p> + +<p>"All right, sir," replied Sam. "Come on, boys."</p> + +<p>"Let these two carry a pail between them," continued Mr. Burrows, "I +don't want them breaking their backs."</p> + +<p>Jerry felt an unusual warmth go surging through him. He was going to +carry water for the elephants and get a ticket to the circus, after all! +He was gladder than ever that he had bought the cough medicine for +Kathleen with the black half-dollar. He looked up at Mr. Burrows, and it +was such a look as a friendless dog might give to a man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>who had just +petted it and given it something to eat.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, mister, for lettin' me carry water for the el'funts," said +Jerry.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," replied the man. "Here, there's a dime for peanuts. +Have a good time."</p> + +<p>Jerry was too surprised to take the dime and Mr. Burrows pressed it into +his hand and went back into the tent before Jerry had recovered.</p> + +<p>"The boss must have taken a fancy to you!" said Sam to Jerry. "Well, +them elephants is awful thirsty and we've got to get to work. Come on."</p> + +<p>Jerry, envied of all the boys, put the dime in his blouse pocket. He +seemed to be treading on air instead of the solid earth as he followed +Sam to another part of the ground where the boys were given large pails.</p> + +<p>He felt in his blouse pocket every now and then to make sure that he +really had a dime and also that it had not grown wings and flown out of +his pocket, or made a hole in it and dropped out. It was always there +and his feeling of exhilaration at his good fortune kept up, despite the +hard work of carrying <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>that pailful of water from the pump across the +street to the back of the second biggest tent, where he and Chris +emptied it into a kind of a tub. There were half a dozen of the tubs to +be filled, and before the third one was full Jerry's arms and back +ached, but he gritted his teeth and kept on. He would show them that he +wasn't too little to carry water for the elephants.</p> + +<p>Under the ache in his arms and back, his exhilaration at the possession +of the dime and the prospect of a ticket to the circus wilted but did +not die. When the fourth tub was about full he sat down on the pump +platform while Sam filled their pail with water.</p> + +<p>"El'funts must drink a nawful lot of water," he said.</p> + +<p>"Gettin' tired, ain't you?" asked Sam.</p> + +<p>"No, I could carry water all day, I guess. It makes my back ache some +because I ain't used to it."</p> + +<p>"You kids have made more trips than the other boys," said Sam, "and I +ain't going to fill your pail clear full any more. Don't try to go so +fast with it. There's plenty of time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We want to carry enough for two tickets," said Jerry quickly. "Chris +wants to see the circus, too, don't you, Chris?"</p> + +<p>"You bet," replied Chris.</p> + +<p>"You'll get a ticket apiece, all right, as long as I'm on the job," said +Sam, giving them the pail not much more than half full of water.</p> + +<p>"That's a whole lot easier to carry," Jerry assured Sam, as they started +for the tub.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Jerry that he and Chris had been carrying water for hours +by the time the last tub was full. He felt almost starving. The sun +seemed to be 'way up and he was so tired and hot that he was about ready +to drop; but he found that when the work was done and Sam gave each boy +a ticket it wasn't very late, after all.</p> + +<p>"It's just nine o'clock," said Sam, "and you kids'd better scoot home +and get some breakfast. Just show your mothers them tickets if they +scold you for stayin' so long and I guess they'll hush right up. The +matinee starts at 2:15, but if you want to see the menagerie, you'd +better come about half-past one or right after the parade."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>Those magic pieces of paper, which Jerry and Chris held tightly in their +hands for fear of losing them, made them forget their hunger and +weariness and they set off for home at full speed. They raced breathless +into the house and found that Mrs. Mullarkey and Nora had finished +washing the breakfast dishes.</p> + +<p>"Look, mother!" cried Chris, panting for breath after almost every word, +"we've got tickets for the circus for helpin' carry water for the +el'funts!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, how nice!" said Mrs. Mullarkey. "They will be tickets to paradise +to you. Now you'll get to see the circus, after all. But you must be +about starved."</p> + +<p>"We are, almost," Jerry admitted.</p> + +<p>"Gee, my arms ache," Chris remarked.</p> + +<p>"You boys had better rub each other's backs with liniment while I get +your breakfast," Mother 'Larkey said, getting a bottle down from the +cupboard.</p> + +<p>"Did Danny get a ticket, too?" Celia Jane asked.</p> + +<p>"No," said Chris.</p> + +<p>"Why, where is Danny?" inquired his mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied Chris. "He was asleep when we left. We tried to +wake him but he wouldn't get up."</p> + +<p>"Land's sakes!" exclaimed Mrs. Mullarkey. "He must still be upstairs, +fast asleep! I heard you calling him and then heard you tiptoeing +downstairs and out of the house and thought he was with you." She went +to the foot of the stairs and called and the sleepy voice of Danny +answered:</p> + +<p>"All right. Is it time for the circus to unload?"</p> + +<p>"It unloaded hours ago," she replied, "and Chris and Jerry have got back +with each of them a ticket to the circus for helping carry water for the +elephants."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you call me!" wailed Danny.</p> + +<p>"Chris and Jerry called you," answered his mother. "I heard them and +heard you answer. It's your own fault for being such a sleepyhead."</p> + +<p>It didn't take Danny long to dress and get downstairs, his hair all +tousled and his eyes still heavy with sleep. "Let's see your tickets," +he demanded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>Chris let him see his, but kept a possessive hold of one end. There it +was:</p> + +<div class='bbox'> +<div class='center'><span class="smcap">Burrows and Fairchild's</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>MAMMOTH CIRCUS AND<br /> +MENAGERIE</big><br /> +<br /> +ADMIT ONE<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Complimentary</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>"That's a ticket, all right," Danny remarked. "Was that all you had to +do to get it—carry water for the el'funts?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Chris, "but it took hours and hours. I'm sore all over."</p> + +<p>"So'm I," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you make me wake up?"</p> + +<p>"We called you and pounded you and turned you over," Chris replied, "but +you went back to sleep."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you kick me or pull me out of bed?" Danny asked. "Then mebbe +I'd've got a ticket, too."</p> + +<p>"Mebbe you can, anyway," said Celia Jane. "The el'funts'll want a drink +at noon."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll go out and see," said Danny and was hurrying off at once, but Mrs. +Mullarkey made him wait for breakfast. He bolted the oatmeal and bread +and raced out of the house.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad I'm not a sleepy-head like Danny," said Chris.</p> + +<p>"So'm I," echoed Jerry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Crocodile Tears of Celia Jane</span></h3> + + +<p>Jerry could hardly wait until time for the parade. He and Chris were +both too excited to play; they stayed in the house most of the time and +questioned Mother 'Larkey about what she had seen at the circus the time +her husband had taken her to one in the city. She was busy sewing on a +dress for Mrs. Johnson which was wanted by Saturday night and was at +length obliged to send them out of doors with orders to stay out until +dinner was ready.</p> + +<p>They soon exhausted each other's conversation relative to circuses and +their knowledge and guesses about what they would see, and fell silent. +And the minutes dragged their slow length out towards eleven o'clock.</p> + +<p>They could smell the mush and potatoes frying for their early dinner +when Danny returned from the circus ground. They knew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>at once that he +hadn't succeeded in getting a "ticket to paradise", as Mother 'Larkey +had called their circus passes, nevertheless Chris asked:</p> + +<p>"Did you get a ticket?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Danny, sitting down dejectedly. After a while they knew he +didn't intend to say any more. Jerry waited as long as he could and then +asked in turn:</p> + +<p>"Didn't the el'funts want any water for dinner?"</p> + +<p>"No," stated Danny glumly.</p> + +<p>That little word "No" seemed to be all that Danny cared to say about his +experience, and the following silence lasted fully ten minutes. Danny +was the first to break it. He did so after apparently awakening to the +fact that dinner was preparing. He sniffed the penetrating odor of +frying potatoes and mush that had got a little burned, and sat up.</p> + +<p>"Gee, but I'm hungry," he said and sniffed again.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't there anything you could do for a ticket?" Chris asked.</p> + +<p>"No. The man said the early bird got the worm at the circus as well as +in the garden."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>After a time Jerry woke to the fact that Danny was looking at him out of +the corners of his eyes in a peculiar, questioning manner that made him +feel uneasy. He turned his glance away.</p> + +<p>"I'll give you both my tops an' the shiny horseshoe nail an' baseball +for your circus ticket," Danny proposed.</p> + +<p>Jerry's hand flew protectingly to the pocket of his blouse. "No!" he +cried loudly. "I won't! I earned it myself!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I ain't tryin' to take it away from you, am I?" Danny asked, +aggrieved. "I jest offered you some of my things for it. There ain't no +law against offerin' to trade, I guess. I'll teach you to skate and let +you use the skates I got at Christmas if you will. An' I'll feed your +white rabbit for you."</p> + +<p>"No," said Jerry, edging away from him, ready to run to the house if +Danny should try to grab the ticket. "I earned the ticket and I'm +a-goin' to see the circus."</p> + +<p>"Dinner's ready, children," called Mrs. Mullarkey. "You'll have to hurry +to get a good place to see the parade."</p> + +<p>Jerry was ready to start without having <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>anything to eat. He was too +excited to be hungry, but Mother 'Larkey made him eat so he "wouldn't +get too faint to enjoy the circus." It was a race between the boys to +see who would finish first. Chris won. Danny, who confessed to being +hungry, ate twice as much as Jerry and Chris.</p> + +<p>"Now you children keep together at the parade," admonished Mrs. +Mullarkey, as they were ready to start. "You can follow the parade out +to the circus grounds for the free show outside, but Danny, you keep +with Nora and Celia Jane and see that they get home all right."</p> + +<p>Jerry didn't see how the circus could be much more fascinating than the +parade with all its cages open so you could see the animals. And with +the clowns, too, especially the one with the donkey, going through such +laughable antics. But he was a little disappointed that the elephants +didn't jump a fence or do anything like that during the parade. However, +the beautiful ladies in gorgeous raiment who rode in the little houses +strapped to the elephants' backs made him forget about their +fence-jumping proclivities.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>When the parade was over, Jerry and the Mullarkey children, together +with a hundred or more small boys and girls, followed the steam-throated +calliope through the principal street of the town out to the tents, +fascinated by the loudness of the music and the escape of jets of steam +as the player fingered the keys. It seemed to Jerry that there couldn't +in all the wide world be such heavenly music. Celia Jane and Chris +shared his enthusiasm, but Nora confessed to liking a fiddle better and +Danny asserted that the music of the trombone was easier on the ears.</p> + +<p>The free exhibition on the little platform outside the side-show tent +had all the fascination of the unknown for Jerry and Chris and Celia +Jane and Nora, but not for Danny, who had been to the vaudeville theater +twice and who knew that this outside sample never could come up to the +glories to be revealed inside for fifty cents, or a dollar and a half +for reserved seats in the boxes, and was critical.</p> + +<p>The dancing girl in short skirts and the man with the beard which fell +to his feet and the very red-faced snake charmer merely whetted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>his +appetite for what was to come, while to Jerry and the rest of the +Mullarkey children it was a substantial part of the feast itself.</p> + +<p>The free show seemed to Jerry not to have much more than started when +the raucous voice of the ballyhoo announced:</p> + +<p>"This, ladies and gents, concludes the free show. The main show will not +begin for half an hour, thirty minutes—just time enough to see the side +show, the world's greatest congress of freaks and monstrosities. See the +sword-swallower from India to whom a steel sword is no more than a +string of spaghetti to an Italian. Kelilah, the famous dancer of the +Nile, whose graceful contortions have delighted the eyes and moved the +hearts of kings. See Major Wee-Wee, the smallest man in the world, no +bigger than a two-year-old baby, and Tom Morgan, the giant who stands +seven feet three inches in his stocking feet. They are all there—every +kind of human freak from the living skeleton to the fat woman who weighs +four hundred pounds. The price is the same to one and all—twenty-five +cents, only a quarter of a dollar. This way and get your tickets for the +side show.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> There is just time to take in all its wonders before the big +show in the main tent begins."</p> + +<p>The promise of all these delights proved irresistible to Jerry and Chris +and they left the children and were almost first in line, but the ticket +taker refused them admittance.</p> + +<p>"Those tickets are not good to the side show," he said. "They admit you +to the main tent."</p> + +<p>Stunned at this disaster, Jerry and Chris slunk under the ropes at the +entrance and rejoined Danny and Nora and Celia Jane. They stood in +silence as the crowd surged around the ticket seller for the side show +and watched the people stream through the door. Never had the lack of +"twenty-five cents, only a quarter of a dollar", meant so much to any +small boy as it meant to Jerry and Chris. Some of the people were +already going into the main tent, passing up the glories of the side +show. Jerry wondered if they, too, didn't have the necessary quarter of +a dollar.</p> + +<p>"It would be just grand to see all them freaks," sighed Celia Jane. "If +I could only see just half the circus."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jerry, his ticket still in his hand, looked up and saw Danny glancing +covetously at it.</p> + +<p>"What'll you take for your ticket?" he asked eagerly. "I'll give you +anything of mine you want."</p> + +<p>"I won't trade," replied Jerry, stuffing the ticket into his blouse +pocket. "I'm a-goin' to see the circus."</p> + +<p>Danny made the same proposition to Chris but Chris also refused. There +was nothing of Danny's that could compensate Jerry or Chris for missing +the circus, especially when they were right there on the ground with +their tickets in their hands.</p> + +<p>After the crowd had disappeared—part into the side show, part into the +main tent, some to their homes and some to wander about the +grounds—Jerry and Chris were debating whether they should go into the +big tent at once or wait until time for the main performance, when they +observed Danny, who had edged away from them, talking in a low voice to +Celia Jane. From the motion of Celia Jane's head and the entreating +position of Danny's hands, they knew she was refusing some request of +his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> + +<p>If they had not just then become absorbed in watching some circus +employee leading two big, fat, white horses out of a tent they would +have seen Celia Jane's negative shakes of the head become weaker as +Danny's attitude became more and more commanding, and all that occurred +afterward might never have happened. But they didn't look around.</p> + +<p>When the horses had disappeared, Jerry spoke:</p> + +<p>"They might start early," he said. "Let's go in now, Chris."</p> + +<p>"All right, let's," Chris replied.</p> + +<p>They turned to tell the other Mullarkey children good-by and saw that +Celia Jane was crying. Her shoulders shook and she seemed to be in the +utmost despair.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with Celia Jane?" Chris asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Nora. "What ails her, Danny?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Danny asserted quickly. "What're you cryin' for, Celia +Jane?"</p> + +<p>"I want to see the circus," sobbed Celia Jane. She raised her face and +there were tears running down it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You ain't got no ticket, have you?" asked Danny. "Nor fifty cents?"</p> + +<p>"N-n-no," sobbed Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"Then there ain't no chance at all of your gettin' in, is there?"</p> + +<p>"I ain't never seen no circus," moaned Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Jerry," said Chris; "let's go in now, so's we won't miss +anything if they start early."</p> + +<p>At that Celia Jane started crying harder than ever and Jerry stood +still, a curious something making his heart beat faster and his throat +growing all choky.</p> + +<p>"Let's go home, Celia Jane," proposed Nora, in a soothing tone. "Mebbe +next time we can go. They might let us carry water for the elephants and +earn a ticket to the circus, even if we are girls."</p> + +<p>"I want to see it now," sobbed Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>Jerry began to feel sort of shuddery inside and his mouth puckered up +the way it did when he felt like crying.</p> + +<p>He was awfully sorry that Celia Jane didn't have a ticket too. He knew +he would be crying out of sympathy if Celia Jane kept <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>on that way, and +started towards Chris, who had gone halfway towards the entrance to the +tent and then had stopped to wait for him. His joy at the thought of +what he was going to witness was clouded through the fact that Celia +Jane could not see and enjoy it too. He walked very slowly towards Chris +and looked back at Celia Jane.</p> + +<p>"Oh, J-J-Jerry!" cried the weeping girl, "I-I-I want to see the circus +too."</p> + +<p>At that appeal Jerry felt as though his heart had stopped beating and +was sinking down into his bare feet. He winked hard to keep the tears +from coming. He just couldn't bear to see Celia Jane so heartbroken +about not being able to see the circus.</p> + +<p>"You can have my t-t-ticket," he said slowly and pulled the treasured +bit of blue cardboard out of his pocket. There were tears in his eyes +but he walked slowly to Celia Jane, holding out the ticket to her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jerry!" cried Celia Jane. "Will you really give it to me of your +own free will?"</p> + +<p>Jerry couldn't speak at first. He nodded his head, but Celia Jane just +took one end of the ticket between her fingers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you give it to me, Jerry?" she asked, in a voice in which there was +no trace of weeping. Yet the tears stood on her face.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jerry at last and let go of the ticket. "You can have it, +Celia Jane."</p> + +<p>"Then I give it to Danny," said Celia Jane and straightway handed the +ticket to Danny, who snatched it and ran to the entrance of the main +tent.</p> + +<p>Jerry was so surprised at the treachery of Celia Jane after her recent +evidences of affection and at the suddenness of it all that he could not +even cry out,—could do nothing but stare after Danny. He saw the +precious bit of pasteboard taken from Danny's outstretched hand by the +ticket-taker and dropped into a box and then saw Chris give up his +ticket and go in.</p> + +<p>"Celia Jane!" he heard Nora cry, "I'm going to tell mother what you did +to Jerry. You'll catch it."</p> + +<p>"Danny!" Jerry at last found his voice, and it rose in a forlorn wail. +"The ticket is mine! Danny!"</p> + +<p>Jerry had forgotten how easily Celia Jane <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>could make the tears come +whenever she liked, no matter if she didn't really want to cry. He would +show that Celia Jane that she had gone too far this time. He didn't know +what he would do, but turned to go to her. As he did so, a crowd of +persons going to the circus passed between them and when they had passed +he saw Celia Jane running for home with Nora following at a slower pace.</p> + +<p>"Why, what's the matter, little boy? Why are you crying?" he heard a man +ask.</p> + +<p>Jerry felt the hot tears of bitter disappointment coming and he did not +want all those persons to see him crying. So he turned and ran blindly +around the big tent; when he was alone he flung himself down on the +ground and sobbed out his grief, with face pressed into the grass.</p> + +<p>Never, never, never would he forgive Celia Jane for her perfidy,—nor +Danny either for taking the ticket, when he knew that it had been given +to Celia Jane because Jerry thought she was really crying because she +wanted to see the circus. He would really run away this time. He would +run away <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>without going back to tell Mother 'Larkey and Kathleen and +Nora good-by.</p> + +<p>Now he would not get to see the elephants jumping the fence, nor the +trapeze performers, nor the dancing pony. Even the trained seals took on +a halo of enchantment now that the magic ticket that was to open all +those joys to him was irrevocably gone.</p> + +<p>His sobbing rose in a renewed outburst, but even as he sobbed he felt +something shake his foot very slightly. He stopped sobbing so hard. +There was no further shaking of his foot and he again gave himself up to +the bitterness of his grief.</p> + +<p>Then there came a tug at his foot; it was shaken harder than before and +then pulled. Very much startled, Jerry sat up and found himself staring +into a pair of twinkling yet sympathetic eyes and a face which was just +as white as chalk, with very, very red lips. It was a man, and he wore a +white skullcap over his head and a white, loose sort of gown with blue +dots all over it.</p> + +<p>It was Whiteface, the clown, sitting on his heels right there in front +of him! That very surprising individual suddenly turned a hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>spring, +and without standing up, kicked his heels together straight up into the +air and then sat down in front of Jerry, leaned his head on his elbow +and smiled with twinkling eyes, without uttering a word.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Clown of Clowns</span></h3> + + +<p>Jerry was so surprised that he almost forgot that he had been cheated +out of his ticket to the circus, and he stopped crying except for a long +shuddering sob every now and then, though the tears stood on his cheeks.</p> + +<p>The clown looked at him long and steadily; finally he made a little +squeaky noise with his mouth, and then opened his lips as though +laughing, but did not utter a sound. His mouth seemed to keep broadening +in a hearty laugh until Jerry thought it would really touch his ears. It +was such a good-natured grin and his eyes twinkled so that Jerry smiled +ever so little.</p> + +<p>At that little smile the clown's silent laugh suddenly disappeared and +with that funny little squeak in his mouth, which Jerry knew meant joy +in spite of its being nothing but a squeak, he jumped suddenly to his +feet and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>turned a series of handsprings around in a circle, kicking his +heels in the air and ending up just where he started, directly in front +of Jerry, squatting down on the ground, with elbow on knee, chin in +hand, looking intently into Jerry's eyes.</p> + +<p>The clown's lips were very sober in spite of the general laughableness +of his face, but as he kept looking at Jerry a smile started right at +the corners of his mouth and then disappeared. That smile seemed to be +waiting for encouragement, for after a time it started up again and +followed the clown's lips almost to the center of his mouth. It didn't +get quite that far, however, but raced quickly back to the corners of +his mouth, as though in disappointment, and disappeared.</p> + +<p>Then a remarkable change came over the clown's face. The corners of his +mouth began to droop and his eyes to close. Jerry thought he was going +to cry. His shoulders hunched forward until the clown was the most +forlorn looking object Jerry had almost ever seen. The corners of his +mouth kept going down and down until they nearly touched his chin.</p> + +<p>Jerry kept fascinated eyes on that chalky <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>white face with the very, +very red lips. It was the drollest expression of grief he had ever seen, +and a smile began to play about his own lips.</p> + +<p>That tentative smile on Jerry's part brought another sudden and +remarkable change over the clown's countenance. He began that silent +laugh again and it grew and it grew until the face was all a huge grin. +Jerry found himself grinning out of pure, contagious sympathy.</p> + +<p>Then the clown laughed harder than ever, still without making a sound, +and held his sides as though he had laughed so hard that they ached. He +emitted one short, little staccato laugh and stopped suddenly, as if he +were waiting to see if Jerry liked the sound before continuing with it.</p> + +<p>Jerry did like it and laughed out loud himself.</p> + +<p>The clown's face was all changed at that laugh of Jerry's and became so +comically still and sorrowful that Jerry laughed harder. Then the clown +started laughing out loud, holding his sides until it became a laughing +duet between them.</p> + +<p>Jerry was happy again. He had forgotten <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>all about Danny's perfidy and +the tears of Celia Jane and the stolen "ticket to paradise."</p> + +<p>The clown's features suddenly fell calm and he jumped to his feet and +pirouetted on his heels with little graceful leaps in the air, as though +he were light as a feather and going to take flight. Jerry was sure that +that was the clown's way of rejoicing at having made him laugh.</p> + +<p>Then the clown was suddenly sitting in front of Jerry again. "So you've +found the secret," he remarked in a very human and pleasant voice.</p> + +<p>"What secret?" asked Jerry.</p> + +<p>The clown whispered in his ear, "The secret of laughter."</p> + +<p>"The secret of laughter?" repeated Jerry wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"Shush!" warned Whiteface, looking cautiously about. "Don't let anybody +know you've found it till it's had time to get used to you. It might +like somebody else better and leave you for that somebody else, though I +don't see how the secret of laughter could like anybody better than you. +You're such a brave little boy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What will the secret of laughter do?" Jerry asked in a low tone.</p> + +<p>"It will make you happy," replied Whiteface. "Nothing is as bad as you +think it is if only you can keep the secret of laughter at your side. It +will make you forget your sorrow and laugh and laugh till the sorrow +slinks away."</p> + +<p>"Never to come back?" asked Jerry.</p> + +<p>The clown's mouth drooped again and his shoulders sunk forward.</p> + +<p>"That's the tragedy of it," he said. "Sorrow takes such a firm hold on +us sometimes, especially when one is grown up, that it comes back even +after the secret of laughter has driven it away. But it is different +with children; with them the secret of laughter almost always drives +sorrow away for good and all and leaves them happy."</p> + +<p>"How can it make them happy?" asked Jerry.</p> + +<p>"By making them forget."</p> + +<p>"Forget what?" pursued Jerry, puzzled.</p> + +<p>"What made them cry," responded the clown, "as you have."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then his face clouded and his white, chalky brows frowned.</p> + +<p>"You have forgotten, haven't you?" he asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Y-y-yes," replied Jerry, "almost."</p> + +<p>"Almost!" exclaimed Whiteface, very much disappointed. "Then it has come +back if you haven't forgotten it altogether. I wonder what it can be if +the secret of laughter can't drive it away?"</p> + +<p>He looked up so questioningly that Jerry responded at once. "It's Celia +Jane."</p> + +<p>It was the clown's turn to be surprised.</p> + +<p>"Celia Jane!" he exclaimed. "Cupid starts in so young nowadays!"</p> + +<p>"It was not Cupid," said Jerry, who had no more idea than the man in the +moon who or what Cupid might be.</p> + +<p>"No?" said the clown. "That's good! What did Celia Jane do?"</p> + +<p>"She cried."</p> + +<p>"Was that what you were crying for—because Celia Jane cried?"</p> + +<p>"No," Jerry answered. "I gave her my ticket to the circus which I got +for carryin' water for the el'funts."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah!" said the clown. "She cried to get your ticket so she could see the +circus herself. I see."</p> + +<p>"No! She gave my ticket to Danny," pursued Jerry, and his grief was +coming back so rapidly that he felt his lips begin twisting again.</p> + +<p>"And Danny went to the circus in your place?" questioned the clown. "And +the crocodile tears of Celia Jane made you shed so many real ones!"</p> + +<p>"Celia Jane always does what Danny wants her to," continued Jerry.</p> + +<p>"It was very naughty of her!" said the clown. "And Danny should be +spoken to."</p> + +<p>"Will you speak to him?" asked Jerry. "Then mebbe he'll give me my +ticket back."</p> + +<p>"I don't know Danny," replied the clown, "but I'll probably think up a +way to get you into the circus even if you don't have a ticket."</p> + +<p>"Oh, can you?" cried Jerry excitedly. He got to his feet and in his +eagerness put an arm over Whiteface's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I can if I think very hard," returned the clown.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You will think <i>very</i> hard, won't you? Please."</p> + +<p>"Oh, awfully hard," replied Whiteface. "But don't you worry. The secret +of laughter made your grief slink away for good. But I must know your +name. It will help me to think."</p> + +<p>"Jerry Elbow," replied Jerry promptly.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jerry Elbow," said the clown, "now I'll think. You may watch me +think, but don't say anything, as I might get to thinking your thoughts, +and if our thoughts get crossed there's no telling what would happen."</p> + +<p>"I won't," Jerry promised.</p> + +<p>The clown put his chin in his hand, palm out so that his thumb and +forefinger half encircled his face, and began slowly rolling his head +from side to side. Then with the forefinger of his other hand he tapped +the top of his head slowly several times.</p> + +<p>"Think!" he commanded his own head. "Here's a very small boy that you +can make very happy. Think of a way to do it. Think!"</p> + +<p>Jerry sat down again and watched him eagerly, holding on to himself to +keep from speaking and getting their thoughts mixed up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>Every emotion pictured on the clown's mobile face was reflected on +Jerry's. When the clown brightened as though he felt the thought coming +that would provide a means for getting Jerry into the circus, Jerry's +face likewise brightened. But when Whiteface slumped down into the most +discouraged attitude in the world, Jerry knew that that idea wouldn't do +and the corners of his own mouth drooped and, unconsciously, he rested +his chin in the palm of his hand just as the clown did and despair made +him huddle down in a heap.</p> + +<p>All of a sudden the clown made a clicking noise with his tongue and his +figure began to straighten up and his face to lighten until it was all +smiles. Jerry bounded to his feet. He forgot all about Whiteface's +caution not to speak and cried:</p> + +<p>"Have you got it? Did the thought come?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" cried the clown. "I'll buy you a ticket!"</p> + +<p>"Will you?" exclaimed Jerry. "<i>Will</i> you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, here's the money," and Whiteface <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>reached for his pocket. His hand +kept sliding down his loose, blue-spotted, white costume, but did not +enter into any pocket.</p> + +<p>"Can't you find your pocket?" asked Jerry fearfully.</p> + +<p>"I had one this morning," replied the clown solemnly, "and there was +money in it—enough to buy you a ticket to the circus and more, but now +I don't seem to be able to find it. You don't see a pocket on me, do +you, Jerry Elbow?"</p> + +<p>Jerry went close and walked all about the clown. There was not a sign of +a pocket and he began to feel dreadfully disappointed.</p> + +<p>"There ain't no pocket," he said sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>"Then there must be some pocket. If there ain't no pocket, there must be +a pocket somewhere. If you had said there is no pocket it would be so. +Look again."</p> + +<p>Jerry looked carefully, more and more sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> no pocket," he said at last in a voice that was trembly, all +ready to cry.</p> + +<p>"That's funny," said the clown. "I know there was one this morning +because I used <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>some of the money that was in it." He sank into thought +for a moment and then looked suddenly at Jerry.</p> + +<p>"I know why we can't find a pocket!" cried he. "While I was thinking +very hard of a way to get you into the circus and almost had the +thought, you said, 'Have you got it? Did the thought come?' Now, didn't +you?"</p> + +<p>The appalling truth burst upon Jerry. He had spoiled Whiteface's thought +by interrupting and their thoughts had got mixed.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know I was going to," he said. "I tried so hard not to."</p> + +<p>"And didn't you think that it would take only fifty cents to buy a +ticket?" asked the clown.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Jerry miserably admitted.</p> + +<p>"That's it!" exclaimed the clown. "That's what mixed my thoughts all up +with yours. I was trying to think of a way to get you in without any +money. Then, when our thoughts got mixed, I began thinking of the +ordinary way of getting into a circus by buying a ticket."</p> + +<p>"Can't you think again?" Jerry pleaded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>in a very contrite voice. "I +will keep still this time. I <i>will</i>!"</p> + +<p>Just as he spoke a band inside the tent started playing. It was so near +him that he was startled, and jumped.</p> + +<p>"The circus is about to begin," said the clown. "The band is playing for +the parade. I must think quickly so you won't miss any of it."</p> + +<p>There was no need of warning Jerry not to say anything this time. He +would have said nothing if he had seen the clown turn into an elephant. +It was an awful hard thought to think, for the clown stretched out on +the ground right close to the tent and looked under the canvas. Then he +rolled over, sat up and wagged his head solemnly at Jerry.</p> + +<p>"I've got it!" he cried and bounded to his feet and jumped clear over +Jerry's head.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say nothing this time!" boasted Jerry. "I didn't say nothing +this time!"</p> + +<p>"No," said the clown, "you didn't and our thoughts didn't all get mixed +up."</p> + +<p>"Will I get in before it starts?" asked Jerry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, or my name's not Jack Robinson," said the clown.</p> + +<p>"Is that your name?" asked Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Only to-day," replied the clown. "To-morrow it may be Tom, Dick or +Harry."</p> + +<p>"Robinson?" questioned Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Or Smith or Kettlewell," replied the clown, smiling. "Now you must do +just what I tell you to and do it quickly."</p> + +<p>"I will," promised Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Shut your eyes. Are they shut?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jerry, closing them so tight that he saw funny little green +and red and purple streaks of light.</p> + +<p>"Keep them shut. Don't open them once till I tap you on the back twice. +Then you count to twenty, and if I don't tap you on the back again, open +your eyes and you will be in the circus. Then you walk right ahead till +you come to the first row of seats where there will be a lot of children +and you just pick out any empty seat you see and sit there. Do you +understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Eyes shut," commanded the clown. "Come with me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>He led Jerry quite a distance away from the tent, Jerry thought, and +then had him sit down on the ground so that the clown was directly +behind him.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Whiteface, "you are going to be carried into the circus, but +don't open your eyes till I tap twice on your back and you have counted +to twenty."</p> + +<p>"I won't," promised Jerry.</p> + +<p>"If you see me in the circus," said the clown, "you can speak to me if +you want to. No, don't open your eyes."</p> + +<p>For Jerry, in his eagerness to assure Whiteface that he would speak to +him if he saw him in the circus, was about to look up at him. For fear +that he yet might do so, he shut his eyes tighter, till they hurt, and +covered them with both hands.</p> + +<p>"Lean over," whispered the clown, "close to the ground."</p> + +<p>As he did so, Jerry felt his forehead brush something that felt exactly +like the canvas of a tent.</p> + +<p>"Now," said the clown, "good-by till you speak to me in the circus."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good-by," whispered Jerry in a daze of delight and mystery.</p> + +<p>He heard a swishing sound and then felt the clown push him along on the +ground. A moment later he felt two thumps on his back and he started in +to count. He reached twenty without feeling another thump and opened his +eyes.</p> + +<p>He was in the circus tent!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">"Great Sult Anna O'Queen"</span></h3> + + +<p>Jerry knew that he was in the circus tent although he had not expected +it to be anything like that. A band was playing and hundreds and +hundreds of persons, mostly children, were sitting on boards, each one +raised a little higher than the others, and whistling and clapping their +hands. And clear around the tent were other sections of seats, all +filled with men and women and children. Eyes wide open with wonder at +the smell and the bigness of the tent and the paraphernalia used by the +performers, Jerry rose to his feet. He looked back of him, but only the +canvas side of the tent met his gaze. Whiteface, the clown, had entirely +disappeared!</p> + +<p>The lively air the band was playing seemed to get right inside of Jerry, +for his heart began to pound fast and his eyes were dancing.</p> + +<p>He was going to see the circus! The clown had got him in without a +ticket! He saw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>many boys and girls and older persons, too, hurrying to +find places on the board seats and he joined the throng. He remembered +that Whiteface had told him to take any seat there he could find and he +sat down in one in the second row between a boy a good deal older than +himself and a man with a black mustache.</p> + +<p>He had hardly got seated when, from the farther side of the tent, there +entered a gorgeous carriage drawn by a pair of milk-white horses. When +the carriage got around in front of him, Jerry saw that it contained Mr. +Burrows, the man who had let him carry water for the elephants even if +he was too young, but he didn't pay much attention to him, for there was +such a variety of different things to absorb his attention,—beautiful +women in richly colored garments on horses and on sober, humpbacked +camels, and even in little houses on the elephants, just as he had seen +them in the street parade.</p> + +<p>There was the sword-swallower and the fat lady, the giant and the dwarf, +and so many other things that Jerry couldn't remember them all. When the +last of them had passed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>out at the other side of the tent, he became +aware of a smell that was most enticing, quite different from the smell +of the circus,—the sawdust and the animals and the crowd. He had just +identified it as the smell of freshly roasted peanuts when a boy in a +white coat in the aisle asked if anybody there wanted freshly roasted +peanuts for five cents, only a half a dime.</p> + +<p>Jerry did, and after watching other small boys buying bags of the +delicacy, he fished out the dime from his blouse pocket and gave it to +the boy, who handed him back a bag of peanuts and a nickel.</p> + +<p>Jerry had just cracked his first peanut shell and was munching the two +nuts in it when he suddenly became aware that the circus was going on. +In fact, there was so much going on that he could not see it all. He +watched the trapeze performers for a minute, swinging and turning +somersaults and throwing each other about in the air, and then his eyes +wandered to the acrobats going through the most surprising contortions +on a platform. He hadn't seen half enough of that when his attention was +captured by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>the form of a woman sliding down a wire that went clear to +the top of the tent and she was not holding on to the wire at all! She +was hanging from it by her teeth! He expected to see her dash into the +crowd of people when she reached the end of the wire, but two men +stopped her.</p> + +<p>Fast and furiously the circus stunts were performed. Men in shaggy +trousers on horses threw ropes about each other and picked up +handkerchiefs from the ground while their horses were running +lickety-split. They just leaned over in the saddle until Jerry thought +they were falling off, and picked up the handkerchiefs.</p> + +<p>And there was a tight-rope walker. It was a woman with no skirts on at +all, and the rope was way up much higher than a man's head and she +didn't touch the ground with her balancing pole at all. Nora could never +walk the rope like that. And the dancing ponies and the trained seals +and the dog that wound in and out among the spokes of a buggy wheel and +all the other acts thrilled Jerry and made him almost dizzy, they came +so fast; but best of all he liked the clowns with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>their funny faces and +droll antics. He did not pick out Whiteface the first time the clowns +came out, there were so many of them and they looked so much alike with +their white faces and red mouths.</p> + +<p>But just after the dancing horses had left the tent and the clowns +swarmed in again, Jerry saw one of them stop and look up at the boys +above him. He had a bulldog under his arm.</p> + +<p>Jerry, unmindful of those about him, stood up and shouted:</p> + +<p>"Whiteface! Here I am!"</p> + +<p>The clown turned to him, made that funny clicking noise in his mouth and +bowed.</p> + +<p>"Jerry Elbow," said the clown and clapped his hands.</p> + +<p>"It's Jerry!" exclaimed Danny's startled voice somewhere among the +hundreds of boys and grown-ups back of Jerry. Then Danny added in an +awed voice, "The clown spoke to him!"</p> + +<p>Jerry suddenly sat down, for all eyes were directed towards him. He +didn't look around for Danny and Chris, for he was too confused to face +all those pairs of eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>Four or five of the other clowns gathered about Whiteface, looked up at +Jerry and clapped their hands, too. Jerry shut his eyes for a moment, +and when he opened them Whiteface and the other clowns were all doing +something there right in front of him.</p> + +<p>Whiteface was placing his bulldog down on the ground and Jerry kept +fascinated eyes on him. He never could tell afterwards what the other +clowns did then except that as they left to go to another part of the +circus, one of them, who wore the biggest and longest and flattest shoes +Jerry had ever seen, stepped on his own foot and couldn't get off! +Another clown had to help him off his own foot!</p> + +<p>But everything that Whiteface did Jerry saw and remembered, for he knew +that Whiteface was playing just for him alone. The bulldog stood +perfectly still until Whiteface held out a stick; then the clown jerked +upon the strap which he held in his right hand, one end of which was +fastened to the dog's collar, and the dog jumped right over the stick!</p> + +<p>Next time Whiteface raised the stick much higher, but when he signaled +to the dog by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>jerking on his collar that it was time for him to jump, +the dog jumped over the stick again.</p> + +<p>Jerry heard the crowd laughing and applauding. He thought no one could +help laughing at the ludicrous expression on the clown's face as he +looked up at the spectators every time the dog jumped the stick. Jerry +did not awake to the fact that the bulldog was a stuffed toy one, and +not a real dog, until the clown took it by the tail and struck another +clown on the back with it.</p> + +<p>The gasp of astonishment that came from many small throats told Jerry +that others had thought it a real dog, too. He joined in the laughter at +the easy manner in which the clown had fooled them. The look that +Whiteface turned on Jerry sent a warm glow surging over his body. He +liked Whiteface and was happy in the knowledge that Whiteface liked him.</p> + +<p>He watched the clown fasten the life-size toy bulldog to the back of his +costume. How he did it, Jerry could not tell, but the mock terror +depicted on Whiteface's features when he found the bulldog with what +seemed to be a death-grip on the seat of his clothes caused<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> Jerry and +the rest of the children to shriek with laughter. With that look of mock +terror on his face, the clown started to run to get away from the dog, +and he ran and cavorted and leaped so ludicrously that many eyes besides +Jerry's followed him all the way around the arena until he disappeared +through the entrance.</p> + +<p>Then Jerry found that there were several acts going on, of which he had +missed much. When they had finished, another clown came along with a big +head that looked like some kind of a bird's head. It was way up in the +air on a long neck with a wide yellow bill that every now and then +opened and showed a red tongue.</p> + +<p>Almost in front of Jerry, the clown stopped, bent down his bird-head +sidewise and suddenly gave a loud kiss to a little girl sitting on the +end of the first row.</p> + +<p>The little girl gave a shriek of surprise and terror and jumped from the +seat and ran up the aisle back of Jerry, amid a roar of delight from the +crowd. The girl hid her face and refused to go back to the front row, +despite the coaxing of her mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jerry offered to let her have his seat. He wasn't afraid of the clowns. +Then the boy next to him got up and the woman and the girl took their +seats while Jerry and the boy sat down in the front row, Jerry at the +very end. He would be close enough to touch Whiteface the next time he +came around.</p> + +<p>He had forgotten all about Danny and Chris and the trick Celia Jane had +played on him. He was so happy that he would willingly have shared with +them the pleasure of seeing the circus and getting acquainted with +Whiteface, if that had been possible. He wished Kathleen and Nora and +Mother 'Larkey could see it. Never in all his life had he been so +excited and so happy. He wanted more and more. If only the circus would +never end!—Anyway, not until he was too tired to stay awake one second +longer.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the band struck into a different air,—one that set Jerry's +pulse to beating even faster. It was like an echo from the past; he had +heard it before. It was the music he had thought he heard when he stood +before the circus poster of the elephant jump<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>ing the fence! +Unconsciously Jerry began saying something softly under his breath.</p> + +<p>And the elephants were coming! Several clowns were running ahead. Among +them Jerry espied Whiteface, and in his excitement rose to his feet, as +they came closer and closer.</p> + +<p>As the band played on, words seemed to be coming of themselves to +Jerry's tongue, and in a sort of rhythmical chant he was repeating in +time to the music as the elephants got directly in front of him:</p> + +<p>"Great Sult Anna O'Queen, in the jungle, Carryin' water for the +ellifants, Great Sult Anna O'Queen, in the jungle Carryin' water for the +ellifants."</p> + +<p>Jerry was aware that he was crooning, but did not know that he had risen +to his feet and was repeating those two lines of verse out loud.</p> + +<p>The band suddenly stopped playing, and in the ensuing silence the +childish treble of Jerry's voice was heard by every one in that section +of seats saying:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Sult Anna"> +<tr><td align='left'>"Great Sult Anna O'Queen, in the jungle,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Carryin' water for the ellifants."</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>He had hardly finished the words when the leader in the line of +elephants turned small, beady eyes towards Jerry, lifted up its trunk +and trumpeted aloud. Jerry was not frightened at all by that cry, but +held out his arms toward the elephant, crying, "Up! Up! Sult Anna!" as +though that were the most natural thing in the world to do and he had +been doing it all his life.</p> + +<p>The elephant trumpeted again and lumbered heavily towards the tier of +seats where Jerry stood, lowered its trunk and curled it about Jerry's +body.</p> + +<p>A great gasp went up from the people about Jerry and then some women and +men cried out and a girl screamed.</p> + +<p>"It's mad! It's run amuck!" some one cried, and in an instant there was +an uproar of terror as the people left their seats and surged back to +higher tiers where they hoped the elephant could not reach them.</p> + +<p>"It's Jerry! It's Jerry!" came an agonized scream which Jerry, from his +seat high in the air on the elephant's trunk, recognized as the voice of +Chris.</p> + +<p>"He'll be killed!" cried Danny's remorse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>ful voice, high and shrill +above the uproar. "And it's all my fault!"</p> + +<p>"Up! Up! Sult Anna!" commanded Jerry, and laughed aloud and waved his +arms. Why were all those people afraid? Sult Anna wasn't going to hurt +him!</p> + +<p>All the clowns had come running about the elephant.</p> + +<p>"It's Jerry Elbow!" exclaimed Whiteface.</p> + +<p>"It's Gary!" cried a woman's voice from the palanquin on the elephant's +back. Jerry looked at her. She was a very pretty woman in a most +wonderful sparkling dress, and she leaned forward, extending her arms +towards him.</p> + +<p>Jerry heard the strident voice of the elephant-tender commanding Sult +Anna to lower him and the man started to jab the elephant in the trunk, +but Whiteface shouted:</p> + +<p>"Don't touch the elephant! She knows the boy!"</p> + +<p>"He's not hurt at all!" cried an amazed voice in the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Take your seats! There is no danger!" Whiteface called to the +frightened and huddled mass at the top tiers of seats.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then the band struck into a lively air and circus attendants and +spectators ran up to the elephants. Among those who arrived early were +Danny and Chris, frightened but curious, and Mr. Burrows. The +performance was going on in other parts of the big tent and the +spectators there seemed already to have forgotten the incident, but the +unreserved seat section still seethed with interest, apprehension and +curiosity.</p> + +<p>"What's all this fuss?" asked Mr. Burrows, puffing from the speed with +which he had hurried to the scene. "We can't have the performance held +up this way and the people frightened."</p> + +<p>"As the elephants came along," explained Whiteface, "a boy was singing +some of the words of my elephant song, and Sultana, I believe, +recognized him. She trumpeted twice, reached out her trunk and carried +him high into the air. He kept crying, 'Up! Up! Sultana!' She has not +hurt him at all."</p> + +<p>Mr. Burrows looked up at Jerry, still sitting on the elephant's trunk.</p> + +<p>"Why, bless my soul!" he exclaimed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> "It's the orphan boy who helped +carry water for the elephants this morning!"</p> + +<p>"Robert, it's Gary!" again cried the beautiful lady in the palanquin on +the elephant's back.</p> + +<p>Jerry looked up at her and found her weeping. He wondered why she was +crying and who Gary might be.</p> + +<p>"The other elephants are getting restless," said Mr. Burrows. "Get the +boy down, Bowe, and take him with you to the dressing rooms. The act +must go on."</p> + +<p>Whiteface went up to the elephant and began talking to her gently, +patting her shoulder. Her keeper approached and ordered her to put Jerry +down.</p> + +<p>"Down, Sult Anna, down!" cried Jerry.</p> + +<p>Hardly were the words out of his mouth when Jerry was literally placed +by the elephant in the arms of Whiteface.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" asked the clown of Jerry, looking long into his eyes.</p> + +<p>"He's Jerry Elbow," said Danny who, with Chris, had edged in close to +the little crowd surrounding the elephant. "He's a orfum and lives with +us."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>"When did his parents die?"</p> + +<p>"He ain't got no parents," replied Danny. "Have you, Jerry?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Robert, help me down!" called the beautiful lady on the elephant.</p> + +<p>Whiteface set Jerry down and with two of the elephant keepers went to +Sultana's side and caught the woman as she half slid, half jumped from +her high seat.</p> + +<p>As soon as she touched the ground, the lady ran to Jerry and he found +himself gathered convulsively in her arms.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Gary, my son! Don't you know me? I am your mother!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">A Boy Named Gary</span></h3> + + +<p>Jerry looked long into the face of the lady. It was all pink and white +and her lips were very red. Her hair was a golden brown and it was long +and thick and hung down her back.</p> + +<p>"Are you my mother?" asked Jerry wistfully. He would like very much to +have a mother as beautiful as this.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I am! I am!" cried the lady and clasped Jerry close to her +breast.</p> + +<p>"Helen," said Whiteface, "you mustn't let your hopes get too high."</p> + +<p>"He is an orphan," observed Mr. Burrows, "his brother here said so," and +he pointed at Chris.</p> + +<p>"He's not my brother," interposed Chris quickly. "Father found him +before he died and brought him home."</p> + +<p>"Then it is Gary! It is!" exclaimed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>beautiful lady. "As if I +wouldn't know him—his eyes, his hair and his lips! Or as if Sultana +could be mistaken. What is your name, dear; do you remember that?"</p> + +<p>"Jerry Elbow," replied Jerry.</p> + +<p>"What is yours?" Whiteface asked Chris.</p> + +<p>"Chris Mullarkey," he replied.</p> + +<p>"How long has Jerry been with you?"</p> + +<p>"Three years," put in Danny.</p> + +<p>"He was only three and a half then," said the woman, "and probably +couldn't say his name very plainly. He couldn't at the time he was +stolen. Gary L. Bowe would sound very much like Jerry Elbow to any one +who didn't know."</p> + +<p>"You're right," said Whiteface. "I believe he is our boy."</p> + +<p>Jerry looked up at the clown and such an expression of delight came over +his face at the idea of the clown being his father that Whiteface's +voice went all husky and he took Jerry in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember anything about your parents?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Seems as though there was a man with a white face," replied Jerry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That would be you, Robert," said the woman named Helen.</p> + +<p>"Are you my father?" Jerry asked, putting an arm timidly about the +clown's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Of course he is!" cried Mr. Burrows, blowing his nose until it made a +formidable sound. "Bowe, you take your wife and child into the dressing +tent, so the circus can go on. Sultana is getting restless."</p> + +<p>Whiteface took Jerry up in his arms and his new-found mother clung to +his hand as they started to leave the arena, tears still in her eyes. +She stopped to call to Danny and Chris to follow them. Sultana lifted up +her trunk and trumpeted. As they tramped along, the spectators craning +their necks to get a better view, Jerry heard Mr. Burrows saying in a +loud voice to the audience in the section where he had sat:</p> + +<p>"Ladies and gentlemen, there is no occasion for alarm. The elephant, +Sultana, recognized in the boy, Jerry Elbow, the son of our famous +clown, Robert Ellison Bowe, who was stolen from the circus in a +neighboring State three years ago by a disgruntled employee. The police +of the country had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>been searching for him and Mr. Bowe had spent +thousands of dollars in the effort to find him. What money and mind and +trained detective intelligence failed to do, the retentive memory of the +elephant, Sultana, has accomplished and, thanks to her, a grieving +father and mother are reunited with their long-lost son. The performance +will now continue and you will see what a great degree of intelligence +is possessed by these pachyderms in the tricks which they will now +perform for your gratification."</p> + +<p>And how the people shouted and applauded at that!</p> + +<p>"Bow to them. They are cheering for you," said Whiteface to Jerry. "They +are glad you have been found."</p> + +<p>Jerry waved his hands to them and bowed and a patter of hand-clapping +ran along the audience as they passed until they reached the entrance.</p> + +<p>Chris suddenly cried, "Danny! Look at them el'funts! They're standin' on +their heads! Lookee!"</p> + +<p>Jerry just had to see that and he squirmed around in Whiteface's arms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They're funny!" he laughed. "Which one is Sult Anna?"</p> + +<p>"She's the one at the table," replied his mother, "ringing the bell for +a waiter to bring her something to eat."</p> + +<p>"Can el'funts do that?" Jerry asked amazed.</p> + +<p>"Much more than that, Gary," she responded.</p> + +<p>"I guess el'funts know more'n some people," Danny remarked.</p> + +<p>Jerry craned his neck to see the elephants.</p> + +<p>"Are they going to jump the fence now?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Whiteface burst into a joyous laugh.</p> + +<p>"Helen, I told you my idea for a circus poster would fetch the +children!" he said. "They don't jump a fence," he explained to Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Jerry. "The picture shows them doing it!"</p> + +<p>"They don't really, Gary," said his mother. "The picture was just drawn +that way to fit the old nursery rhyme about the elephant's jumping up to +the sky."</p> + +<p>"Then it ain't so?" Jerry asked, terribly disappointed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," replied Whiteface, "but they do other things more remarkable than +that."</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Jerry. "I want to see them."</p> + +<p>"Of course you do," said his father. "You want to see all the circus and +you shall to-night, and Mrs. Mullarkey and Celia Jane, too."</p> + +<p>"All of it?" questioned Jerry. "The little man no bigger than a +two-year-old baby and the sword-swallower and all?"</p> + +<p>"And all," replied Whiteface. "The menagerie and the side show and the +main performance."</p> + +<p>"Will Nora and Kathleen see it all, too?"</p> + +<p>"Who are Nora and Kathleen?" his mother asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, they're Danny's sisters!" he replied. "Didn't you know that?"</p> + +<p>"You hadn't mentioned them before," said Whiteface, "but they'll see it, +too. Are there any more in the Mullarkey family?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Jerry, "just Danny and Chris and Nora and Celia Jane and +Kathleen and Mother 'Larkey."</p> + +<p>By that time they had reached a part of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>another tent which was all +screened off into small rooms, into one of which Whiteface and the lady +carried Jerry, followed by Danny and Chris, who, torn between their +desire to see the elephants perform and their curiosity about Jerry's +new-found father and mother and their desire to obey the beautiful lady, +had kept close at their heels.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Mrs. Bowe, seating herself on a bench and taking Jerry on +her lap, addressing Danny as the oldest, "tell me all you can about +Gary."</p> + +<p>"Father found him one night along a country road, cryin' in a fence +corner, and brought him home," said Danny, "an' he's lived with us ever +since. That's all."</p> + +<p>"How long ago was that?" she questioned.</p> + +<p>"It was when I was five an' a half," replied Danny.</p> + +<p>"How old are you now?" Whiteface asked.</p> + +<p>"Eight and more'n a half."</p> + +<p>"Three years ago," said Mrs. Bowe. "That was only a few months after he +was stolen. How did he happen to be alone in a country road?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied Danny.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Perhaps your mother knows," suggested Whiteface.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," Danny replied. "Father always said it was a mystery. +It was very late at night—almost midnight, I guess."</p> + +<p>"We must see her, Robert, and thank her for taking care of Gary."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Whiteface, "she kept him after her husband's death—with +five children of her own. She must have liked him very—"</p> + +<p>"She does," Chris interrupted eagerly.</p> + +<p>"We all do," Danny stated.</p> + +<p>"How could you help it?" asked Mrs. Bowe. "Now, Gary, can you tell me +anything about what happened to you? Think hard."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said his father. "We left you in the dressing room with one of +the girl acrobats while we were on and when we came back you were gone. +The girl had been called out for a few minutes and got back just as we +did. We hunted all over the circus for you and got the police to help +us."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember any one taking you away?" asked the beautiful lady who +was now his mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No'm," replied Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Say, Mother, Gary," pleaded her low, beautiful voice close to his ear.</p> + +<p>"No, Mother," Jerry repeated obediently.</p> + +<p>"Try to think awfully hard," said Whiteface; "was there a man with a big +mark across his forehead—"</p> + +<p>"A red mark?" interrupted Jerry eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" cried his mother. "Robert, it was John Rand! I knew it was that +low creature."</p> + +<p>"I feared it," said the clown.</p> + +<p>"What did he do to you, Gary? Was he kind to you?" asked his mother.</p> + +<p>Jerry seemed to see in a flash a man with a red mark across his forehead +cuffing him over the head and twisting his arm till he cried out from +the pain.</p> + +<p>"I'll pull your arm right out if you ever tell any one you ain't my +brat," a coarse, thick voice seemed to be saying in his ear, "or if you +ever let on as how I ever hurt you in anyway at all."</p> + +<p>Jerry cowered down in his mother's arms and hid his face against her +breast. He did not answer her questions. His heart was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>galloping with +fear. The man with the red scar might come back.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you answer, Gary?" asked the clown gently. "Don't you +remember?"</p> + +<p>Jerry felt the lady who was his mother holding him tighter in her arms +and then she gave a sudden start. He did not answer. He was afraid to.</p> + +<p>"Robert!" she cried. "His heart is beating as though it would burst! The +memory of that beast must frighten him terribly."</p> + +<p>"He can never hurt you again, Gary," Whiteface assured him. "You will +always be with us from now on and we won't let him ever come near you +again. Did he ever hurt you?"</p> + +<p>Jerry, remembering now vividly what the man had done to him, became more +frightened than ever and, instead of answering, began to cry.</p> + +<p>"We must not hurry him into confidence," said Whiteface.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my boy!" wailed the elephant lady. "How terribly you must have +suffered when my heart was aching so to know you were safe and to +comfort and love you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>She kissed him passionately and squeezed him so hard that his breath +went entirely out of his body for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Has Gary ever told you anything about the man who stole him?" asked +Whiteface of Danny.</p> + +<p>"No," he replied, "but Jerry ran away from him."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"He said he had when he was going to run away from us."</p> + +<p>"Why was he going to run away from you?"</p> + +<p>Danny swallowed rapidly but didn't answer.</p> + +<p>"Because Danny wouldn't let him be el'funt in our play circus," Chris +explained for his brother.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bowe took Chris' words up so quickly that Jerry thought his father +was angry with Chris.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't let him be the elephant!" he exclaimed. "Why did Gary want +especially to be the elephant?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Chris answered.</p> + +<p>"Remember, if you can," urged Whiteface.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> "It will help me to prove to +every one that Gary is our boy."</p> + +<p>"I guess it was because he knew something about el'funts," Danny +ventured. "He knew that el'funts' tails are small and round like a rope, +but he didn't know how he knew."</p> + +<p>"I see," said the clown. "That is an important fact. I'm glad you told +me."</p> + +<p>"An' he said 'O Queen' when he saw the picture of the el'funt jumping +the fence!" cried Danny excitedly. "Just the same as he did at the +circus when the band stopped playin' an' before the el'funt picked him +up."</p> + +<p>"He didn't know he said it," Chris added, "an' he couldn't tell Danny +what he meant by it, could he, Danny?"</p> + +<p>"No," Danny replied.</p> + +<p>"That clinches it!" exclaimed Whiteface, and took Jerry from his +mother's arms. "Don't you cry any more, Gary-boy. Nobody shall hurt you +again. O'Queen was what you used to call Sultana, the elephant—'Sult +Anna O'Queen,' as though that were her name. It was the way you said a +part of one line in my elephant song: 'Great Sultana, Oh, Queen of the +jungle!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Carryin' water for the ellifants," said Jerry, through his tears.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember any of the chorus?"</p> + +<p>Jerry thought hard, but finally shook his head. Whiteface then started +to repeat the chorus:</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="The Queen is a-thirsty"> +<tr><td align='left'>"'Ho, ye drowsy drones! The Queen is a-thirst;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">A penny for him who brings a pail first.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Hurry and scurry—'"</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Jerry suddenly found that he did remember what came next and interrupted +his father:</p> + +<div class='center'> +"'—an' go at a prance!'"<br /> +</div> + +<p>"That's it!" cried Mrs. Bowe.</p> + +<p>"'Run to the spring,'" quoted Mr. Bowe and Jerry finished:</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Bringing water"> +<tr><td align='left'>"'—an' back at a dance.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Bringing water for the ellifants!'"</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Jerry felt so proud of himself for having remembered so much that he +forgot all about the man with the red scar and being afraid of him.</p> + +<p>"I 'membered it, didn't I, Whiteface?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the clown, "you did, and it proves beyond the shadow of +a doubt that you are my lost little son and you've got the right to call +me father."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Father," said Jerry experimentally, trying to see how it sounded. And +then "Father!" he cried exultantly.</p> + +<p>"And not mother, too?" asked the elephant-lady in a reproachful tone.</p> + +<p>"And Mother!" cried Jerry, sliding out of his father's arms and running +to her. He climbed upon her lap and buried his face on her shoulder and +gave her neck a very hard hug, just to show how much he was going to +love her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are my own darling, loving Gary!" she cried in a voice that was +tearful, but very joyful through the tearfulness, while she almost +squeezed the breath out of Jerry again. "And now we must go at once and +thank kind, good Mrs. Mullarkey for caring for our boy."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said her husband. "The circus is out and we will have time before +the evening performance."</p> + +<p>"Mother 'Larkey will be awful glad to see the circus," Jerry remarked. +"She ain't seen none since just after she was married. An' so will Nora +and Celia Jane."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Dizzy Seat of Glory</span></h3> + + +<p>"You boys wait here while Helen and I get ready," said Whiteface, "and +then we'll pay our respects to Mrs. Mullarkey and Nora and Celia Jane +and Kathleen."</p> + +<p>"You won't go out of the tent, will you, Gary?" asked the elephant-lady.</p> + +<p>"No'm," Jerry promised, and then at the look of disappointment and +longing on her face, cried, "No, Mother!" He ran and gave her a good-by +hug. "I'll wait right here."</p> + +<p>When Jerry and Danny and Chris were left alone, there was an abashed +silence at first, broken after a minute by Chris' remarking:</p> + +<p>"Gee, ain't it excitin', Jerry! Findin' your father and mother an' being +lifted up in a el'funt's trunk an' your father a clown in the circus and +all?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," smiled Jerry with satisfaction. "He's the greatest clown ever +lived."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess that's so," Danny stated judicially and also apologetically, +for he wished to make up with Jerry for getting his circus ticket away +from him.</p> + +<p>"It is so!" cried Jerry emphatically.</p> + +<p>"That's what I meant, Jerry—I mean, Gary." A silence fell and then +Danny continued: "I wish I'd never of asked Celia Jane to cry and get +your ticket away from you."</p> + +<p>Jerry said nothing, as he remembered how Danny had tricked him, and +Danny, after shifting about uneasily, added as though in justification +of his action:</p> + +<p>"If I hadn't of, you'd probably never of met your father. He couldn't of +spoken to you if he hadn't seen you before you got into the circus."</p> + +<p>That impressed Jerry as a point of view that might be true and somehow +he didn't feel angry at Danny and Celia Jane any more. He was too happy +at having a clown for his father to hold resentment.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe not," was all he said, but Danny took those words as meaning that +Jerry wasn't going to stay mad.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How'd you get in?" he asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Whiteface thought of a way that didn't cost any money," replied Jerry.</p> + +<p>"What kind of a way was that?" Danny was all eagerness for information +of that sort.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Jerry. "He thought of something an' told me to keep +my eyes shut an' I didn't see what he done."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you open 'em jest once?" demanded Danny. "I would of and then +mebbe we could of got into other circuses that way."</p> + +<p>"It might of mixed our thoughts, like when I said something when he told +me not to," Jerry observed.</p> + +<p>"What d'you mean, mixin' your thoughts?"</p> + +<p>Jerry was saved by the entrance of Mr. Burrows from trying to explain +just what he did mean by that, for he hadn't understood very well +himself. The circus man was smiling all over as he approached Jerry and +seemed just as pleased that Jerry had found his parents as Jerry was +himself.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, well," he said, holding out a hand which Jerry accepted in +the same amicable spirit in which it was offered, "so you're the son of +Robert Bowe! We were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>good friends before you were stolen and I hope +will be again when you get reacquainted with me. Maybe your father and +mother will be satisfied to stay with the circus now that you have been +found."</p> + +<p>"Was they goin' to leave the circus?" asked Danny in an awed voice.</p> + +<p>"So they said," answered Mr. Burrows, "but now I guess they'll stay."</p> + +<p>"Go away an' not be a clown no more?" Jerry asked this new-old friend, +as one man to another.</p> + +<p>"Go away and not be a clown any more," Mr. Burrows asserted.</p> + +<p>Just then a man and woman entered and came straight to Jerry. Why, it +was Jerry's mother and a strange man!</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bowe didn't look the same in an ordinary blue dress and without the +paint on her cheeks and lips and yet Jerry had recognized her almost at +once; perhaps it was her golden-brown hair, or, more likely, the joy +which sparkled in her eyes and lighted up her face.</p> + +<p>"I didn't go away once, Mother," he said.</p> + +<p>She smiled at him and the strange man spoke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I knew you wouldn't," he said.</p> + +<p>Jerry was dumfounded and so must Danny and Chris have been, for they +gasped. The voice that issued from the lips of the strange man was the +voice of Whiteface, the clown, the new-found father of Jerry!</p> + +<p>Jerry's thoughts were paralyzed for a minute and he could only stare up +at Robert Bowe, ordinary citizen, in stupefaction.</p> + +<p>So that was what his father looked like when he didn't have the clown +costume on, with his face all chalked and his lips rouged! Just a +common, ordinary, everyday, plain man, like—like Dan Mullarkey was, or +Tom Phillips or Darn Darner's father. He was not very tall and not very +big, and his face was rather long and there was quite a sprinkling of +gray in his hair.</p> + +<p>Jerry was so terribly disappointed in his father that, after that long +stare, he gazed away and would not look up at him again. He winked his +eyes to keep the tears from coming.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Jerry?" asked Mrs. Bowe. "Tell mother."</p> + +<p>Jerry tried to think of something to say <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>that wouldn't hurt his +father's feelings or his mother's, but couldn't, and he stood there in +misery and disappointment, his lips quivering and twisting and the tears +gathering on his eyelashes.</p> + +<p>It was Danny who voiced the emotions that Jerry was experiencing.</p> + +<p>"You look different," he said. "Only your voice sounds the same."</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul!" cried Mr. Burrows, and laughed heartily. "The boy's +disappointed that his father's just a man and not a clown."</p> + +<p>"Is that it, Jerry?" asked his mother, falling to her knees and +gathering him close to her breast.</p> + +<p>"He ain't Whiteface," Jerry mourned softly in her ear.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bowe laughed at that, and it was such a good-humored, infectious +chuckle of mirth that Jerry at last looked up at his very disappointing +father, and the twinkle in his father's eyes and the engaging, twisty +smile that played about his lips comforted Jerry. This father of his +wasn't so ordinary looking, after all! But a clown is so much more +interesting than just an everyday father.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You'll see Whiteface often enough," he promised Jerry, "to satisfy even +you."</p> + +<p>"Nora won't," said Jerry, "nor Kathleen nor Celia Jane."</p> + +<p>"The boy's right!" exclaimed Mr. Burrows. "Dress up as the clown to see +the woman who's cared for Gary and I'll have Sultana got ready for you +to ride on. The boy's a better press agent than the one I pay to +advertise the circus. I announced that Sultana had found your stolen +child and told the newspaper men all about it. You and your wife ride on +Sultana through the town, and you'll be followed by all the children at +the circus and those who are not here, and the circus will get such an +advertising as it never had before. And it will make Gary happy, too."</p> + +<p>"Will it, Gary?" asked his father.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" cried Jerry, thrilled at the thought of riding through the town +on an elephant, with his father and mother. "It'll be better 'n a +circus."</p> + +<p>"Robert Bowe, disappear!" commanded Robert Bowe.</p> + +<p>That surprising father of Jerry's wagged <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>his head solemnly with such a +comical look that Jerry shrieked with delight as Mr. Bowe turned a +handspring that carried him through the curtains into another part of +the tent.</p> + +<p>Mr. Burrows went out laughing, to have Sultana brought around, and Jerry +waited impatiently for Whiteface to reappear. His most blissful dreams +had been exceeded this wonderful day, and now the most wonderful part +was still to come.</p> + +<p>He was too excited to pay very close attention to what his mother said, +and Danny and Chris seemed to have been struck dumb by this dazzling +height of glory that was about to befall "Orfum" Jerry Elbow, who had +suddenly been transformed into Gary L. Bowe, son of a clown and of an +elephant-lady.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there sounded the delightful clicking that Whiteface made with +his mouth and Jerry's eyes almost popped out of his head in his +eagerness for Whiteface to reappear. He watched the curtain where his +everyday father had disappeared, without daring to wink his eyes for +fear Whiteface would get in without his seeing him.</p> + +<p>As he watched, he felt himself being lifted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>in a pair of strong arms +and twisted his head around to see who it might be.</p> + +<p>It was Whiteface! He had got back without Jerry's seeing him! Yet Jerry +was sure he hadn't winked his eyes, not even once.</p> + +<p>"Away we go to the Mullarkey house! Away we go to the Mullarkey house!" +chanted Whiteface, whirling around and around, as he carried Jerry on +his shoulder out of the tent to where Sultana and an elephant keeper +were awaiting them. Jerry's mother followed close, smiling at his +delight. From the corner of his eye, Jerry saw Danny and Chris walking +slowly behind her.</p> + +<p>The keeper put up a little ladder against the elephant's side and +Whiteface ran lightly up it and deposited Jerry on a cushioned seat that +ran around the little house on Sultana's back that he called a howdah. +Then he helped Mrs. Bowe up and sat down by her. The keeper had taken +the ladder away when Jerry again saw Danny and Chris looking up at him +in envy. There was plenty of room in the little house for them. He +turned to his father.</p> + +<p>"Is Great Sult Anna O'Queen's back strong <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>enough for her to carry Danny +and Chris, too?"</p> + +<p>The most surprised look spread over Whiteface's features and the +beautiful lady remarked:</p> + +<p>"Gary has your kind, thoughtful nature."</p> + +<p>"I think Great Sult Anna O'Queen's Irish back is strong enough to carry +Danny and Chris. I'll ask her. First though, we'd better find out how +much they weigh?"</p> + +<p>"How much do you weigh, Danny?" Jerry called down.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied Danny.</p> + +<p>"If you don't weigh too much, mebbe you and Chris can ride, too."</p> + +<p>"Us ride on a el'funt!" exclaimed Danny. "Why, why, I don't weigh much, +do I, Chris?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Chris eagerly. "You're not big enough to weigh much and +I'm littler than you are."</p> + +<p>"I think I can tell near enough," said Whiteface; "Danny weighs about +sixty pounds and Chris about forty. That makes one hundred pounds and I +weigh one hundred and sixty-five. Helen, how much do you weigh?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A hundred and twenty pounds," she answered.</p> + +<p>"I never can remember that. That makes two hundred and sixty-five and +one hundred and twenty is three hundred and eighty-five pounds and +there's Gary. He must weigh thirty pounds—say four hundred and fifteen +pounds altogether."</p> + +<p>Whiteface jumped from the little house on Sultana's back to her head, +sat down on top of that, leaned over and whispered something in the +elephant's ear.</p> + +<p>Jerry stood up so he could see better, and as he did so the elephant's +ear, which Whiteface had lifted up, wiggled and flopped out of the +clown's hand.</p> + +<p>"She says four hundred and fifteen pounds is not too much on this +occasion," Whiteface announced and directed the keeper to help Danny and +Chris up to Sultana's back. But Danny and Chris didn't need any help in +running up the ladder.</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Burrows approached and tossed a bit of paper up to Mrs. Bowe.</p> + +<p>"That's a pass for a box at the circus to-night for Mrs. Mullarkey and +all her family," he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is one pass good for all of them?" asked Jerry, as Danny caught the +precious bit of paper and handed it to Mrs. Bowe.</p> + +<p>"Yes," laughed Mr. Burrows, "it is when it's got the name of Edward J. +Burrows on it. Just tell her to show that to the ticket seller and he'll +give her the seats."</p> + +<p>Then Whiteface, still sitting on top of the elephant's head, told the +keeper he was ready and Sultana started. It took Jerry and Danny and +Chris quite a while to become accustomed to the manner in which the +palanquin joggled about on Sultana's back, but they were getting used to +it when the elephant reached the street close to the entrance of the +main tent where the people were streaming out from the performance.</p> + +<p>There was a shout from the small boys in the crowd who immediately +swarmed about Sultana and tagged on in the rear as she ambled patiently +down the street. They looked enviously at Jerry and Danny and Chris and +raised such a hubbub that every child they passed and many of the grown +persons, too, fell in line. The story of how the elephant had recognized +the lost boy and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>picked him right up out of the audience passed rapidly +from mouth to mouth, with the result that no one left the ever +lengthening procession that followed the elephant.</p> + +<p>Jerry took turns with Danny and Chris in directing the elephant keeper +how to get to Mrs. Mullarkey's. Jerry would not have missed one joggle +or sway of that ride for worlds. He saw Darn Darner in the crowd +following them, and he was glad that such a stuck-up boy should see what +a high place in the world Jerry Elbow had reached and be envious of him. +He even waved to Darn to make sure that Darn knew that he saw him.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Jerry!" cried Darn in a loud voice, so that everybody would know +he knew Jerry, and swaggered up close to the elephant. "How does it seem +to be ridin' on an el'funt?"</p> + +<p>"Fine!" Jerry exclaimed ecstatically.</p> + +<p>"Don't you wish you was up here?" Danny asked in a voice that was not +nearly so friendly as Jerry's had been.</p> + +<p>"Anybody would, I guess," was Darn's reply.</p> + +<p>"Well, you ain't," said Danny. "You're down there breathing the dust we +make."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There's the house!" cried Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Which one?" asked Whiteface from his seat on the elephant's head.</p> + +<p>"The one with the paint all wore off," Danny explained.</p> + +<p>"There's Nora and Celia Jane!" cried Chris.</p> + +<p>"I see them!" Jerry exclaimed and called his mother's attention to them. +They were standing by the gate, watching the strange procession +approach.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Celia Jane! I'm ridin' on a el'funt!" Jerry cried shrilly to +make her hear.</p> + +<p>Celia Jane both heard and saw and she seemed glued to the gate-post with +surprise. Her mouth opened as though she were going to speak and +remained open, without a word coming out. Nora turned and fled into the +house crying:</p> + +<p>"Mother! Mother! Jerry's ridin' by on a el'funt from the circus!"</p> + +<p>A moment later the keeper halted Sultana in front of the gate, and that +fact unglued Celia Jane from the gate-post and caused words at last to +flow from her opened mouth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mother! They're stoppin' here!" she cried, in turn running to the +house. She kept her eyes turned back on the elephant and ran into Nora, +who was pulling Mrs. Mullarkey, with Kathleen in her arms, out through +the door.</p> + +<p>Whiteface now commanded Sultana to help him down, and she raised her +trunk, wrapped it around his body and lowered him to the ground. The +crowd of boys and girls who had pushed up as close as they could made +way for him, while Jerry and his mother climbed down the ladder the +elephant trainer placed for them, followed by Danny and Chris.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" called Celia Jane. "There's Danny on the el'funt and Chris +too!"</p> + +<p>"For land sakes!" cried Mrs. Mullarkey. "Nothing has happened to any of +the children, has there?"</p> + +<p>"We're all right, Mother 'Larkey!" Jerry assured her.</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all, madam," said Whiteface approaching her, "except that +Jerry Elbow has found his parents."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mullarkey stared at Whiteface, too astounded to speak.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"An' his name ain't Jerry Elbow," cried Danny. "It's Gary L. Bowe."</p> + +<p>"An' the el'funt knew him in a whole crowd of people," Chris added, "an' +picked him up with its trunk."</p> + +<p>"The people thought the elephant was mad at first," said Darn Darner, +who had approached as close as he could get to the clown.</p> + +<p>"The el'funt picked him up in its trunk?" gasped Celia Jane, her eyes +growing bigger and bigger.</p> + +<p>"An' we're all goin' to the circus to-night!" Danny informed them.</p> + +<p>"All of us!" Celia Jane got breath enough to utter.</p> + +<p>"Me, too?" Nora asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, all of you!" laughed Jerry. "And Kathleen, too."</p> + +<p>"I wanta see serka," cried the baby.</p> + +<p>"And so you shall," said Whiteface, so close that Kathleen drew +whimpering away from his white, chalky features. "It's all true, Mrs. +Mullarkey."</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid of Whiteface, Kathleen," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>called Jerry. "He's father."</p> + +<p>At last Mrs. Mullarkey found her voice, but at the queer, choking sound +she made, Jerry looked up and saw tears running down her face.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you how <i>glad</i> I am that you have found your father and +mother, Jerry," she said. "Mr. Darner is here now and, after all, he was +going to take you away—this very day. And Celia Jane—" She couldn't +finish, but put Kathleen down and covered her face with her apron, +rocking her body back and forth.</p> + +<p>Jerry looked towards the house and saw at the living-room window the +face of a man,—a large, heavy face that seemed to scowl out at the +crowd.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/divider.jpg" alt="Divider" title="Divider" /></div> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">"—and Elephants to Ride Upon"</span></h3> + + +<p>Jerry's new-found mother went quickly to Mother 'Larkey and placed a +comforting arm about her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> am Mrs. Bowe, Gary's mother," she said, "and oh, how can I ever +thank you for loving him and giving him a home? I never can repay you."</p> + +<p>"That we can't, Mrs. Mullarkey," Whiteface interposed. "But what is this +about taking Gary away? And Celia Jane?"</p> + +<p>"Let's go into the house first," suggested Mrs. Bowe. "We have too big +an audience here."</p> + +<p>She led the way, her arm still about Mrs. Mullarkey's shoulder. Jerry +and his father followed, though Jerry turned at the door to have another +look at Sultana and the admiring throng of children gathered about her.</p> + +<p>Nora and Celia Jane, who had lapsed into tongue-tiedness after learning +that they were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>all going to see the circus that night, now started +slowly into the house, Kathleen clinging to Nora's hand to keep from +falling. But their eyes were turned back towards Sultana until they +passed through the door.</p> + +<p>Danny and Chris were also of two minds whether to follow the great clown +or remain outside with the elephant, but their mother's statement that +Mr. Darner had come to take Jerry away and was even then in the house +finally drew them as a magnet, their eyes also directed towards Sultana +until they stumbled through the door.</p> + +<p>Jerry saw Darn Darner's father sitting by the living-room window and +came to a stop. Mr. Darner was a dour, heavy-set man with a coarse, +bristling gray beard. He glared at Whiteface through thick glasses.</p> + +<p>"What does all this hullabaloo mean?" he asked Mrs. Mullarkey, in a +gruff voice.</p> + +<p>"It means," said Whiteface, answering for her and advancing towards Mr. +Darner, Jerry's hand held tightly in his, "that Jerry Elbow has found +his parents and the people have followed us here to show how glad they +are."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You his father? A clown in a circus?" asked Mr. Darner.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am his father and I am a clown in a circus," replied Whiteface.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Darner is the County Overseer of the Poor," Mrs. Mullarkey +explained. "He's been at me to give Jerry up and let him take him to the +poor farm ever since my Dan died."</p> + +<p>"It's for your own good and your children's—and Jerry's, too, if you +weren't too blind to see it," the Overseer stated.</p> + +<p>"After Dan's insurance money was all gone—and a good part of it went to +finish paying for this house," Mrs. Mullarkey continued, "I couldn't +make enough to keep the children decently. Mr. Darner's kept telling me +that if I didn't let him take Jerry to the poor farm, I'd break down +sooner or later and have to send my own children there or let them be +adopted out. Mr. Phillips thought he could help—"</p> + +<p>"Phillips is always butting into things that are none of his business," +growled Mr. Darner.</p> + +<p>"But this afternoon Mr. Darner came to take Jerry and I just couldn't +hold out any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>longer—I haven't the money or the strength. And he wants +Danny to go to a place in the country to work for his board and wants me +to let Celia Jane be adopted by a family in Hampton who are looking for +a girl. He thinks I ought to see if Celia Jane won't suit them."</p> + +<p>"Mother! Take me away from home!" wailed Celia Jane aghast.</p> + +<p>"I'm at the end of my string," Mrs. Mullarkey's discouraged voice +continued. "I've never been able to make both ends meet since Dan died."</p> + +<p>"She couldn't make them meet so's to give us money to buy tickets to the +circus," Jerry explained corroboratively to his father.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to come to it eventually, Mrs. Mullarkey," warned the +County Overseer. "This is a good chance for Celia Jane. The Thompsons +are well fixed; they'll give her a fine home and a good education."</p> + +<p>Celia Jane at that sat down on the floor and let her body relax into a +limp bundle.</p> + +<p>"I won't go!" she sobbed. "I won't leave mother! What would I do without +mother?"</p> + +<p>Jerry was very much distressed at Celia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> Jane's misery and he looked +pleadingly up at his clown-father; that extraordinary man knew without a +word having been spoken that Jerry expected him to fix things so that +Celia Jane could stay with her mother. Whiteface spoke at once.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry, Celia Jane. Nobody is going to take you away. Both ends are +going to meet now. You're all going to stay here with your mother."</p> + +<p>"You talk big," grumbled Mr. Darner. "Now to come down to brass tacks. +Who's—"</p> + +<p>"As long as I have any money, Mr. County Overseer," said Whiteface, "or +as long as I have the power to make any, the Mullarkey household will +not be broken up."</p> + +<p>"Of course it won't, Robert," chimed in Jerry's mother in a crisp voice, +as she raised Celia Jane from the floor and comforted her. "You always +know just what to do."</p> + +<p>Jerry's father continued:</p> + +<p>"We are going to take Gary with us now, but we are going to try to repay +Mrs. Mullarkey a little for all she has done and suffered for our boy. I +have some money saved up <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>and make a good salary. I want you to go to +Mr. Burrows, one of the proprietors of the circus, and satisfy yourself +on that point and that I am a man of my word. While you are doing that +we can arrange with Mrs. Mullarkey. We want to be alone with her. I'll +see you again before to-night's performance."</p> + +<p>Mr. Darner stood up.</p> + +<p>"I do not doubt your desire or ability in the matter," he said, "and, as +you wish it, I will consult Mr. Burrows. Nobody can be gladder than I am +that things have turned out this way. I don't like breaking up families +and taking children out to the farm, though some people say that I do. I +have to do a lot of things that go against the grain. I've wanted to do +what was best for you, Mrs. Mullarkey."</p> + +<p>"We are sure you meant things for the best, Mr. Darner," said Jerry's +mother. "Good-by."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mullarkey was looking so hard at Jerry's parents that she did not +return Mr. Darner's "Good afternoon" as he left the house or seem even +to have heard it.</p> + +<p>"It can't be true, what you just said," she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>at length articulated in a +choked voice. "Such things don't happen to us."</p> + +<p>"It is true," Jerry's mother assured her.</p> + +<p>"We shall not forget what you have done for Gary," said Whiteface. "I +calculate that I owe you at the least one thousand dollars for taking +care of him—"</p> + +<p>"A thousand dollars!" gasped Danny. "Why, that's as much as father's +insurance! I didn't know anybody could get that much money unless they +died!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mullarkey said nothing; her lips were trying to smile though the +tears still stood in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Besides which," continued the clown, "Helen and I will help you look +out for the children and we want you to call on us any time that you may +be in trouble."</p> + +<p>"We do, indeed," said Jerry's mother. "You cannot work so hard and take +care of your children the way you want to. If you only lived near us—"</p> + +<p>"Helen," interrupted Jerry's father, "I've been thinking, now that we +are going to settle down in business, it would be a wise thing for Mrs. +Mullarkey to sell her place here and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>move to Carroll with us. Then +we'll know how they are getting on and can look after the children some. +I'll help her dispose of the place here and buy one in Carroll, if she +would like such an arrangement."</p> + +<p>"Would you, Mrs. Mullarkey?" asked Jerry's mother.</p> + +<p>It took her such a long time to answer that Jerry looked up and saw her +lips were twisting. She was crying inside so that you couldn't hear her. +Jerry knew how that hurt—to cry when you didn't dare cry out loud. He +had often done it in the night, before he ran away, so the man with the +big red scar wouldn't hear him. He left his mother and Kathleen, climbed +up on Mother 'Larkey's lap, put one arm about her neck and with his +other hand patted her wet cheek.</p> + +<p>"An' then Kathleen won't cry for me," he coaxed, "'cause I'll be right +there an' can run over any time, couldn't I, Mother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course you could, dear."</p> + +<p>"There, you see," he continued.</p> + +<p>"I should love to," Mrs. Mullarkey replied at last to Mr. and Mrs. Bowe. +"It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>would be such a relief to have some one I could go to for advice +about the children. It's not that they're wayward or bad, but Danny is +hot-headed like his father and thoughtless. I'm sure, he didn't mean to +steal Jerry's ticket to the circus—"</p> + +<p>"Why, mother!" exclaimed Danny. "I didn't steal it! He gave it to Celia +Jane of his own free will and she gave it to me, didn't you, Celia +Jane?"</p> + +<p>"Yet it was stealing," replied his mother, "for you put Celia Jane up to +it. Nora told me all about it and Nora never tells what is not true."</p> + +<p>"You gave your ticket to Celia Jane, didn't you, Jerry—I mean, Gary?" +appealed Danny.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Jerry replied hesitantly.</p> + +<p>"There, you see, Mother, I didn't steal it," Danny defended himself.</p> + +<p>"Because you put Celia Jane up to getting Jerry's ticket for you," +continued his mother, "you must stay home to-night and—"</p> + +<p>"Not go to the circus!" exclaimed Danny. "When it don't cost nothin'!"</p> + +<p>"And Celia Jane can keep you company.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> I've told you again and again +that you couldn't impose upon Jerry just because he's not a Mullarkey."</p> + +<p>"Stay home from the circus!" wailed Celia Jane, appalled, and then she +burst into a flood of tears. Jerry was sure they were not crocodile ones +this time, for her body shook with the sobs of anguished disappointment. +He wanted Celia Jane to see the circus and Danny, too, and he knew Danny +was sorry.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe I wouldn't never have seen Whiteface—Father," he said to Mother +'Larkey, "if Danny hadn't gone into the circus."</p> + +<p>"That is true," Whiteface corroborated. "I found him crying outside the +tent and told him he could speak to me inside if he recognized me. He +did recognize me and that was undoubtedly one of the things that led to +the discovery of his identity."</p> + +<p>"Danny likes me," Jerry added. "He fought Darn Darner when he said they +was goin' to take me to the poor farm."</p> + +<p>"So do I l-l-like you, J—J—Jerry," sobbed Celia Jane. "—I—I'm sorry +I—" A fresh outburst of sobbing prevented further speech.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> + +<p>Jerry's heart was touched at her grief and his own lips began to twist.</p> + +<p>"I want Danny and Celia Jane to see the circus, too, Mother 'Larkey," +Jerry protested. "I ain't mad at them any more."</p> + +<p>"Please let them come," urged Jerry's mother. "I am so happy that I +can't bear to think of them being so terribly disappointed. And Gary's +pleasure would be spoiled knowing they were here at home while the rest +of you were at the circus."</p> + +<p>"It does seem hard-hearted," Mrs. Mullarkey relented, "but Danny knows +he can't pick on Jerry and not suffer for it. They can go to the circus, +but I'll leave it to them what they shall do as a reminder that they +mustn't pick on Jerry again. Danny, what will you do?"</p> + +<p>Danny hesitated a moment and then said without a tremor:</p> + +<p>"Jerry can have all my marbles and I'll feed his white rabbit for him +all summer."</p> + +<p>"Not <i>all</i> your marbles?" queried Jerry, knowing what a pang it must +have cost Danny voluntarily to decide to part with all his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>agates and +glassies and pee-wees and commies and steelies.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Mullarkey, "every last one. Now, Celia Jane, stop your +crying and tell us what you will do."</p> + +<p>"I'll sweep the kitchen every day and do dishes without grumbling," +Celia Jane sniffled, while Danny was off upstairs at a run.</p> + +<p>"That will remind you to be more careful," said Mrs. Mullarkey, "and +remember you are to work willingly, without any grumbling."</p> + +<p>"I will, Mother," sobbed the girl.</p> + +<p>"And now," Jerry heard his father saying, "it is time for us to be going +back to the circus and of course Helen wants Gary with her now. We'll +keep him with us for three weeks and then, when we play Hampton, I'll +bring him back here for the rest of the summer. When our season closes +we'll come for him and take him to Carroll."</p> + +<p>"And we hope you will decide to move there, too, Mrs. Mullarkey," said +Mrs. Bowe.</p> + +<p>"I will if Mr. Bowe thinks it will be best for the children," she +replied.</p> + +<p>"I do think it so," said Whiteface. "To-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>morrow I'll mail you a check +for one hundred dollars and the rest of the thousand I'll send to you as +you want it. We'll arrange that when I bring Gary back. I have nothing +with me now, as I haven't any pocket in these clothes."</p> + +<p>"I have," said Mrs. Bowe and took several bills from her bag and pressed +them into Mrs. Mullarkey's hands.</p> + +<p>"I can't thank you," said Mother 'Larkey. "I don't know how."</p> + +<p>"You've loved Gary, Mrs. Mullarkey. He wouldn't love you so much if you +hadn't. That is more thanks than I want. We owe more than thanks to you. +Tell them good-by, Gary. We must start."</p> + +<p>Jerry was awfully glad that he had found his parents and that he was +going with them and was much excited at the thought of traveling with +the circus for three whole weeks and getting real well acquainted with +Great Sult Anna O'Queen, but his throat grew all lumpy at the thought of +leaving kindly Mother 'Larkey, loving Kathleen and gentle Nora and Chris +and—yes, and Danny and Celia Jane, too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Mullarkey gathered him up in her arms and kissed him.</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Jerry. You've brought good fortune to this family and put food +into the mouths of my children and clothes on their backs when I +couldn't see where they were to come from. You must love your mother +hard for all the time she has been without you—and your father, too."</p> + +<p>"I will," Jerry promised and squeezed her neck very hard and kissed her. +Just then Danny came tumbling breathlessly downstairs and thrust a +little cloth sack, which was very heavy, into Jerry's hand.</p> + +<p>"Here are my marbles," he said. "All thirty-two of them."</p> + +<p>"I don't want them," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"Take them with you, Jerry," Mother 'Larkey urged him. "It will help +Danny to remember some things which he mustn't forget."</p> + +<p>Jerry consulted his mother's eyes. She nodded her head and he took the +marbles. Then he shook hands with Danny and Chris and Nora and kissed +and hugged Kathleen, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>leaving Celia Jane till the last, because she was +still sobbing.</p> + +<p>Celia Jane did not feel entirely forgiven because Jerry seemed to avoid +her and she abased herself before him.</p> + +<p>"I—I'm s-s-sorry, Jerry. I'll n-n-never do it again. You ain't mad at +m-m-me any m-m-more, are you, Jerry?"</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't mad at you," Jerry assured her.</p> + +<p>"Then will you m-m-marry me when we are g-g-grown up, Jerry?"</p> + +<p>Jerry flushed uncomfortably at that and felt that Celia Jane was taking +an unfair advantage of him, so he did not answer.</p> + +<p>"W-w-will you, J-J-Jerry?" Celia Jane besought him.</p> + +<p>"No," said Jerry at length.</p> + +<p>"Why w-w-won't you?"</p> + +<p>Jerry felt himself flushing still more hotly from head to foot, partly +at the smile he saw his father and mother exchange and partly at Celia +Jane's importunity.</p> + +<p>"Because," he said.</p> + +<p>"I'll g-g-give you my silver ring if you will, Jerry."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No," said Jerry more firmly.</p> + +<p>"Why won't you, J-J-Jerry?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Gary," interposed his father with a dancing, twinkling light in +his eyes, "why can't you promise it to oblige the lady?"</p> + +<p>"'Cause," Jerry informed him gravely, "when I grow up I'm goin' to marry +Kathleen."</p> + +<p>Jerry was somewhat dumfounded at the burst of laughter which followed +his announcement. They did not know, he thought, that Kathleen had given +him her old, adored rag dog of her own free will.</p> + +<p>"The darling!" cried Mother 'Larkey, after she had stopped laughing. +"But there is plenty of time to change your mind yet."</p> + +<p>"Then you must be very kind to Kathleen, always," said Jerry's mother.</p> + +<p>"He has been," said Mrs. Mullarkey.</p> + +<p>Kathleen looked up at Jerry and gurgled.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Celia Jane," consoled Nora. "He'll be in the family, +anyway."</p> + +<p>Celia Jane was greatly cheered by that consolation and brightened +visibly, much to Jerry's relief. She kissed him good-by, throw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>ing both +arms tightly about his neck in her impetuous fashion.</p> + +<p>It was with a sad and yet singing heart that Jerry followed his father +and mother out to Sultana,—sad at leaving behind all that had made his +life and his world the past three years, and singing at the thought of +the new world and the new life he was about to enter into, with a father +and mother of his very own, a circus twice a day, every day in the week +but Sunday, and elephants to ride upon.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="./images/lastpage.jpg" alt="Elephants to ride upon" title="Elephants to ride upon" /><br /><br /></div> + + +<div class="figcenter"><a href="./images/backfacing.jpg"><img src="./images/backfacing-tb.jpg" alt="Back Facing" title="Back Facing" /></a></div> + +<div class='tnote'>Transcriber's Note: All punctuation normalized.</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Circus Comes to Town, by Lebbeus Mitchell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 16991-h.htm or 16991-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/9/9/16991/ + +Produced by Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Circus Comes to Town + +Author: Lebbeus Mitchell + +Illustrator: Rhoda Chase + +Release Date: November 3, 2005 [EBook #16991] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +[Illustration: This is my Book] + +[Illustration: "JERRY KEPT FASCINATED EYES ON THAT CHALKY WHITE FACE." + +"The Circus Comes to Town." (See Page 128)] + + + + +The Circus Comes to Town + +BY LEBBEUS MITCHELL + +AUTHOR OF "_One Boy Too Many_" and "_Here, Tricks, Here!_" + +[Illustration] + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY PUBLISHERS --- NEW YORK + +OTHER LEBBEUS MITCHELL +BOOKS PUBLISHED BY +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY +ARE + +ONE BOY TOO MANY + +& + +HERE, TRICKS, HERE! + + +THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN +COPYRIGHT, 1921, +BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + +_PRINTED IN U.S.A._ + +[Illustration: Contents] + + + +Contents + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. "ASK YOUR MOTHER FOR FIFTY CENTS" 1 + + II. THE BLACK HALF-DOLLAR 18 + + III. THE WIDTH OF AN ELEPHANT'S TAIL 37 + + IV. JERRY LEARNS THAT O-U-T SPELLS OUT 49 + + V. THE GREEN ELEPHANT BUYS AN AUDIENCE 65 + + VI. THE CHILDREN THAT CRIED IN THE LANE 80 + + VII. TICKETS TO PARADISE 97 + +VIII. THE CROCODILE TEARS OF CELIA JANE 112 + + IX. CLOWN OF CLOWNS 127 + + X. "GREAT SULT ANNA O'QUEEN" 142 + + XI. A BOY NAMED GARY 157 + + XII. THE DIZZY SEAT OF GLORY 171 + +XIII. "--AND ELEPHANTS TO RIDE UPON" 188 + + + + +THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"ASK YOUR MOTHER FOR FIFTY CENTS" + + +The apple seemed to Jerry Elbow too big to be true. + +He held it out at arm's length to get a good squint at its bigness and +its redness. Then he turned to look wonderingly after the disappearing +automobile with the lady who had tossed him the apple for directing her +to the post office. A long trail of dust rose from the unpaved street +behind the motor car. + +Next he addressed himself to the business of eating the apple. He rubbed +it shiny against his patched trousers, carefully hunted out the reddest +spot on it, and took a big, luscious bite. Instead of chewing the morsel +at once, he crushed it against his palate just to feel the mellowness +of it and to get the full flavor of the first taste of juice. Then he +chewed vigorously. + +He started on to Mother 'Larkey's where he had made his home for nearly +three years, ever since Mr. Mullarkey, dead this year now, had found him +by the roadside one dark night. He had just started to take a second +bite when a shout stopped him. + +"Hi, Jerry! What you got?" + +Instinctively Jerry hid the apple behind him, for it was Danny +Mullarkey's voice that he had heard. + +"Jerry's got something to eat!" Danny called over his shoulder to some +one out of sight. "Come on, kids!" + +Jerry hastily swallowed the piece of apple in his mouth and bit off the +very largest chunk he could. He knew by long and bitter experience how +little would be left for him after the Mullarkey brood had all nibbled +at it. + +Danny, who was past nine, reached him before Jerry could gulp down that +mouthful and take another bite, as he had intended to do. Chris and Nora +followed at Danny's heels, with Celia Jane, as usual, far in the rear. + +"Save me a bite, Jerry!" called Celia Jane. + +"Give me a bite of your apple, Jerry," coaxed Danny. + +"Me, too," echoed Chris. + +"It looks awful nice," observed Nora. "Where'd you get it?" + +Jerry explained and handed her the apple first because she had not asked +for a bite. Nora bit off a small piece and was passing it on to Celia +Jane, who ran panting up to them, when Jerry stopped her by urging: + +"Take a bigger bite than that, Nora. I want you to." + +"Not till after you've had your turn again," replied Nora, who was +nearly eight and was celebrated in the Mullarkey household for a finer +sense of fair play than any of the others possessed. + +Celia Jane was greedy and bit off so big a chunk that she could not cram +it into her mouth, despite her heroic efforts to accomplish that feat. + +"That ain't fair, Celia Jane," reproved Nora. "Mother told you never to +do that again." + +"That's _two_ bites!" cried Danny. "Take it out and bite it in two." + +Celia Jane's mouth was too full for utterance. She held out the apple to +Danny, then freed her mouth of its embarrassment of riches and proceeded +to bite it in two. + +"Here, Chris," invited Danny, "take your bite next." + +Jerry became immediately suspicious at such unaccustomed politeness on +Danny's part and he was not at all surprised when Danny, once the +remainder of the apple was again in his hands, took to his heels. + +"Save me a bite!" cried Celia Jane, swallowing the morsel in her mouth +so quickly that she came near to choking, and tagged after her older +brother as fast as she could run. + +"Danny!" cried Jerry. "That's no fair!" + +He started to run after the vanishing apple, but was quickly passed, +first by Chris and then by Nora, who called back to him: "Maybe I can +save the core for you, Jerry." + +Bitterness arose in Jerry's soul. He knew that he couldn't catch up with +Danny, but he kept on running. That old, odd feeling that he did not +belong to the Mullarkeys, though living with them, came over him again, +and he had already begun to slow down his pace when he was brought to a +full and sudden stop by a picture blazoned on a billboard. + +He stared spellbound, without even winking. Of all delectable things, it +was the picture of an elephant! A purple elephant jumping over a green +fence, its trunk raised high in the air until it almost touched the +full, red moon at the top of the poster. The elephant had such a roguish +and knowing look in his small eyes and such a smirk on his funny little +mouth that Jerry began to smile without being the least bit conscious +that he was doing so. + +The smile kept spreading in complete understanding of the look on the +elephant's face and he probably would have laughed aloud had not the +picture somehow made him think of something, he couldn't just remember +what. A dim idea seemed to be trying to break into his mind but couldn't +find the right door. In his effort to puzzle out what it was the +elephant made him think of, Jerry entirely forgot the large red apple +and the perfidy of Danny. + +"What're you lookin' at?" called Danny, who had stopped half a block +farther on when he no longer heard Jerry's pursuing footsteps. + +Jerry did not answer. Instead, he squatted down on the grassy bank +between the sidewalk and the billboard and feasted his eyes on that +delightfully extravagant elephant which seemed almost to wink at him. +Jerry half expected to see the elephant grab the moon and balance it on +the end of his trunk, or toss it up into the sky and catch it again as +it fell. + +"Come on, Jerry, if you want the core," called Danny again. "That's all +that's left." + +"Don't want the core," said Jerry. "It was my apple. The lady gave it to +me." He didn't even look at Danny but kept staring at the very purple +elephant and the very red moon almost on the tip-end of his trunk. He +just wouldn't let Danny Mullarkey know that it made any difference to +him whether Danny and Chris and Nora and Celia Jane liked him very much +or not. + +No, and he wouldn't feel so terribly bad if Mother 'Larkey and little +Kathleen didn't like him, either. + +"You ain't lost your tongue, have you?" cried Danny. + +"Maybe the cat's got it," said Celia Jane, following as usual her elder +brother's lead and laughing at her own wit. + +"What you starin' at so hard, Jerry?" called Chris. + +Jerry disdained to reply or to let his enraptured gaze wander for a +moment from the dazzling poster. Curiosity soon got the better of Chris +and he started to walk back. + +"El'funt!" shouted Chris, when he was near enough to see the poster. His +shout started the whole Mullarkey brood galloping towards the billboard. + +"The circus!" cried Danny, from the superior experience of his nine +years. "The circus is coming to town!" He threw himself on the grass by +Jerry and pressed the uneaten apple core into his hand. + +"I don't want it," said Jerry. + +"Aw, take it, Jerry. I didn't mean to eat so much of it, honest I +didn't. I just wanted to tease you." He closed Jerry's fingers around +the core. + +"It doesn't say the circus is coming," Nora observed, pointing to some +lettering in one corner of the poster. Nora was nearly eight years old +and proud of her ability to read print, if the words weren't too +big,--an ability shared by none of the others except Danny. + +"It does, too!" contradicted Celia Jane, wrinkling up her nose +preparatory to crying with disappointment if the circus were not coming. +"There's some writin' on it." + +"What does it say, Danny?" eagerly asked Jerry, going close to the +billboard as though that might help him to make out what was printed on +it. "Ain't it coming?" + +"Read it quick, Danny! Please! I can't wait!" cried Celia Jane. + +Thus besought, Danny read somewhat haltingly, for the "writin'" was in +queerly formed letters, these words which are known to all children: + + Ask your mother for fifty cents + To see the elephant jump the fence, + He jumped so high he hit the sky + And never came down till the Fourth of July. + +"Is that all?" asked Celia Jane, very much disappointed. + +"Didn't I just read it to you?" was Danny's rejoinder. + +"Then the circus ain't comin', is it?" said Chris. + +"It don't say so," replied Nora. "It don't say whether it's comin' or +whether it ain't." + +"It doesn't say it's a _circus_," said Danny. "It might be just an 'ad' +for--for any old thing." + +"For a menajeree?" asked Celia Jane. + +"Or chewin' gum?" suggested Chris. + +"Or something," affirmed Danny decisively. + +Jerry forgot to be disappointed about the circus not coming, for he was +bothered about what it was that the picture of the elephant made him +almost think of. He tried and tried with all his might to think what it +was, but didn't succeed. Then something almost like faint music seemed +to hum in his ears and his lips unconsciously formed a word, "Oh, +queen," he murmured. + +"Oh, what?" said Danny sharply, turning to him. + +"I didn't know I said anything," replied Jerry. "I didn't mean to." + +"You did," said Celia Jane. "You said, 'Oh, queen.'" + +"What does that mean, 'Oh, queen'?" asked Danny. + +"I--I don't know," replied Jerry. + +"What did you say it for then?" + +Jerry felt that he was being treated unfairly when he wasn't conscious +of having said anything and he didn't answer. He was sorry that the +humming almost like music wouldn't come back,--it was so comforting. + +"If you don't know what 'Oh, queen' means, what did you _say_ 'Oh, +queen' for?" persisted Danny. + +"I don't know," Jerry replied, at a loss. Then he brightened, "I might +have heard it, sometime." + +"Maybe it was somebody's name?" suggested Nora. + +"I don't know." + + +"It's an Irish name, if it's got an O in front of it, and you said +'O'Queen'," Celia Jane stated. + +"Did you ever know an Irish man or Irish woman by the name of +'O'Queen'?" questioned Danny. + +"I don't know," repeated Jerry, his lips twisting in real distress at +not being able to think what could have made him say a thing like that. + +"You don't know anything, do you?" asked Danny in the teasing, +affronting tone he sometimes adopted with Jerry. + +"I do, too," affirmed Jerry, his lips tightening. + +"You don't know how old you are," said Celia Jane, following Danny's +lead. + +"Do you know what your name is?" asked Danny. + +"Jerry Elbow," replied Jerry, hot within at this making fun of his name +which always seemed to give Danny so much enjoyment. + +"Jerry _Elbow_," said Danny, putting so much sarcasm into pronouncing +the name as to make it almost unbelievable that it could be a name. +"What kind of a name is that--Elbow! Might as well be Neck--or Foot." + +"It's just as good as Danny Mullarkey!" declared Jerry. + +"There's nothing the matter with your name, Jerry," interposed Nora. +"Eat the core of your apple," she continued, pointing at it, forgotten, +but still clutched tightly in his fist. + +"I don't want the old core," said Jerry and threw it against the +billboard. + +Celia Jane ran after it, grabbed it eagerly, wiped it off on her skirt +and popped it into her mouth. + +"Celia Jane!" called Nora, "Don't you eat that core after it's been in +the dirt." + +But Celia Jane had quickly chewed and swallowed it. "It's gone," she +said. "Besides, it wasn't dirty enough to amount to anything." + +Jerry had returned to contemplation of the elephant jumping the fence, +when a youthful voice called from across the street, "Look at it good, +kid. I guess it's about all of the circus you'll see." + +Jerry and the Mullarkey children turned and faced the speaker. It was +"Darn" Darner, the ten-year old son of Timothy Darner, the county +overseer of the poor, and a more or less important personage, especially +in his own eyes. You had to be very particular how you spoke to "Darn" +unless you wanted to get into a fight, and unless you were as old and as +big as he was you had no desire to fight with him. He was especially +touchy about his name. He had been "Jimmie" at home but once at school +he had signed himself, in the full glory of his name, J. Darnton Darner, +perhaps to do honor to his grandfather, after whom he had been named. +Thereafter "Darn" was the only name that he was known by outside of the +classroom and his own home. + +He had fights innumerable trying to stop the boys calling him by that +name, but it persisted until at length he came to accept it. You could +call him "Darn" or shout "Oh, Darn!" and nothing would happen, but if, +in your excitement, you grew too emphatic and said "_Darn!_" or "Oh, +_Darn_!" you might have to run for the nearest refuge, or take a +pummeling from his fists. + +So now Jerry answered very politely. "It looks good," he said. + +"Is the circus coming?" asked Danny. + +"Of course it is. What do you suppose they've put up the posters for?" + +"It don't say so here," said Nora. "All it says is--" + +Darn interrupted. "Where've you kids been? That old poster has been up +for a week. Two new ones were pasted up to-day--one at Jenkins' corner +and the other on Jeffreys' barn. It's Burrows and Fairchild's mammoth +circus and menagerie and it's coming a week from Thursday." + +"Are you going, Darn?" asked Danny. + +"Am I going?" repeated that youth. "I should say I am going--in a box +seat." + +"Is it a big circus?" asked Chris. + +"It's one of the biggest there is," replied Darn, "with elephants and +clowns and a bearded lady and everything. I'll tell you all about it the +next day." + +Without more ado, he began to whistle and continued on his way. When he +was out of sight, Jerry turned back to the billboard, and the Mullarkey +children lined up at his side and stood in silent contemplation of the +delights forecast in the picture. They felt a new respect for that +elephant. + +"I don't suppose we can go," said Chris at length in a voice that +invited contradiction. His remark was met by silence and they continued +to stare at the elephant. + +Jerry was puzzled. "What does it want you to ask your mother for fifty +cents for?" he asked Danny. + +"To buy a ticket for the circus, of course." + +"Will she give you fifty cents?" + +Danny seemed struck by some sudden thought; whether or not his question +had inspired it Jerry was unable to tell. After pondering for a time, +Danny set out towards home on a run without having answered the +question. + +"Where're you goin'?" asked Chris, with a tinge of suspicion in his +voice. + +"I'm goin' to ask mother and see." + +"That's no fair!" cried Chris. "You can run the fastest and 'll get to +ask her first." + +"She can't give fifty cents to all of us," replied Danny and kept on +running. + +"Danny Mullarkey! You're a mean old thing!" called Nora. + +Already Chris was racing after Danny; the contagion soon spread and +first Nora and then Celia Jane were running with all their might after +their brothers. + +Jerry started to run after them, but it was a half-hearted run and he +brought up a very laggard rear. He never tried to get anything for +himself that the clannish Mullarkey brood had in their possession, or to +which they could with any shred of justice lay claim. If he did, he knew +by experience that they would all unite against him--all except Mother +'Larkey, who, trying to earn money to support them all, could not always +know what was going on under her tired, kindly eyes, much less the +things that took place behind her back. And baby Kathleen, who was too +little to feel the claims of the Mullarkey blood and who loved +everybody. + +But Jerry was sure he had never seen a circus and he _did_ want to go to +this one and see the elephant jump the fence. He felt very friendly to +that elephant and well acquainted with it. The roguish look in its +eyes, in the picture, made it seem a very nice sort of elephant and he +knew he would like it. + +But he also knew that Mother 'Larkey found it very hard to make both +ends meet since her husband died--he had often heard her say so--but +there might be a possible chance that she would have several fifty-cent +pieces, so he started again to run after the other children, keeping +close enough to be in time if Mrs. Mullarkey _should_ happen to be +distributing fifty-cent pieces among her brood and there _should_ happen +to be an extra one for him. Even though she were not his mother, she +_might_ give it to him, she had already done so many things for him. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BLACK HALF-DOLLAR + + +Jerry's progress was brought to a sudden halt and he was sent sprawling +to the ground by running full tilt into a man who tried to turn the same +corner at the same time Jerry did, but from the opposite direction. The +impact was so swift and so hard that Jerry was whirled clear around and +fell on his face, striking two small pieces of board lying near the +sidewalk and loosening a plank in the sidewalk itself. + +"Oh!" gasped the man's voice. + +Before Jerry could stir he heard a clink as of metal falling on board. +He half turned on his back and looked dazedly up at the man, who was +pressing both hands into the pit of his stomach. His face was very red. +He spoke to Jerry hesitatingly, as though he could not get his breath. + +'Are you--hurt--much?" + +"N-no, I guess not," Jerry replied, sitting up and feeling of a bruised +place on his arm. + +"You just about knocked the breath out of me," said the man in a more +natural voice and one which Jerry now recognized as belonging to Harry +Barton, the clerk at the corner drug store. + +"I'm sorry, Mr. Barton. If I'd of seen you--" + +"You wouldn't have run into me," finished Mr. Barton. "Of course not. +There are a lot of things we wouldn't do if we could see what the +results were going to be. Why, bless me, it's Jerry Elbow! Well, I guess +there wasn't much harm done this time. You seemed to be in quite a +hurry. Have I delayed you?" + +"Yes, sir, I was in a hurry," Jerry answered. "Danny was running to ask +Mother 'Larkey for fifty cents to see the circus." + +"And what were you running for?" + +Jerry started to get up as he replied. + +"To see if she had fifty cents for Da--" + +He stopped speaking and stopped getting up at the same time. A glint of +silver on the sidewalk back of Mr. Barton caught his eye. It was a +half-dollar! Jerry sank to a sitting posture and gazed in rapt wonder at +this answer to an unsaid prayer. + +"You _are_ hurt!" cried Mr. Barton solicitously and stooped to help +Jerry up. "Where does it pain you?" + +"It's fifty cents!" cried Jerry, his lips unsealed at last, and he +scrambled eagerly for the coin. + +"Well, there's nothing very painful in that, is there?" laughed Mr. +Barton. + +Jerry rose, clutching the dirty half-dollar tightly, a light of joyful +anticipation in his eyes. + +"There's not much need of asking what you will spend it for," observed +the drug clerk. + +"For a ticket to the circus!" cried Jerry, his eyes sparkling at the +thought of future delights. + +"I guessed it the first time," said Mr. Barton. "I thought I heard +something metallic fall on the sidewalk when you ran into me, but I had +such hard work getting my breath back that I forgot all about it." + +Such a harrowing thought now popped into Jerry's mind that unconsciously +he closed his fingers entirely around the precious half-dollar. What if +it were Mr. Barton's! Perhaps he had knocked it out of Mr. Barton's +pocket when he ran into him. He had heard the clink of its fall just +after the collision, as he lay on the ground. + +After a short but sharp struggle with himself, Jerry looked up and held +out the money to Mr. Barton. He tried to smile, but was conscious that +the twisting of his lips didn't look much like a smile. + +"It's yours, I guess, Mr. Barton." + +"Mine!" exclaimed the surprised drug clerk. "You saw it first." + +"Yes, but I heard it fall just after I ran into you. I must of knocked +it out of your pocket. I didn't have no half-dollar." + +"No more did I," replied Mr. Barton. + +"You didn't!" exclaimed Jerry, and joy came unbidden back into his eyes +and there was a very different feel to his lips. He knew that it was a +real smile this time. + +"Not this late in the week," Mr. Barton informed him. "It's too long +after pay day for me to have that much money. I've got just thirty-five +cents." + +He drew some small coins out of his pocket. + +"Yes, it's all here. The half-dollar must have been lying on one of the +boards that you struck in falling. Let's see it." + +He took the money and examined it. + +"It was almost covered with dirt," he said. "So was one end of both +boards. Hello! That's a funny black mark on the other side. Looks as +though somebody had smeared it with black paint." + +"That doesn't hurt it any, does it?" asked Jerry in trepidation. + +"Not a bit! It's good for a ticket to the circus." + +"If I hadn't of run into you, I wouldn't get to go," observed Jerry. + +"That's so," responded Mr. Barton. "I wouldn't let any one know you +found the money. Just sneak off to the circus when it comes and buy your +ticket. Danny would find some way to get it away from you if he knew you +had it." + +"I guess mebbe he would," Jerry responded. + +"You just keep it to yourself and enjoy the circus," Mr. Barton advised +him and went on to the store. + +Jerry trudged slowly back toward Mrs. Mullarkey's, thinking intently. + +The gloom that pervaded the house was so deep that Jerry perceived it as +soon as he opened the door. Danny sat glowering by the window; Celia +Jane was weeping unashamed, while Chris and Nora were trying not to show +their disappointment. + +So Mother 'Larkey had not yet been able to make both ends meet--those +troublesome, refractory ends that made her life a continual round of +hard work--and there were no fifty-cent pieces for the children to buy +tickets with to see the elephant jump the fence. Jerry hugged himself +just to feel the half-dollar in his blouse pocket and a glow of +exultation ran over his body at the thought that he was going to get to +see the circus. + +Mrs. Mullarkey, looking tired and worn, was ripping apart the dress for +Mrs. Green that she had just finished at noon. Baby Kathleen sat at her +feet, playing with the old rag doll that had once been Nora's and was +now claimed by Celia Jane. + +Jerry entered the room slowly and took a seat on the chair without a +back. He said nothing at all and finally Mother 'Larkey looked up at +him. + +"Why don't you ask for fifty cents, too?" she inquired. "Don't you want +to see the circus?" + +"Yes'm," replied Jerry, "but I ain't got no mother." + +"What difference does that make?" she asked, in a voice sharper than she +was accustomed to use in speaking to Jerry. "Haven't I done everything a +mother could--" + +"Yes'm," Jerry interrupted hastily, for he didn't want her to think he +thought _that_. "But it said to ask your _mother_ for fifty cents and I +ain't got none to ask." + +"Sure and you haven't, you blessed boy," said Mother 'Larkey. "If I had +it to give, you wouldn't need a mother to ask it of. I wish I could send +all of you to the circus and go myself." + +"We never get to go no place," muttered Danny gloomily. + +"It costs money to go to places," his mother explained, "and there's no +money in the house. It's all I've been able to do to put enough food in +your hungry mouths to keep soul and body together and to get enough +clothes to keep you looking decent and respectable. I was counting on +some money from Mrs. Green to-day, to buy a little meat for supper and +get some more cough medicine for Kathleen, but she wasn't satisfied with +the dress and I've got to do part of it over before she will pay me." + +"Is Kathleen's cough medicine all gone?" Jerry asked, suddenly feeling +hot and uncomfortable. + +"Yes, and she ought to have some more right this minute. Summer coughs +are bad things for babies." + +Jerry went to Kathleen and she welcomed him by raising her arms and +gurgling at him. He put his face gently against hers and she patted his +head and tugged at his hair. + +And all the time Jerry felt guiltier and guiltier and the half-dollar in +his pocket seemed to become bigger and heavier. He was relieved when he +heard Celia Jane, recovered from her crying, asking: + +"Did you ever see a circus, Mother?" + +"Yes, once. Dan took me to see one in the city right after we were +married. If he was living, he would find a way to take you all and him +liking the fun and the noise and the crowd and all." + +"Some day I'll be big enough to earn lots of money and take us all to +the circus," asserted Danny. "And Jerry, too." + +"Sure and you will," his mother said. "And now, if you children will +pick me some gooseberries, I'll make you a gooseberry pie for supper." + +Jerry did not join the rest in the scamper for cups and a pan nor follow +them out into the back yard. He patted Kathleen's head and then went +into the kitchen when he had heard the screen door slam and knew the +Mullarkey children were all out of the house. He took down a bottle from +the shelf by the table and slipped quietly out to the street. + +When he was out of sight of the house he looked to see if the +half-dollar were still in his pocket. The sight of it made him recall +vividly all the joys that he would miss if he didn't get to see the +circus. He took the coin out of his pocket and looked at it and the +longer he looked the slower grew his pace. Then he thought of Kathleen +and the summer cough that Mother 'Larkey said was bad for babies, and +his lips suddenly closed in a firm, straight line. He clutched the +half-dollar tightly in one hand, the bottle in the other, and set out as +fast as his legs would carry him. He did not dare waste a moment for +fear the temptation to change his mind would prove too great to be +resisted. + +Not once did he slacken speed till he reached the corner drug store. +Speechless for lack of breath, he passed the bottle over the counter to +Mr. Barton. + +"Well, Jerry, what is it this time?" asked the clerk. + +Jerry panted a moment before he could reply. + +"Some more of--that cough medicine--for Kathleen." + +"That won't take long," said Mr. Barton. "All I've got to do is to pour +it from a big bottle into this little one." + +He disappeared behind the prescription case, but was back long before +Jerry's pulse had had time to slow down to its customary beat. + +"There you are," he said. "Forty-five cents." + +Jerry passed over the precious half-dollar. The pang of regret at the +thought of circus delights, once so nearly his, now beyond his reach, he +resolutely forced out of his mind every time he caught himself thinking +about it. He tried to whistle to help forget the circus, but to his +surprise not a sound issued from his lips. They were too dry to whistle. +Then he suddenly heard the drug clerk exclaim: + +"Gee whillikens! This is the identical half-dollar you found this +afternoon! I can tell it by the black mark on it." + +"Yes, it is," Jerry admitted in a forlorn tone. + +"So you told about finding it--" + +"No, I didn't," interrupted Jerry, "but Kathleen was all out of cough +medicine and Mother 'Larkey didn't have no money." + +"I see. Then you told what--" + +"No, I just got the bottle and brought it here." + +Mr. Barton whistled. + +"Jerry, you're some boy, and there's my hand on it." + +Jerry felt himself flushing as he took the proffered hand which shook +his warmly. + +"Grit!" exclaimed Mr. Barton. "Pure grit. That's what I call it, if +anybody should ask you. And you won't get to see the circus at all." + +"I guess Kathleen's cough is more important than the circus," replied +Jerry. "Summer coughs are bad for babies." + +"You're right there, but I'm mighty sorry you can't go. I know how my +two boys will feel if they have to stay away." + +He rang up the forty-five cents and returned a nickel to Jerry. + +"There, I guess you've earned the right to spend the nickel on +yourself." + +"Give me a nickel's worth of cough drops--the kind with honey in 'em," +said Jerry. + +"You don't want cough drops, Jerry. Here's some good candy. It's got +lots of lemon in it." + +"Kathleen likes the cough drops with honey in 'em," explained Jerry. +"She doesn't cough so bad after eating one of them." + +"Well, you beat my time, Jerry! You must like Kathleen an awful lot." + +"I do," admitted Jerry in a low voice, as a customer entered the store. +He took the bag of cough drops and darted out through the door, but not +too quickly to overhear Mr. Barton saying to the man who had entered: + +"That boy's got enough sand to supply all the contractors in town. +Plucky as they make 'em." + +Jerry was not quite sure that he understood what Mr. Barton meant about +the sand, but his saying that he was plucky made him feel glad and +uncomfortable at the same time. Somehow it didn't seem quite so hard to +have given up seeing the circus. He wouldn't mind not seeing the +elephant jump the fence--well, not so very much. He could look at the +billboard poster all he wanted to and that would be almost as good. + +He started home on a run but soon slackened his speed, and the nearer he +got the slower became his pace. He didn't want Danny to know that he had +bought something for Kathleen, for Danny called him "Kathleen's pet" as +it was and he didn't like to be laughed at. Perhaps he could sneak in +without any of them seeing him and put the bottle back on the shelf and +no one would know how it got full. + +The Mullarkey children were still picking gooseberries and Mother +'Larkey was still in the living room sewing on Mrs. Green's dress. Jerry +tiptoed carefully into the kitchen, replaced the bottle, stuffed the +cough drops into his blouse pocket and went into the living room, where +he squatted down by Kathleen. + +Hardly had he done so when the voices of the other children coming back +to the house were heard. + +"Gooseberries all picked?" sighed Mrs. Mullarkey. "Then I must be +getting supper." + +When she left the room, Jerry fished a cough drop out of his pocket and +gave it to Kathleen. She smiled in delight at sight of it and at once +popped it into her mouth, cooing at Jerry. + +"Mother, why didn't you make Jerry help pick gooseberries?" asked Danny, +as soon as he entered and caught sight of Jerry. + +"He can't have any pie, can he, Mother?" said Celia Jane. + +"Why, he was out with you," replied Mrs. Mullarkey. "He just this minute +came in." + +"He wasn't near the gooseberry patch," Danny informed her. + +"He didn't pick a single gooseberry," Celia Jane interpolated. + +"Nora," appealed their mother, "you always tell the truth. Didn't Jerry +help you?" + +"I didn't see him, Mother. Ask Jerry." + +"Did you help them, Jerry? Not that it makes any difference; you'll get +just as big a piece of pie as any of them." + +"No'm, I didn't," replied Jerry. His lips parted again as though he +wanted to say more but closed without a word. + +"You're such a willing worker, I thought Danny was just trying to get +even for something," said Mother 'Larkey. + +"Where'd you go, Jerry?" asked Chris. + +"Yah! Tell us that," demanded Danny. + +"I just thought I'd run over to the drug store," replied Jerry. + +"What did you want to go there for?" + +Jerry said nothing. + +"I bet he found a penny and bought himself some candy," cried Celia +Jane, falling into the habit that many older people have of judging +others by themselves. + +"Tandy," said Kathleen, struck by that word, and she pulled the remnant +of the cough drop out of her mouth and displayed it proudly. + +"Jerry, you ate all the rest yourself!" accused Celia Jane. "Greedy, +greedy, greedy!" + +"Oh, did um buy some tandy for um's 'ittle Tatleen?" mocked Danny. + +"I want some," said Celia Jane. "Mother, make Jerry give me some candy." + +"It was cough drops for Kathleen," said Jerry. + +"Where'd you get the money?" Danny demanded sharply. + +"Found it after you ran home first to ask for fifty cents to see the +circus," Jerry explained. + +"Gee, I never find nothing!" ejaculated Danny. "How much was it?" + +Jerry did not reply immediately and Celia Jane, watching him sharply, +was at once full cry right on his trail. + +"I bet it was a whole lot more'n five cents an' he bought something for +himself. How much did you find, Jerry?" + +"It was half a dollar," Jerry stated, thus brought to bay. + +"Half a dollar!" exclaimed Danny and Chris. + +"Why, that's fifty cents!" Celia Jane cried. + +"Enough to buy a ticket to the circus!" Danny added. "Where is it? Let's +see it." + +"It's all gone," Jerry told his tormentors. + +"Fifty cents! And you spent all of it at once!" wailed Celia Jane. + +"That must of bought a whole lot of candy," said Danny. "Fork out. No +fair holding any back." + +Jerry produced the small paper bag of cough drops and gave it to Mother +'Larkey. + +"They're cough drops with honey in 'em for Kathleen," he said. "I ain't +eaten one of them." + +"Give me one, Mother," pleaded Celia Jane. + +"They're for Kathleen," replied her mother. "She needs them and you +don't." + +"Jerry's Kathleen's pet! Jerry's Kathleen's little honey cough-drop +boy!" chanted Danny. + +"Jerry's done more for Kathleen than her own brothers and sisters have +ever done, unless it's Nora," declared Mrs. Mullarkey. "It's no wonder +she loves him best." + +"That's not fifty cents' worth of cough drops," Danny accused. "Where's +the rest of the money? Make him tell, Mother." + +Kathleen saved him the necessity of replying. + +"Toff meddy," she gurgled, looking up at the shelf where the bottle was +kept. "Tatleen want toff meddy." + +"It's all gone, Kathleen," her mother said soothingly. + +"No," said Kathleen, shaking her head and pointing up at the bottle. + +"Mercy sakes! It's full!" cried Mrs. Mullarkey. "I could have sworn I +emptied it this morning." + +Then she looked at Jerry, a sudden softening coming over her face and +into her eyes. + +"Jerry, you went and spent every cent of that half-dollar on Kathleen, +didn't you?" + +"You said there wasn't any money in the house," Jerry defended himself, +"and that Kathleen needed more medicine because summer coughs are bad +for babies." + +"The Lord love you, Jerry, I'm not scolding you. It's more apt to be +crying I am at the big heart of you. It's as big as my Dan's was. You're +more like him in heart and disposition than any of his own children, +unless it's Nora. That's why I can't ever let them take you away, ever." + +"Who wants to take Jerry away?" It was Nora's startled voice that asked. + +Jerry's heart stood still. Had the man with the red scar on his face +found him at last? He looked up at Mother 'Larkey, his lips starting to +twist. + +"Nobody's going to take him away!" said Mrs. Mullarkey almost fiercely. +"Just let anybody try it!" + +"Why didn't you tell us you had fifty cents?" asked Danny. "I bet you +was going to spend it all for yourself for a ticket to the circus." + +"Mr. Barton told me not to tell," replied Jerry. "He said you'd get it +away from me if you knew I had found it and for me to go to the circus +all by myself." + +"And you gave that up just for Kathleen?" queried Mrs. Mullarkey. + +"I guess Kathleen's cough is much more important than any old circus," +said Jerry. + +Mother 'Larkey thereupon gathered Jerry up in her arms and kissed him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE WIDTH OF AN ELEPHANT'S TAIL + + +Jerry tried all the next day and the next to think what it was that the +picture of the elephant jumping the fence almost made him remember, but +it just wouldn't come and finally he gave up trying. After playing with +Kathleen until Mother 'Larkey put her in the crib for her afternoon nap, +he wandered out towards the woodshed from behind which he heard the +voices of Danny and Celia Jane. + +On the way an idea popped all of a sudden into his mind. The dazzling +splendor of it first brought him to a dead halt and then set him running +breathlessly to join the Mullarkey children. He found them all gathered +about Danny, hungrily watching him eat a green apple. + +"Couldn't we play circus!" he exclaimed, in eager excitement at the idea +that had come to him. + +"We could if we wanted to," replied Danny, in that superior, +ardor-dampening way of his. + +Jerry felt his enthusiasm for the idea oozing out of his bare toes. +"I--Don't we want to, Danny?" + +"Oh, yes, let's!" cried Nora eagerly. "I'm tired of ante-over and +run-sheep-run and pump-pump-pull-away--" + +"And hidin'-go-seek and tree-tag," interrupted Celia Jane. She turned to +Jerry. "How do you play circus?" + +"You just--just _play_ it," he answered. "'Maginary you're an el'funt +jumpin' a fence and all." + +"I'll be the el'funt!" cried Danny. + +"I want to be the el'funt," objected Chris. + +"The el'funt's mine," Jerry asserted and he closed his lips tightly. +Danny didn't have any right to that elephant. "I saw it first," he +added. + +"I said 'I'll be the el'funt' first, didn't I?" asked Danny. + +"Jerry orter have first choice," said Nora, the conciliator, "seein' it +was him thought of playin' circus." + +"I guess I can jump the highest, can't I?" Danny asked in a tone that +said as plain as day that that settled the matter. + +"It's my el'funt!" insisted Jerry. + +"You always take first choice," Chris complained. + +"You could take turns about being el'funt," Nora suggested. + +Jerry wanted with all his soul to play that sublime elephant jumping the +fence and he summoned up all his courage. "I won't play," cried he, with +a suspicious quiver of his lips. "I won't! I won't!" + +"I'll let you be el'funt part of the time," Danny promised, "just to +keep you from cryin'." + +"I ain't goin' to cry," returned Jerry hotly. "I ain't!" + +"We can't have a circus with just a el'funt," said Celia Jane. + +"Of course, we can't," said Danny decisively and turned to Jerry. "What +else'll we have?" + +"Couldn't we have more'n one el'funt?" Jerry asked hopefully. + +"What'd we want with more'n one el'funt?" Danny queried in scorn. "I +guess one el'funt's enough for one circus. Anyway, we want something +besides el'funts." + +"What?" asked Jerry. "I ain't never seen a circus." + +"No more have I," replied Danny. + +"Can't you 'maginary something?" asked Celia Jane. + +"We could ''maginary things'," interposed Nora, "but they might not be +in a circus." + +"There's more'n one circus picture up," said Jerry. "Darn Darner said +there was one at Jenkins' corner and one on Jeffreys' barn. P'raps +they'll tell us what's in a circus." + +"Of course," said Danny. "It's funny I didn't think of that. It's +usually me who thinks of everything. I'll be the first one at Jenkins' +corner," and he was off at a run. + +Thereupon they all followed at full speed. Any other rate of progress +was too slow for them. Jerry ran as hard as he could, leaving Celia Jane +behind and keeping right at Nora's side. It was more than a quarter of a +mile to Jenkins' corner and Jerry felt that his legs were ready to give +out and send him sprawling in the street before he got there, but he +kept running just the same. Celia Jane tagged along, far in the rear, +and called to Jerry to wait for her, but a boy couldn't stop and wait +for a girl without Danny's making fun of him, so, as much as Jerry would +have liked to rest, he kept pantingly on. He was glad to plump down flat +on the ground in front of the billboard and rest till Nora and Celia +Jane arrived. + +"Whoopee! I'll be the clown!" exclaimed Chris, pointing to the poster +which showed trapeze performers turning somersaults in the air, a clown +playing ringmaster to a dancing white pony and a girl walking a tight +rope. + +"I'll be the dancin' pony!" cried Celia Jane. + +"I'll be the rope-walker," Nora said. + +"And what'll I be?" asked Jerry plaintively, feeling left entirely out +in the cold. + +"Why didn't you speak up and grab onto something before they were all +taken?" asked Danny. "You've got a tongue, ain't you?" + +"He could swing up in the air hanging by his hands," Celia Jane +suggested. + +"We ain't got no net like they have in the picture to catch him if he +falls," Nora objected. + +"That would be too dangerous for us kids to try," Danny stated. "Maybe +the picture on Jeffreys' barn will suggest something." + +Again they were off at a run. It was not far to the barn, where they all +squatted on the ground, nonplussed at the picture of half a dozen funny +little animals balancing toy balloons on their noses. + +"What are they?" Jerry asked. + +"They're some kind of a fish," returned Danny promptly. + +"Fish nothing!" exclaimed Chris. "Who ever saw a fish with hair on it? +They're some kind of animal." + +"They've got fins," retorted Danny. "I'd like to know what kind of +animals's got fins. Tell me that." + +"I don't know," Chris confessed, "but what kind of fish has hair?" + +"This kind," said Danny authoritatively. + +"Mebbe it's half fish and half animal," Jerry ventured. + +"Who ever heard--" Danny began but was interrupted by Nora. + +"It tells under the picture what they are," she said. "Trained +s-e-a-l-s, seals. That's what rich women get their coats from." + +"Then Jerry can be a trained seal," said Danny. "He can have a ball of +carpet rags for a balloon to balance on his nose." + +"I don't think I could," Jerry protested. "I know it would fall off." + +"Not if you practise enough," returned Danny. "Besides, that's all +that's left for you. I guess if one seal can throw it to another and +that seal catch it on its nose like it does in the picture, you ought to +be able to _balance_ it on _your_ nose. All you'll have to do is to lie +on your stummick on the ground and throw back your head." + +So it was decided that Jerry should play the part of a trained seal in +their circus. Mother 'Larkey got out a ball of carpet rags, when they +reached home, for Jerry to balance on his nose in place of a balloon, +and gave Danny an old green wrapper, just ready to be cut up into carpet +rags, out of which to make his elephant costume. She made Chris a clown +costume out of a piece of old white skirt upon which she sewed large +dots of red and blue cloth. + +The two following days were busy ones for Jerry if not quite so happy as +for the Mullarkey children. He had made up his mind, after practising +until his back, chest and neck ached from throwing his head back to +balance the ball of carpet rags on his nose, that he didn't like trained +seals and wasn't going to care to be one at the circus. Chris's clown +costume was finished and looked very much like a white union suit miles +too big for him. + +Nora had become quite proficient at walking the tight rope, stretched +between two poles in the yard about ten feet apart and two feet from the +ground, _if_ she remembered to keep one end of her balancing pole +touching the ground all the time. Mrs. Mullarkey had decided that Celia +Jane didn't need any costume to play the part of the dancing pony except +her good, white dress that she probably wouldn't ruin this time as all +she had to do was to dance. + +Danny was having more than a peck of trouble. His elephant costume had +all sorts of queer mishaps. He wanted to make it all himself, even to +the sewing, and he couldn't sew for sour apples, as Nora very readily +told him. Two small palm-leaf fans, fastened to an old cap of his +father's so that they flopped with every movement, served as the +elephant's ears, while out of an old brown coat sleeve Danny had +fashioned what passed for an elephant's trunk. He fastened it with a +string to the visor of the cap. + +Danny was stuffing the leg of an old pair of blue trousers with straw, +flattening it out until it bore a faint resemblance to the paddle-shaped +tail of a beaver. + +"What is that you're making?" Jerry asked. + +"Why, that's the el'funt's tail!" said Danny. "Anybody could tell that." + +He held it proudly up, displaying it in all its blue glory. + +"El'funts' tails are small like a rope," Jerry remarked. + +Danny laughed derisively. "Much you know about it! I guess a el'funt's +about the biggest animal in the world and it wouldn't have a little ole +tail like a rope." + +"They are little, like a rope," Jerry insisted. + +"How do you know they are?" asked Danny. "Just tell me how you know +anything about it." + +"I don't know, but I know," Jerry said, feeling all his obstinacy +aroused by Danny's air of conscious superiority. + +"There, you just said you didn't know," Celia Jane interposed, going to +her elder brother's aid, as she always did in a dispute with Jerry. + +"I didn't neither," asseverated Jerry. + +"You said you didn't know," insisted Celia Jane. + +"I don't know how I know," said Jerry, "but I know el'funts have little +tails--like a rope." + +"Have you ever been to a circus?" asked Chris. + +"Not that I remember." + +"Have you ever seen a el'funt?" pursued Danny. + +"N-n-no, but it kind of seems as if I almost had." + +"I guess you'd know if you had seen a el'funt, wouldn't you?" + +"Y-y-yes," responded Jerry doubtfully. + +"Then if you ain't ever been to a circus or seen a el'funt, I guess you +don't know what you are talking about." + +"El'funts' tails are little, like a rope," Jerry insisted. + +"Like a cow's tail?" asked Celia Jane. + +Jerry nodded assent. "Only they haven't so much hair on the end," he +added. + +"A el'funt's a hundred times as big as a cow, I guess," interposed +Danny, "an' it wouldn't have a little tail like a cow. I guess I know +more about it than you do. I'm older, ain't I?" + +"Yes," Jerry admitted, "but they are little." + +Nora now interposed. "Why don't you go see the picture of the elephant +jumpin' the fence and find out?" she asked. + +"Of course," said Chris. "The picture'll show whether they're small like +a rope or great big ones." + +"I'll beat you there," challenged Danny, as he dropped the flat, +beaver-like elephant's tail and darted at a run out of the woodshed, +followed by the others. As they lined up in front of the gaudy, +delectable poster, there came a simultaneous gasp of amazement from all +of them. + +"Why, it ain't got no tail at all!" exclaimed Celia Jane. + +True enough, there was no tail in evidence, as the elephant seemed to be +headed straight towards them. Jerry flushed as they all turned and +looked accusingly at him. + +"Yah!" exclaimed Danny. "Mr. Smarty Know-it-all didn't know so much, +after all!" + +"Mebbe you just can't see it, but it's there," suggested Nora. + +"That's so," Danny reluctantly admitted. "A el'funt's so big that when +you stand right in front of it, its tail might not show at all, no +matter how big it was." + +"A little tail wouldn't," Jerry said quickly. + +"A big one wouldn't either," Celia Jane asserted, taking sides against +Jerry. "A el'funt's enough bigger to hide its tail." + +"If it was very big it would show," said Jerry. + +"The el'funt I play is goin' to have a tail all right," Danny informed +the children collectively. "I ain't goin' to all the work of makin' a +tail and then not wear it. I guess a el'funt's got some kind of a tail, +anyway." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JERRY LEARNS THAT O-U-T SPELLS OUT + + +The first and, as it turned out, the last performance of their circus +took place that afternoon. Jerry felt a thrill of expectancy as they +began to don their costumes. Once he thought he almost heard again that +low, cheerful strumming that had seemed to beat upon his ears when he +first saw the poster of the elephant jumping the fence. He said nothing +about it and soon lost all recollection of the rollicking strains in the +anticipation of the circus joys that he was about to behold. + +Chris and Danny got into their costumes in the woodshed while Celia Jane +went into the house and put on her white dress, the one she wore on +Sundays. Mrs. Mullarkey had decided that Nora didn't need any special +costume to be a rope-walker and that all Jerry needed to be a trained +seal was a sort of apron made out of a gunny sack to protect his clothes +while he crawled about on his stomach. He did not put this on at once +but watched Danny getting into the skin of the elephant, wishing with +all his heart that he might be the elephant, even if its tail was big +and flat instead of being small like a rope. + +It might have proved a mirth-provoking elephant to others had there been +others present to see it, but to Jerry's eager imagination there was +nothing laughable about it. The green wrapper hung most loosely about +Danny's small, slim figure, great folds almost touching the ground, +while the brown trunk and the blue, beaver-like tail waggled and wiggled +about until they met between the front and hind legs of the elephant. + +There was something about that awkward elephant that made Jerry feel all +friendly inside and struck the chord of envy in his heart. He was not at +all inclined to laugh when the cap with the very floppy +palm-leaf-fan-ears attached fell off, as Danny started to gallop around +the woodshed on all fours to see if the costume was all right. + +Celia Jane now came dancing out of the house in her white frock, her +hair loose and flowing for the pony's mane, while pinned to the back of +her dress, at the waist line, was her mother's switch to represent the +pony's tail. The strands of gray in the black hair did not match with +the brown of the pony's mane, but that presented no difficulties to the +imagination of the circus performers. + +"Come on!" Celia Jane called. "Let's play circus. I'm all ready." + +"Wait a minute, can't you?" complained Danny. "I guess I'm the head of +this circus. I've got the biggest part and I ain't quite ready. Just +hold your horses." + +"Whoa!" cried Celia Jane. "I'm just one pony. Get up!" She flapped her +side with one hand, as though urging a horse to quicken his pace, and +galloped out back of the woodshed where the circus "tent" had been set +up and began prancing and dancing and preening about. Jerry was torn +between desire to watch her graceful whirling and pirouetting and to +keep fascinated eyes on the green elephant. He just had to stay and see +if the elephant's ears fell off again. But Danny was equal to the +occasion and tied the cap on with a piece of string. + +"Celia Jane, you just come back here," he called. "I guess the elephant +has to enter the circus ahead of the horse. Horses always get scared of +el'funts unless they're behind where they can see them. How do you +expect us to parade if you're there already?" + +"All right," replied Celia Jane and came prancing back into the +woodshed, "but hurry." + +"I'll be first," said Danny, "an--" + +"An' I'll be second!" cried Chris. + +"I'm third!" Nora and Celia Jane exclaimed together. + +Jerry said nothing. He knew where his place would be,--the very tail end +of the parade. + +"Boom!" sang out Danny and again, "Boom!" + +"What's that for?" asked Chris. + +"It's the music so that the people will know the circus is about to +begin," replied Danny. "They always have music for the parade an' +everything. Darn Darner said so." + +"Let's sing then," suggested Nora. + +"Sing what?" queried Danny crossly, seeing a threat to diminish his +importance in the circus. + +"We might sing 'Heigho, the cherry-o,'" said Celia Jane. + +"'I Went to the Animal Fair' will be much more appropriate," Nora +suggested. + +"All right, sing," consented Danny, "but the crowd's gettin' restless; I +can hear them stampin' and whistlin'!" + +"I'll start it," said Nora. "All ready." + +Thus the parade started and entered the main circus tent, which +consisted of a pole in the center, with no canvas at all, to the strain +of, + + I went to the animal fair; + The birds and the beasts were there; + The little raccoon, by the light of the moon, + Was combing his auburn hair. + The monkey he got drunk, + Ran up the elephant's trunk, + The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees + And what became of the monkey-monkey-monk? + +Jerry tried to sing, too, but he had a very hard time, for he couldn't +crawl as fast as the others walked and the carpet-rag balloon wouldn't +stay balanced on his nose but kept rolling off to the ground. The rest +of the parade was halfway around the ring (marked by a circle of sawdust +which Danny had made after sawing wood energetically for half a day to +get enough sawdust) when the trained seal had just reached the main +entrance. + +"Run and catch up with the parade," came Danny's voice through the +circus music. "We can't have the parade split in two that way." + +The trained seal jumped up on his hind feet carrying the balloon under a +forefoot, and ran until he caught up with Celia Jane; then he plumped +down on his stomach again. + +Jerry was very hot and flushed and the muscles of his back and neck +ached. He tried desperately to balance the ball of carpet rags on his +nose, but it kept rolling off, and Jerry had to scramble after it and +the parade was soon away ahead again. In desperation, he held the +balloon on his nose with one hand and tried to creep ahead with but one +arm and his legs as motive power. His progress was slower than ever. + +He could see Danny--or, rather, the elephant--stalking majestically +ahead to the strains of "I Went to the Animal Fair," his trunk and his +tail wobbling about until they met under his body, and the palm-leaf +ears flopping with every step. Jerry felt hurt and out of sorts as he +panted from the exertion of trying to crawl on one arm. He had suggested +playing circus and he ought to have been allowed to play the part of the +elephant. There was no fun in being a trained seal balancing a balloon +on its nose, as there was in being a green elephant with floppy ears and +wobbly tail and trunk. It would serve that greedy Danny just right if he +should refuse to play in his old circus. + +Jerry saw that he was again falling far in the rear and tried to +scramble on faster. Then, of course, the balloon fell off and Jerry was +almost in tears as he jumped after it. + +Then the music of the parade came to a sudden end. The rest of the +performers were at the main entrance, having marched clear around the +ring while Jerry had not covered much more than half the distance. + +"Can't you hurry any?" asked Danny. "You're spoilin' the circus all the +time, 'way behind like that." + +"I can't crawl as fast as you can walk," answered Jerry, in a voice that +threatened to break into a sob. + +"I guess a trained seal had orter crawl as fast as a man can walk," +said Danny, "or how could they have them in circuses?" + +"I'm comin' as fast as I can," returned Jerry. "I wish you'd just try +bein' a trained seal for a time and see how fast you can crawl on your +stummick." Jerry rose to his hands and knees, holding the ball of carpet +rags in his teeth, and progressed much faster. + +"Who ever heard of a trained seal carryin' a balloon in his teeth?" +Danny protested. "I guess his teeth would go through the balloon and let +all the air out." + +"Let's not have no trained seal," pleaded Jerry. "It ain't no fun." + +"We got to have a trained seal," replied Danny. + +"You be it then," suggested Jerry, "an' let me be the el'funt. You said +I could part of the time." + +"I'm going to be the el'funt," proclaimed Danny. "The circus ain't even +begun yet." + +"I won't be a trained seal, so I won't," said Jerry, at last catching up +with the parade. "The balloon won't stay on my nose and my neck hurts +and I've cut my hand on a piece of glass or a splinter or something +till it bleeds." He held up one hand with a little trickle of blood on +it. "I want to be something else. I won't play if I've got to be a +trained seal any more." + +"All right," Danny acquiesced, after a moment's thought, "you can be the +audience. We need an audience to clap their hands and holler so's we'll +know the crowd likes us and we're doin' all right. This circus can get +along without no trained seal." + +"I don't want to be the audience," replied Jerry dismally, seeing that, +as the audience, he would have nothing to do with the circus. + +Nora now put in a word. "Let's count out," she said, "and the one who's +counted out will be the audience." + +"I guess not," replied Danny emphatically, but after Celia Jane had +whispered something in his ear, he considered a moment, looked at Jerry +and then whispered something to Nora. + +Nora looked at Jerry and counted on her fingers rapidly. Then she +counted on her fingers again, after a quick glance at Danny. She nodded +to Danny, who said: + +"All right, whoever's counted out will be the audience. You count out, +Nora." Starting with Danny and pointing to a child in rotation with each +word, Nora chanted and counted: + + "'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. + All good children go to heaven. + O-u-t spells out.'" + +Her finger was pointing at Jerry. + +"Jerry's out!" cried Celia Jane, skipping about. "He's the audience!" + +"I won't be no audience," said Jerry. + +"You'll have to be," asserted Danny, "you was counted out." + +"I won't be! I won't play!" cried Jerry. He threw down his carpet-rag +balloon, took off the gunny-sack apron, tossed it on top of the balloon +and ran to the house. + +"Cry baby!" shouted Danny after him, but Jerry did not even wait to +refute that charge, for he knew he was in danger of proving it if he +remained out there a moment longer. + +Jerry felt the hot tears start to come as the screen door slammed after +him. He dashed them angrily out of his eyes and ran up the stairs to the +room he shared with Danny and Chris. If Mother 'Larkey had been at home +and not away sewing for Mrs. Moran, he would have gone to her in his +bitter disappointment, sure of finding comfort in her arms as he had so +many times. + +It was not fair for Danny to take the part of the elephant away from him +and not even let him play it for a teeny little while, as he had +promised he would. For two cents he would run away as he had from the +man with the--the scarred face. He looked quickly around, half-fearful, +as always, that _that_ man might have learned where he was and be +lurking around the corner ready to pounce upon him. The room was empty +and he took a long breath. He would run away if it weren't for Mother +'Larkey and for little Kathleen who always cried when he even said +anything about running away. He heard the screen door slam shut after a +time and Nora's gentle footsteps coming up the stairway. He turned his +back to the door. + +"Jerry," pleaded Nora's coaxing voice, "come on out and play. Danny +didn't mean anything." + +Jerry did not answer. He did not even look around. + +"Danny wants you to play with us," continued Nora. "Won't you?" + +"No," Jerry replied at length. + +"Why won't you?" + +"He didn't play fair." + +"I'll count over again, Jerry, so's I'll be the--" The voice stopped and +then continued chokily, "--the audience." + +Jerry knew what it cost her to say that, but he hardened his heart. "I +don't want to play no more," he said. + +"Please do, Jerry. I'm sorry I didn't play fair, Jerry." + +"I won't," pouted Jerry. "He said I could be the el'funt some of the +time." + +"Mebbe he'll let you after while, after he's tired of playin' it," +suggested Nora, without any great fervor of conviction in her voice. +"I'll ask him to." + +With that Nora left the room. He wondered if she could persuade Danny to +let him be the elephant part of the time. He might play then, if Danny +coaxed him to. + +He heard the screen slam after Nora and waited, listening for it to go +slam-bang much louder. That would mean that Danny was coming to let him +play elephant. Danny always let the door go shut slam-bang. He waited a +long time and then he heard the shouting of the children. They were +playing circus without him! Danny wouldn't let him be the elephant. Very +well, if they didn't want him around and wouldn't let him play with +them, he would run away. Danny would be sorry then. Perhaps he would be +killed on a railway track or something and Danny would cry over his dead +body, he'd be so sorry he didn't let him be the elephant. + +That thought comforted him and he began gathering up the things he +wanted to take with him. There was the fur cap that Mother 'Larkey had +made for him out of an old muff of hers, the winter before. He couldn't +leave that behind, nor yet the overcoat which she had made for him out +of an old coat of her husband's just after Mr. Mullarkey had died. The +other things he didn't care much about. Yes, after all, he would take +the ragged, fuzzy cloth dog that Kathleen had insisted on giving him. +The dog had lost an ear, a forepaw and one eye; still he cherished it +because Kathleen had given it to him of her own free will, something +that Danny nor Chris nor Celia Jane nor even Nora had ever done. + +He would wear the cap and overcoat, even if it was summer; then he +wouldn't get so tired carrying them. He put on the fur cap, pulling it +well down over his ears, and slipped into the overcoat. Slowly he took +up the woolly dog and started down the stairs. Then he remembered the +red mittens which a lady had brought him at Christmas, and returned to +get them. He put them on carefully, smoothing them over his hands, and +then went downstairs and out by the front door, prepared for any kind of +weather. + +He was going to run away again, as he had from that man with the scarred +face. He heard the children shouting at their play and decided he would +first watch them a minute and perhaps let Danny know what he had driven +him into doing. He went down the alley which led past the woodshed, +behind which the circus performance was going on, and stopped to watch +with his face wedged between two pickets of the fence. + +Nora was walking the rope slowly. She was doing it very well as long as +she kept one end of the balancing pole on the ground, but when she got +halfway across the rope, the end of the pole was so far behind that she +couldn't steady herself with it. She tried to drag it up even with her +and in so doing lost her balance and had to jump to the ground. As she +straightened up, she saw Jerry's face between the palings. + +"There's Jerry!" she called to Danny. + +"Thought you would play, after all," Danny remarked. + +"I'm not," said Jerry. + +"He's got his cap on!" laughed Celia Jane. "What've you got your cap on +for, Jerry?" + +"And your overcoat?" said Nora. + +"And your mittens?" chimed in Chris. "You ain't cold, are you?" + +"I'm running away," Jerry responded, addressing no one in particular. He +tried to say it indifferently as though it were a matter of everyday +occurrence, this running away, but in spite of himself a note of pride +crept into his voice. None of them had ever run away. + +"Running away!" gasped Celia Jane in an awed voice. + +"Oh, Jerry, don't!" pleaded Nora. + +Danny stared at him in open-mouthed amazement. + +"I'm running away," Jerry repeated and sat down on the ground by the +fence where he had an unobstructed view of the circus. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GREEN ELEPHANT BUYS AN AUDIENCE + + +The Mullarkey children regarded Jerry for a long time without a word. + +Jerry, knowing that for once he had Danny at a disadvantage, wanted to +prolong that pleasant sensation. + +"I'm running away," he repeated, without stirring from the fence. + +"What'll mother do?" Danny asked from underneath the elephant's trunk +and Jerry knew from the earnestness of his voice that Danny was scared. +"What do you want to run away for?" + +"Because," replied Jerry. + +"That's no reason," Chris stated. + +"What'll become of you?" Danny asked, drawing closer to the fence, the +elephant's beaver-like blue tail dragging forlornly on the ground. + +"I dunno," Jerry replied carelessly. + +"You won't find many folks who'd bring you home like father did and keep +you," Danny pursued. + +"I'm going to run away," was all that Jerry replied. + +"What'll you do for something to eat?" demanded Chris, in a tone that +showed admiration for a boy not afraid to run away, even if he wasn't a +Mullarkey. + +"I dunno," said Jerry, "but I'll find a way." + +"Come on an' play, Jerry," coaxed Danny, "an' you can be the el'funt the +next time we play circus." + +"I want to be the el'funt this time," said Jerry. + +"You can't be this time, because you're too little for the costume to +fit you," Danny told him. "It'll have to be cut down an' made over for +you. It's a little too big for me an' it's awfully hard work actin' as a +el'funt would when your skin's so loose it gets in the way of your feet +when you walk." + +Jerry hadn't thought of that but it looked reasonable to him. He +hesitated and Danny, seeing his advantage, was quick to push it. + +"Besides, mother wouldn't like it if you ran away. She'd think I was to +blame when I'm not at all. I never even once thought of your runnin' +away. You thought of it yourself, now didn't you?" + +"Yes," Jerry admitted. + +"Mother'd think I had done something to you when I ain't, have I?" Danny +appealed. + +"You wouldn't let me play--" Jerry began but was interrupted by Danny's +saying quickly: + +"You can next time we play circus, when I've had a chance to make the +el'funt skin over for you." + +That did not seem inducement enough for Jerry and he decided to continue +his interrupted running away. He rose and turned slowly away from the +fence and tried to imitate Darn Darner's off-hand style of leave-taking. +"Well, so long, fellows," he called nonchalantly over his shoulders, "I +must be on my way." + +"Good-by, Jerry," said Nora. + +"Oh, Jerry! Don't go!" pleaded Celia Jane. + +"You stay an' be audience for this circus," said Danny quickly, "an' +I'll give you one of my tops." + +Jerry returned to the fence. "The one with the red on it?" he asked. + +"No, the other one." + +"It's broken," Jerry objected. + +"An' I'll give you two fishhooks," Danny hurriedly promised, "an' a line +an' pole, an' a horseshoe nail." + +"The rusty one!" cried Jerry, in a tone that was sarcastic. + +Danny hesitated, swallowed quickly and responded, "No, the shiny one." + +"I don't want no fishin' pole an' all," said Jerry; "an' the broken top +an' the shiny horseshoe ain't enough." + +"I'll give you my toy pistol," said Danny. + +"The trigger's gone," Jerry objected, "an' a pistol ain't no good +without a trigger." + +"The golf ball I found in the weeds," Danny offered. + +"I don't know how to play golf." + +"Aw, be reasonable, Jerry. I can't give you what you want. I bought it +with the money I got for mowin' old man Barnes's yard for a month." + +"I'll be the audience for your white rabbit," Jerry bargained, "an' I +won't run away." + +"You want too much," Danny objected. "'Tain't as if I could get another +rabbit right away." + +"An' then Mother 'Larkey won't think you made me run away," pursued +Jerry, pressing home his advantage. "I won't say nothin' to her nohow +about that." + +Danny did not reply at once and Jerry spoke again. + +"You can keep your top an' your shiny horseshoe nail, too." + +"You won't say nothin' to mother a-tall?" Danny weakened. + +"No," Jerry assured him. + +"Cross your heart, hope to die an' spit?" + +"Cross my heart, hope to die an' spit," repeated Jerry, suiting the +action to the word. + +"All right, you can have the ole rabbit. You'll have to feed it, though. +I wouldn't raise my finger to feed it, not if it was starvin' to death. +I'd got kinda sick of always havin' to feed it whenever I wanted to do +something else, anyway." + +"All right, I'll be the audience," Jerry promised, "but the rabbit's +mine." + +"Then go in the house and put away your cap an' coat an' mittens, so's +mother won't suspect nothin'. An', Chris, don't you dare ever tell, nor +you, Nora, nor you, Celia Jane. I'll get even with you if it takes to my +last livin' day if you do." + +"We won't ever tell," his brother and sisters assured him. + +Jerry flew back to the house, and put away his winter clothes and the +cloth dog Kathleen had given him, and then dashed out to the circus +ground and climbed upon an old barrel which Danny and Chris had turned +upside down for a seat. He kicked his heels against its sides and +whistled as best he could as a sign of the audience's impatience for the +circus to begin. + +"We'll begin all over again," announced Danny and marshaled his three +fellow performers back to the woodshed and led them forth in parade to +the strains of "I Went to the Animal Fair." Jerry duly applauded the +parade and waited for the real performance. + +Then the green elephant rose up on his hind legs and with one front leg +pushed his trunk to one side while the voice of Danny Mullarkey +announced, "Ladies and gents, I'm pleased to make you acquainted with +Flora, the lady tight-rope walker, who will now walk the tight rope for +you an' I hope you'll like her." + +This time, by dragging one end of her balancing pole on the ground as +she walked forward on the rope, Nora, or, as the circus-master called +her, Flora, managed to walk the ten feet to the opposite post without +falling off. + +Jerry, rejoicing over the possession of the white rabbit, applauded her +generously. + +"The el'funt will now jump the fence," came the voice of Danny, issuing +from the mouth of the green elephant. "Hey, you kids! Get the boards for +the fence," he called to Chris and Celia Jane, who had sat down on the +ground while Nora walked the rope. + +With a front foot, the elephant put his trunk in place and took a +curious little huddled run on all fours up to the very low fence made of +two boards, together not more than ten inches high, which Chris and +Celia Jane held for him, and then half rose on his hind legs and leaped +over the fence, palm-leaf-fan-ears flopping and brown trunk and blue +tail wobbling. No elephant jumping up into the sky and balancing the +moon on the end of his trunk was this, truly, but, Jerry thrilled at the +first jump, imagining what it might have been. + +"Whee!" trumpeted the elephant as he turned back and jumped the fence +again. He seemed to develop a very passion for wheeing and jumping the +fence, returning to the charge again and again. + +Jerry clapped his hands and kicked the sides of the barrel in approval +and laughed at the ungainly antics of the jumping elephant, but by dint +of the frequent repetition of the jumping he began to become +disappointed that Danny didn't jump higher. He grew tired of the +performance before Danny wearied of jumping the fence. + +"It's my turn now!" Chris called, after Danny had jumped for the twelfth +time. "Come on, Celia Jane." + +They dropped the fence and, as there was nothing for the green elephant +to jump unless he could clear the tight rope, two feet from the ground, +Danny perforce gave way to the dancing pony and the clown. + +Chris was trying to crack an old whip which he and Danny had made by +braiding three strands of leather, with a "cracker" at the end, and +Celia Jane was dancing gracefully about the ring, her tail switching and +her mane blowing, when the unexpected voice of Darn Darner from the +alley brought the circus to a sudden halt. + +"Hullo! What do you kids think you're doin'?" he asked, in the gruff +voice which he adopted when he wanted to be particularly disagreeable. + +Jerry squirmed around on the barrel until he could see Darn. "We're +playin' circus," he answered with a feeble, placating smile, before the +others had recovered from their surprise. + +"Yah! You call _that_ a circus? Chris can't even crack the whip." + +"I can, too, sometimes," Chris disputed. + +"I'll show you how to do it," Darn offered, clambering over the fence. +"Here, give me the whip!" + +He took it out of Chris's surprised and reluctant fingers and began +circling it over his head and giving it a sudden jerk. It didn't crack +at first, but soon he got the knack of it and cracked it loudly as close +to Celia Jane's ears and ankles as he could come without touching her. + +"Giddap!" he commanded the dancing pony. "Show your paces." That time he +tried to crack the whip too near Celia Jane and the end of the lash +wound around her leg. + +"Oh! Oh!" cried the dancing pony, hopping about on one leg. "That hurt! +It ain't no fair makin' it crack so close an' I won't play no more." +Half crying from the pain, Celia Jane ran to the house, followed by +Nora. + +"I didn't mean to hurt you," Darn called to Celia Jane. "The whip must +be a little too long, or I wouldn't have sized up the distance wrong." +He turned to Danny. "What do you think you are?" + +"I'm a el'funt," said Danny proudly, "an' I jump the fence like the +circus el'funt." + +"An el'funt!" cried Darn, turning his eyes up to the sky. "And he calls +that an' el'funt!" + +"It is a el'funt," protested Jerry. + +Darn Darner laughed derisively. + +"You can 'maginary it's a el'funt," Chris explained. + +"It would take some imagination," was Darn's only comment on that. + +"What's wrong with it?" asked Danny. "I bet you couldn't do any better." + +"What's wrong with it!" exclaimed Darn. "Ask me what's right with it. +Everything's wrong with it." + +"It looks like the picture of the el'funt--almost," defended Jerry. + +"It looks as much like that as I do like a giraffe." + +Danny turned his back on Darn and the latter exclaimed: + +"What's that blue pants leg for, hangin' down from your coat tail?" + +"Why--why--that's the el'funt's tail," Danny replied reluctantly. + +"My gorry!" cried Darn, giving way to shrieks of laughter so that he had +to sit down on the ground and double up with the paroxysms of mirth. +"_An el'funt's tail!_ Oh, my gorry!" and again he rocked back and forth, +holding his sides. Then he was attacked by a fit of coughing and +finally, when he got his breath, he said: + +"Don't you kids know nothing of national history? Hain't you ever seen a +picture of an el'funt? Its tail is nothing like that a-tall." + +"How's it different?" Danny asked in a very meek voice. + +"It's small and round, like a rope," Jerry interposed quickly. + +"Of course it is," was Darn's comment. + +"I told him so!" exclaimed Jerry. + +"But how'd I know that you knew," asked Danny, aggrieved, "when you +didn't know how you knew?" + +"I don't know," was all the explanation that Jerry could give. + +"All I can say is, you'd better study national history, Danny, and learn +how the four-footed friends of man are made," remarked Darn. + +"How do _you_ know el'funts' tails are small and round?" asked Chris. + +"Because I'm no dumb-head and learn things." + +"I ain't no dumb-head," protested Chris and at the same time Danny +asserted: + +"Chris ain't no dumb-head." + +Jerry saw the green elephant's front feet double up and he jumped down +from the barrel, a little bit scared. + +"He is, too," said Darn, "and so are you. Jerry Elbow there's got more +sense than both of you put together, even if he ain't got no father and +mother." + +"I haven't either," said Jerry. "I jest somehow knew one thing Danny +didn't about el'funts' tails. Danny knows lots more'n I do." + +"I guess you'd better take that back about Chris bein' a dumb-head," +threatened Danny, scowling from under the elephant's trunk. + +"An' you'd better take it back about Danny's bein' one," remarked Chris. + +"I won't any such thing," retorted Darn. + +"We'll make you," challenged Danny, all his Irish fighting blood up. + +"I'd like to see the kid could make me do anything I didn't want to," +and Darn doubled up his fists and flung them out in the air at an +imaginary adversary. + +"I'll show you," Danny boasted and quickly divested himself of the +elephant's skin. + +"Take a board," cautioned Chris, "an' then you can keep him from runnin' +in on you." Chris followed his own advice and Darn, seeing himself +attacked from two sides, one of his foes armed, decided he would live to +fight another day and scrambled over the fence. + +"Yah!" he cried in derision from the alley. "Dumb-heads! Dumb-heads! Oh, +Chris, you blue-eyed beauty, turn around and do your duty! Blue-eyed +beauty!" + +He dodged just in time to avoid the board which Chris, incensed at that +most horrible of epithets--for his eyes were blue--had hurled at him +with all his might. + +"Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed beauty! Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed +beauty!" chanted Darn, thrusting his face between two palings of the +fence and sticking out his tongue. + +Then Danny picked up a board and, flanked by Chris, advanced to the +fence, whereat Darn took to his heels, shouting, "Blue-eyed beauty! Ole +Danny dumb-head!" as loud as he could. + +At the end of the alley he turned and shouted, + +"A pants' leg for an el'funt's tail! Oh, my gorry!" + +When he disappeared from sight, the three boys surveyed the elephant's +skin lying on the ground. + +"Let's not play any more," said Danny. + +"I'm tired of the ole circus, anyway," replied Chris. + +They went into the house, Jerry slowly following them. Even he could not +'maginary the old green wrapper and the stuffed brown coat sleeve and +blue trouser leg into an elephant any more. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE CHILDREN THAT CRIED IN THE LANE + + +The days slipped by and none of the children played circus again. Jerry +thought of it often and would have liked to be the elephant just once, +but he never said anything. That made him dream all the more about the +real circus which was coming and wish that he could see it. He was very +careful not to put his longing into words, so he wouldn't remind Mother +'Larkey of the ends that wouldn't meet and make her feel badly. One day +she came across the old green wrapper elephant skin in the woodshed. + +"Why don't you children play circus any more?" she asked Danny. + +"El'funts don't look like that," he asserted, pointing disdainfully at +the discarded costume. "Their tails are small like a rope." + +"Are they now?" she asked. "And how might you be after knowing that?" + +"National history says so," Danny replied in a very decisive tone. + +Mrs. Mullarkey gave one of those low, fleeting laughs that always made +Jerry feel so good inside and which had become so rare of late. "Yes, I +guess national history would be after telling about the elephant's tail +as long as it deals with elephants and eagles and donkeys and camels and +all." + +Jerry felt there must be something funny in what Mother 'Larkey said, +because her nose went all crinkly, and he smiled in sympathy anyway, +although he didn't understand. + +But playing circus no longer appealed to the Mullarkey children. Darn +Darner had had a blighting influence on the power of their imaginations, +and Danny in the elephant costume would have been to them now only a +little boy in an old green wrapper much too large for him, dragging +about a stuffed blue trouser leg for a tail,--a very ridiculous +spectacle. Jerry realized that there would never be a next time and that +he would never play the elephant. + +A few days before the circus was to come to town Jerry and the +Mullarkey children were returning from the woods by the creek, where +they had gone to see what the prospects were for a good yield of hazel +and hickory nuts in the fall, and had just entered the edge of town when +they saw Darn Darner approaching. They had not set eyes on him since the +day he broke up their circus and they were doubtful as to how he would +behave towards them. + +"Just pretend as though nothing had never happened," Nora suggested. + +"Yes, that's best," Danny agreed. "Let him speak first." + +They watched Darn's nearer approach without seeming to do so. They tried +to keep talking and laughing so he wouldn't think they were the least +little bit afraid of him, but Jerry and Celia Jane first fell silent and +then Chris and Nora, and finally Danny, so that when they met Darn they +were as quiet and subdued as a funeral party. + +"Hello!" said Darn, as they were in the act of passing. "Where you kids +been?" + +"Hullo, Darn," replied Danny. "We just been out in the woods." + +"There's goin' to be lots of hazelnuts in the fall," Nora informed him, +in a voice which she tried to make genial. + +"And hickory nuts too," added Jerry, feeling that such good news would +help keep Darn in his present state of good humor and from thinking +about what had happened at their circus. + +"That don't interest me much just now," Darn remarked. "I'm goin' to the +circus. We're goin' to have reserved seats, a dollar and a half apiece. +There ain't no better to be had." + +"A dollar an' a half for one seat!" exclaimed Celia Jane. "I thought it +cost only fifty cents to see the circus." + +"That's just to get in and set on an ole board without any back to it," +Darn informed her. "We're goin' to have reserved seats in the boxes, +with chairs to sit on." + +"A fifty-cent seat would suit me all right," observed Danny. + +"An' me, too," echoed Chris and Nora and Celia Jane and Jerry. + +"Are you kids goin' to see the circus unload?" asked Darn. + +"Will they let you get close enough to see?" questioned Danny in turn. + +"Of course. They can't keep you from lookin', I guess." + +"No, I guess not." Danny answered his own question as though it had been +asked by Chris. "Anybody knows he could look." + +"Could you see the el'funt?" Jerry asked timidly. + +"You could if you had eyes," replied Darn loftily. + +"Where're they goin' to unload?" Danny queried. + +"On the sidetrack by Smith's house, just back of the depot, at five +o'clock in the morning. I'm goin' to see them unload." + +"So'm I!" cried Danny. + +"An' me, too!" asserted Chris. + +"An' me, too!" Jerry hurried to make that statement so that Danny could +not say he couldn't go because he had not chosen to go when there was a +chance. + +"No, you're not," Darn asserted with a sudden frown. + +"I am, too!" cried Jerry. Then after a moment he asked plaintively, "Why +ain't I?" + +"I guess you ain't got nothin' to say about whether Jerry goes or not," +Danny interposed quickly. "He can go if he wants to." + +"No, he can't," contradicted Darn. + +"Why can't he?" Nora asked. + +"They don't let anybody in the poor farm go to the circus," was Darn's +unexpected reply. + +"That's not got nothin' to do with Jerry!" cried Danny hotly. "I guess +he ain't in no poor farm." + +"He's goin' to be, though," pursued Darn calmly, in that restrained, +superior, informative manner which sometimes can be so maddening. + +"I ain't either, am I, Danny?" Jerry appealed dolefully. + +"No, you ain't," Danny assured him. "Darn's jest tryin' to make you cry. +Don't you let him scare you." + +"Jerry Elbow's goin' to the poor farm before the circus gets here," +stated Darn. + +"I ain't!" cried Jerry in a shaky voice. "I won't go! So there!" + +"They'll take you," Darn informed him, "and you won't have anything to +say about it." + +"Mother 'Larkey won't let them take me, will she, Danny?" asked Jerry in +a voice that was becoming shrill and high from fear. + +"No, she won't," asserted Danny. "Darn Darner, you jest let Jerry be. +You ain't got no right to scare a orfum boy like that." + +"We won't let them take you," comforted Celia Jane, suddenly +affectionate, and put her arm about Jerry's neck. + +Darn stepped directly in front of Jerry and stared coolly down at him +until Jerry was so uncomfortable that he couldn't raise his eyes from +the ground. + +"You're goin' to the poor farm Wednesday morning," he said calmly, +"because Mrs. Mullarkey's too poor to keep you any longer. She can't +make enough to keep her own kids." + +Jerry felt suddenly very little and all alone in a big cold world. Fear +had entered his heart. He felt that Mrs. Mullarkey not only hadn't been +able to make both ends meet but that she was never going to be able to +do it. He some way knew that Darn Darner was telling the truth and that +soon he would be torn away from the only home he could remember. His +lips twisted and he felt the hot tears filling his eyes. Yet he denied +Darn's statement with all his soul. + +"They won't! They shan't take me! I'll run away first!" + +"Much good that would do you," commented Darn unsympathetically. "It'd +be easy enough to find you." + +"How do you know they're goin' to take Jerry away?" asked Chris. + +"He don't know it!" cried Nora. "He's jest tryin' to scare us." + +"No, I ain't," denied Darn. "My father's overseer of the poor in this +county and I guess I heard him tell mamma last night that he was goin' +to take Jerry to the poor farm Wednesday morning. He said Mrs. Mullarkey +had agreed as to how she'd hafta let him take Jerry because her +insurance money from Mr. Mullarkey was all gone and she couldn't make +enough to support her own kids." + +"It ain't so!" blustered Jerry, but all the time terribly frightened. He +tried to think of something to say that would show he was not afraid of +Darn Darner, who was always picking on little boys. + +"You shan't go!" Celia Jane cried, tears running down her cheeks. She +flung both arms around Jerry's neck and squeezed him passionately. + +"What will Kathleen do without Jerry?" asked Nora in a choked voice. + +Jerry looked up and saw that she was quietly weeping, too. They believed +it! Believed that Mother 'Larkey would let them take him away! He had +been somewhat comforted by their stout assertions that Darn's words were +false, but now--! + +He was stunned. Then his lips twisted and twitched and the tears that +had been forming in his eyes spilled silently over. + +"Don't get scared, Jerry," Danny tried to comfort him. Then he turned to +the tormentor. "_Darn_ you, Darn, why can't you let him be!" + +There it was! Just what Jerry wanted to show Darn he couldn't scare him. +His oozing courage flamed up in a final flare of desperation. Through +his tears and the choke in his throat he cried: + +"_Darn_ Darn Darner! Darn! Darn! Darn! _Darn_ Darn Darner!" + +"That's about enough from you, Jerry Elbow!" shouted Darn. He gave Jerry +a resounding slap in the face. "No kid like you can call me that without +takin' the biggest lickin' he ever got." + +"No, you don't!" cried Danny and quick as a flash he rushed at Darn and +began pounding him over the head and shoulders with his fists. Chris and +Nora went to Danny's aid and the three pairs of fists caused Darn to +duck and run a short distance. + +Jerry slumped down into the dust of the road, weeping bitterly, and +Celia Jane flopped down by him, hugging him tight and mingling her tears +with his. + +Danny and Chris and even the usually gentle Nora, but for once with all +her gentleness vanished, gave vent to their feelings against Darn by +making a chant out of his name. + +"_Darn_ Darn Darner! Darn! Darn! Darn! _Darn_ Darn Darner! Darn! Darn! +Darn!" + +Into that chant boiled over all their pent-up dislike for him which had +been simmering under cover for so long. Darn started back towards them, +angry through and through, but stopped as they rushed to meet him, fists +doubled up ready for battle. He had fought many boys bigger than +himself, but he fled before the numerical strength of the present enemy, +flinging back over his shoulder from a safe distance, "Blue-eyed beauty! +Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed beauty! Ole Danny dumb-head! Yah! You'll +_hafta_ go to the poor farm if you want to see Jerry Elbow after +Wednesday." + +Upon hearing Darn's words Jerry stretched out at full length in the road +and his voice rose in a quavering wail of anguish. Celia Jane emitted a +thinner, shriller wail. Nora came back to comfort them and was caught by +the contagion so that she too plumped down in the road and wept. + +Danny and Chris, being boys, were ashamed to give vent to their emotions +in a similar way and stood looking down at the huddled forms in the +road. Chris, after a time, found himself weeping in sympathy and openly +rubbed away the tears with his shirt sleeve. Even Danny swallowed hard +and dabbed at his eyes. + +"Well, I'll be horn-swoggled!" exclaimed a startled, mystified voice +back of the children. + +Jerry opened his eyes on a blurred picture of Danny and Chris turning +suddenly about and of Nora springing to her feet. A man was just getting +out of a two-seated buggy. All sound of his approach had been drowned +out by the vociferous lamentations of Jerry and Celia Jane, which still +continued. + +"What's the trouble here?" asked the man in a deep, pleasant voice that +carried even through the clamor into Jerry's consciousness. He raised +his head and looked up through swollen and tear-drenched eyes at the +man. + +"They're g-goin' to take Jerry Elbow to the p-p-poor farm Wednesday +morning," Danny stutteringly explained. + +"Then you must be the Mullarkey children," observed the man, speaking to +the group. + +"I'm Danny," said Danny, and Chris identified himself. + +"Then this must be Jerry Elbow," the man remarked, stooping to pick +Jerry up. + +Jerry flung his arms about the man's neck and clung there desperately. + +"Yes, sir, he's Jerry," Nora explained, as Celia Jane got up out of the +road and brushed the dust from her dress. + +"My name's Tom Phillips," said their new friend. "I knew your father, +Dan Mullarkey, very well. He told me once how he found you by the +roadside one stormy night far from any house, Jerry Elbow." + +Jerry felt comforted in the strong arms of Mr. Phillips and at the +pleasant, deep quality of his voice. He stopped crying except for the +long, shuddering sobs that always came at intervals after he had cried +so hard. + +"Who said anything about taking you to the poor farm?" he asked Jerry. + +"D-D-Darn," Jerry sobbed out. + +"Darn!" said Mr. Phillips, puzzled. "I say darn, too, but who was it?" + +"It was Darn Darner," Danny told him. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Phillips. "That scalawag!" + +"He said his father said so," Nora explained. + +"That will have to be looked into," Mr. Phillips remarked. "Now you +children climb into the buggy and I will take you home. I want to have a +talk with your mother." + +"She's not to home," said Chris. + +"Mebbe she'll be back," observed Nora, looking at the sun. "It's gettin' +on towards supper time." + +"We'll see," was Mr. Phillips' only comment as he placed Jerry on the +front seat and helped Celia Jane in beside him. + +Danny and Chris and Nora, in the meantime, had climbed into the back +seat. Mr. Phillips clucked to the horses and they trotted off into town. + +Jerry felt greatly comforted to be riding home with this big, pleasant +man, and the cruel edge of Darn's words began to wear off. He felt that +this new friend's words, "That will have to be looked into," meant +almost as much as though he had said, "I'll see that nothing of the sort +happens." + +His body was still shaken, at longer and longer intervals, by shuddering +sobs, but when the Mullarkey home was reached, they had subsided and he +was enjoying the unaccustomed buggy ride. + +Mrs. Mullarkey was home, and she came running out to see why her +children were being brought back in a buggy. + +"Who's hurt," she asked anxiously, "that you're bringing them home in a +buggy?" + +"None of them is hurt, Mrs. Mullarkey," Mr. Phillips assured her +quickly, and helped the children out. "I'm Tom Phillips. I knew your +husband quite well. I found these children crying in the road because +Mr. Darner's young scalawag of a son had told them that Jerry Elbow was +to be taken to the poor farm." + +"Oh, Jerry, you blessed child!" crooned Mother 'Larkey, taking Jerry in +her arms. "And you to find it out from some one else when I'd been +trying for this week past to get up courage enough to tell you." + +"Mother!" cried Nora in a shocked voice. + +"It's true, then?" asked Mr. Phillips. + +"Yes," replied Mrs. Mullarkey, drawing Jerry tightly to her. "I don't +want to let you go, Jerry, but Dan's insurance money is all gone and how +I am to make enough to keep the bodies and souls of all you children +together I don't know. I love you as though you were my own, you're that +sweet and gentle." + +Jerry began crying again, but softly this time, because he knew Mother +'Larkey wouldn't let him go if she could help it. She kissed him and +turned to Mr. Phillips. + +"Mr. Darner told me I'd sooner or later have to let some of my own +children go there or be adopted out, if I didn't consent to Jerry's +going. I'm at the end of my string." + +"I see," observed Mr. Phillips gently. "I didn't know just how Dan +Mullarkey left you fixed, but I can do something to help you. Darner can +be made to listen to reason and I can bring some influence to bear upon +him. I don't see why the county can't let you have as much as it would +cost it to keep Jerry at the farm. I belong to the same lodge as Dan did +and we'll help you some there. I'll find something for Danny to do. He +can be earning a little money in the summer time and help you out that +way." + +"You're an angel if ever there was one in this world, Mr. Phillips," +said Mrs. Mullarkey. "If the county will allow me for Jerry's keep, I'll +take better care of him than he'd get at any institution and it would +help me in keeping the brood together." + +"I'll see what I can do," said Mr. Phillips. + +"Then Jerry won't hafta go?" Celia Jane questioned. + +"I hope not," he replied. "Keep a stiff upper lip, Jerry!" + +"I--I'll try," Jerry promised, already feeling certain that the danger +which threatened him had passed. + +"I'll come back in a day or two," said Mr. Phillips, "and let you know +what I have been able to do." + +Jerry watched him from over Mother 'Larkey's shoulder as he drove off. +He thought he had never seen a man who looked so big and strong and as +though he could make people do just as he wanted them to. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +TICKETS TO PARADISE + + +On Wednesday Mr. Phillips reported that while the matter of allowing +Mrs. Mullarkey to keep Jerry had not been decided, he would not be taken +to the poor farm on that day at least and he thought it could be +arranged that he shouldn't go there at all. Consequently it was with a +joyous heart that Jerry awoke early on the morning of the great day that +the circus was to reach town. He had slept fitfully all night, thinking +of the circus and fearing that he might not wake up in time. Mrs. +Mullarkey had promised to call him, but for once Jerry had waked up +himself. + +He heard a stir downstairs and called to Mother 'Larkey that he was up. +He roused Chris, who in turn called Danny, but Danny was a sound sleeper +and merely turned on his side. Chris and Jerry then rolled him over and +pulled the covers off and finally pummeled the sleeper into a state of +semi-consciousness. + +"It's time for the circus to unload," they told him. "We're all dressed, +ready to go." + +Danny opened one swollen, sleepy eye, "Aw, it's not time yet," he +muttered drowsily and went back to sleep. + +"All right, let him be," said Chris in disgust. "We ain't got time to +wake him. We'll miss the unloadin' if we do." + +So Jerry and Chris tiptoed carefully downstairs, for they knew Mrs. +Mullarkey had gone back to bed, and ran through the dim light of dawn to +the railway station. + +The circus train was in and the unloading had already begun. Nearly all +the small boys in town seemed to be perched on fences, roofs, and in +trees, watching the proceedings. The circus men were tired and cross and +made the children keep out of the way. + +Jerry was dreadfully excited and exhilarated upon seeing four elephants +on the opposite side of the train, and his delight knew no bounds when +one of them was hitched to a heavy circus wagon on a car and pulled it +down a board incline to the road. The funny, awkward animal walked +right along as though the wagon were as light as a feather. Many of the +boys complained because the sides of the wagons in which the wild +animals were kept were closed, but not so Jerry. As long as he could +feast his eyes on the elephants he was content. He had but a passing +glance for the humpbacked camels and the two long-necked giraffes until +after the elephants had been taken away. + +When the train had been unloaded and the last wagons were hauled away, +the troop of small boys--and many older ones and grown men as +well--followed them out to the circus ground. + +Already one big tent and several smaller ones had been erected and the +elephants and the other animals were not to be seen. There was a +delightfully circusy smell of oils and sawdust and hay and animals +pervading the air. Then through it all came another smell that made +Jerry and Chris and many of the boys and men sniff. It was the smell of +bacon and eggs frying. The cooks were preparing breakfast for the circus +troupe. + +"I'm hungry," said a man back of Jerry to the two boys with him. "We'd +better get home. Mother will be waiting breakfast for us." They left the +circus grounds reluctantly, the two boys stopping every now and then to +look back. + +That inviting odor of frying bacon and eggs was a clarion call to +breakfast to scores of the onlookers, and the crowd fairly melted away +until not more than a dozen boys were left, among whom Jerry saw Darn +Darner. + +"I'm awful hungry," said Chris, after they had wandered around half an +hour longer. "Let's go home. I guess we've seen about all there is to +see." + +Jerry protested. "Let's wait a while longer an' mebbe they'll bring the +el'funts out." + +"Mebbe they will," said Chris and seemed straightway to forget all about +his hunger. They went about the tents again and once caught sight of the +elephants and camels in the second largest tent, as one of the canvasmen +came out and held back the flaps. He was followed by another man with a +thick, black beard, who wore something that flashed in his shirt front. + +"Gee, look at the size of that diamond!" exclaimed Darn Darner's voice +back of Jerry. + +The man looked sharply about. Jerry thought he seemed very much +surprised and was afraid he might be angry because he and Chris were so +close to the tent. He started to go away, but upon hearing the man speak +he stood rooted to the spot. + +"What in the world has become of all the small boys?" the black-bearded +man had asked the other. "There were hundreds about a few minutes ago. +Don't they know they can get to see the circus if they want to carry +water for the elephants?" + +"I guess the boys in this town never saw a circus before, Mr. Burrows," +replied the canvasman. + +"Here, you," Mr. Burrows called to Darn. "Want to earn a ticket to the +circus?" + +"No," said Darn loftily. "I've got a reserved box seat." He turned and +walked off. + +"What did I tell you, Sam?" laughed Mr. Burrows. "There's money in this +jay town and we're going to get a bunch of it." + +Jerry stepped hastily forward, a light of joy dancing in his eyes, with +Chris treading on his heels. "Please, mister," said Jerry eagerly, +"we'll carry water for the elephants." + +"We want to see the circus," added Chris. + +"You're too little to carry water," said Sam. "Where're all the bigger +kids?" + +"They've gone home to breakfast," replied Chris. "Please, mister, we can +carry water. I'm big enough." + +"Yes, I guess you're big enough," said the man with the diamond in his +shirt, "but the elephants are awful thirsty and it will take you a long +time. Sam, you see if you can find some other boys to help you." + +Sam departed instantly. + +"Where'll we get the water?" asked Chris. + +"From that house across the road. You'll have to pump it. Your brother +there had better go home; he's too little to carry water." + +"No, I ain't, mister," said Jerry eagerly. "I'm awful strong for my +age." + +"How old are you?" asked the man. + +"I don't know," Jerry confessed. Then, fearful of losing this +opportunity to see the circus, he continued, "I guess I'm almost seven +or mebbe eight." + +"You don't know how old you are!" exclaimed the man. "You look much +younger than seven or eight." + +"He's not my brother," Chris explained. "He's a orfum my father found +when he was alive. My brother's at home with mother and my sisters. We +couldn't wake him up. But Jerry's awful strong." + +"A orfum, hey? And awful strong?" said the man and seemed to be studying +over something in his mind. "Have you ever seen a circus?" he asked. + +"No, sir," they both assured him and Chris continued: "Mother did once, +just after she was married to father. She wished she could bring us all +to the circus but she didn't have money enough." + +"H'm," said the man. "I used to be a orfum myself and I know how you +feel." + +"Did you?" asked Jerry, and he smiled up at the man, unafraid, with a +sort of fellow feeling. + +"I sure did," the man smiled down at Jerry. "I got to see my first +circus through carrying water for the elephants." + +At this moment Sam returned with four other boys, all older than either +Jerry or Chris. + +"I never saw boys so shy of a circus before, Mr. Burrows," he said. +"They've melted away as though the circus were a plague. But I guess we +can get along with these." + +"All right, Sam," replied Mr. Burrows, "but I want you to pump the water +and let the boys do the carrying. These two boys," and he put a hand on +Jerry's head and one on Chris's shoulder, "have never seen a circus. +They'll help carry water and be sure that they get a matinee ticket +apiece." + +"All right, sir," replied Sam. "Come on, boys." + +"Let these two carry a pail between them," continued Mr. Burrows, "I +don't want them breaking their backs." + +Jerry felt an unusual warmth go surging through him. He was going to +carry water for the elephants and get a ticket to the circus, after all! +He was gladder than ever that he had bought the cough medicine for +Kathleen with the black half-dollar. He looked up at Mr. Burrows, and it +was such a look as a friendless dog might give to a man who had just +petted it and given it something to eat. + +"Thank you, mister, for lettin' me carry water for the el'funts," said +Jerry. + +"That's all right," replied the man. "Here, there's a dime for peanuts. +Have a good time." + +Jerry was too surprised to take the dime and Mr. Burrows pressed it into +his hand and went back into the tent before Jerry had recovered. + +"The boss must have taken a fancy to you!" said Sam to Jerry. "Well, +them elephants is awful thirsty and we've got to get to work. Come on." + +Jerry, envied of all the boys, put the dime in his blouse pocket. He +seemed to be treading on air instead of the solid earth as he followed +Sam to another part of the ground where the boys were given large pails. + +He felt in his blouse pocket every now and then to make sure that he +really had a dime and also that it had not grown wings and flown out of +his pocket, or made a hole in it and dropped out. It was always there +and his feeling of exhilaration at his good fortune kept up, despite the +hard work of carrying that pailful of water from the pump across the +street to the back of the second biggest tent, where he and Chris +emptied it into a kind of a tub. There were half a dozen of the tubs to +be filled, and before the third one was full Jerry's arms and back +ached, but he gritted his teeth and kept on. He would show them that he +wasn't too little to carry water for the elephants. + +Under the ache in his arms and back, his exhilaration at the possession +of the dime and the prospect of a ticket to the circus wilted but did +not die. When the fourth tub was about full he sat down on the pump +platform while Sam filled their pail with water. + +"El'funts must drink a nawful lot of water," he said. + +"Gettin' tired, ain't you?" asked Sam. + +"No, I could carry water all day, I guess. It makes my back ache some +because I ain't used to it." + +"You kids have made more trips than the other boys," said Sam, "and I +ain't going to fill your pail clear full any more. Don't try to go so +fast with it. There's plenty of time." + +"We want to carry enough for two tickets," said Jerry quickly. "Chris +wants to see the circus, too, don't you, Chris?" + +"You bet," replied Chris. + +"You'll get a ticket apiece, all right, as long as I'm on the job," said +Sam, giving them the pail not much more than half full of water. + +"That's a whole lot easier to carry," Jerry assured Sam, as they started +for the tub. + +It seemed to Jerry that he and Chris had been carrying water for hours +by the time the last tub was full. He felt almost starving. The sun +seemed to be 'way up and he was so tired and hot that he was about ready +to drop; but he found that when the work was done and Sam gave each boy +a ticket it wasn't very late, after all. + +"It's just nine o'clock," said Sam, "and you kids'd better scoot home +and get some breakfast. Just show your mothers them tickets if they +scold you for stayin' so long and I guess they'll hush right up. The +matinee starts at 2:15, but if you want to see the menagerie, you'd +better come about half-past one or right after the parade." + +Those magic pieces of paper, which Jerry and Chris held tightly in their +hands for fear of losing them, made them forget their hunger and +weariness and they set off for home at full speed. They raced breathless +into the house and found that Mrs. Mullarkey and Nora had finished +washing the breakfast dishes. + +"Look, mother!" cried Chris, panting for breath after almost every word, +"we've got tickets for the circus for helpin' carry water for the +el'funts!" + +"Oh, how nice!" said Mrs. Mullarkey. "They will be tickets to paradise +to you. Now you'll get to see the circus, after all. But you must be +about starved." + +"We are, almost," Jerry admitted. + +"Gee, my arms ache," Chris remarked. + +"You boys had better rub each other's backs with liniment while I get +your breakfast," Mother 'Larkey said, getting a bottle down from the +cupboard. + +"Did Danny get a ticket, too?" Celia Jane asked. + +"No," said Chris. + +"Why, where is Danny?" inquired his mother. + +"I don't know," replied Chris. "He was asleep when we left. We tried to +wake him but he wouldn't get up." + +"Land's sakes!" exclaimed Mrs. Mullarkey. "He must still be upstairs, +fast asleep! I heard you calling him and then heard you tiptoeing +downstairs and out of the house and thought he was with you." She went +to the foot of the stairs and called and the sleepy voice of Danny +answered: + +"All right. Is it time for the circus to unload?" + +"It unloaded hours ago," she replied, "and Chris and Jerry have got back +with each of them a ticket to the circus for helping carry water for the +elephants." + +"Why didn't you call me!" wailed Danny. + +"Chris and Jerry called you," answered his mother. "I heard them and +heard you answer. It's your own fault for being such a sleepyhead." + +It didn't take Danny long to dress and get downstairs, his hair all +tousled and his eyes still heavy with sleep. "Let's see your tickets," +he demanded. + +Chris let him see his, but kept a possessive hold of one end. There it +was: + + BURROWS AND FAIRCHILD'S + + MAMMOTH CIRCUS AND + MENAGERIE + + ADMIT ONE + + COMPLIMENTARY + +"That's a ticket, all right," Danny remarked. "Was that all you had to +do to get it--carry water for the el'funts?" + +"Yes," replied Chris, "but it took hours and hours. I'm sore all over." + +"So'm I," said Jerry. + +"Why didn't you make me wake up?" + +"We called you and pounded you and turned you over," Chris replied, "but +you went back to sleep." + +"Why didn't you kick me or pull me out of bed?" Danny asked. "Then mebbe +I'd've got a ticket, too." + +"Mebbe you can, anyway," said Celia Jane. "The el'funts'll want a drink +at noon." + +"I'll go out and see," said Danny and was hurrying off at once, but Mrs. +Mullarkey made him wait for breakfast. He bolted the oatmeal and bread +and raced out of the house. + +"I'm glad I'm not a sleepy-head like Danny," said Chris. + +"So'm I," echoed Jerry. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE CROCODILE TEARS OF CELIA JANE + + +Jerry could hardly wait until time for the parade. He and Chris were +both too excited to play; they stayed in the house most of the time and +questioned Mother 'Larkey about what she had seen at the circus the time +her husband had taken her to one in the city. She was busy sewing on a +dress for Mrs. Johnson which was wanted by Saturday night and was at +length obliged to send them out of doors with orders to stay out until +dinner was ready. + +They soon exhausted each other's conversation relative to circuses and +their knowledge and guesses about what they would see, and fell silent. +And the minutes dragged their slow length out towards eleven o'clock. + +They could smell the mush and potatoes frying for their early dinner +when Danny returned from the circus ground. They knew at once that he +hadn't succeeded in getting a "ticket to paradise", as Mother 'Larkey +had called their circus passes, nevertheless Chris asked: + +"Did you get a ticket?" + +"No," replied Danny, sitting down dejectedly. After a while they knew he +didn't intend to say any more. Jerry waited as long as he could and then +asked in turn: + +"Didn't the el'funts want any water for dinner?" + +"No," stated Danny glumly. + +That little word "No" seemed to be all that Danny cared to say about his +experience, and the following silence lasted fully ten minutes. Danny +was the first to break it. He did so after apparently awakening to the +fact that dinner was preparing. He sniffed the penetrating odor of +frying potatoes and mush that had got a little burned, and sat up. + +"Gee, but I'm hungry," he said and sniffed again. + +"Wasn't there anything you could do for a ticket?" Chris asked. + +"No. The man said the early bird got the worm at the circus as well as +in the garden." + +After a time Jerry woke to the fact that Danny was looking at him out of +the corners of his eyes in a peculiar, questioning manner that made him +feel uneasy. He turned his glance away. + +"I'll give you both my tops an' the shiny horseshoe nail an' baseball +for your circus ticket," Danny proposed. + +Jerry's hand flew protectingly to the pocket of his blouse. "No!" he +cried loudly. "I won't! I earned it myself!" + +"Well, I ain't tryin' to take it away from you, am I?" Danny asked, +aggrieved. "I jest offered you some of my things for it. There ain't no +law against offerin' to trade, I guess. I'll teach you to skate and let +you use the skates I got at Christmas if you will. An' I'll feed your +white rabbit for you." + +"No," said Jerry, edging away from him, ready to run to the house if +Danny should try to grab the ticket. "I earned the ticket and I'm +a-goin' to see the circus." + +"Dinner's ready, children," called Mrs. Mullarkey. "You'll have to hurry +to get a good place to see the parade." + +Jerry was ready to start without having anything to eat. He was too +excited to be hungry, but Mother 'Larkey made him eat so he "wouldn't +get too faint to enjoy the circus." It was a race between the boys to +see who would finish first. Chris won. Danny, who confessed to being +hungry, ate twice as much as Jerry and Chris. + +"Now you children keep together at the parade," admonished Mrs. +Mullarkey, as they were ready to start. "You can follow the parade out +to the circus grounds for the free show outside, but Danny, you keep +with Nora and Celia Jane and see that they get home all right." + +Jerry didn't see how the circus could be much more fascinating than the +parade with all its cages open so you could see the animals. And with +the clowns, too, especially the one with the donkey, going through such +laughable antics. But he was a little disappointed that the elephants +didn't jump a fence or do anything like that during the parade. However, +the beautiful ladies in gorgeous raiment who rode in the little houses +strapped to the elephants' backs made him forget about their +fence-jumping proclivities. + +When the parade was over, Jerry and the Mullarkey children, together +with a hundred or more small boys and girls, followed the steam-throated +calliope through the principal street of the town out to the tents, +fascinated by the loudness of the music and the escape of jets of steam +as the player fingered the keys. It seemed to Jerry that there couldn't +in all the wide world be such heavenly music. Celia Jane and Chris +shared his enthusiasm, but Nora confessed to liking a fiddle better and +Danny asserted that the music of the trombone was easier on the ears. + +The free exhibition on the little platform outside the side-show tent +had all the fascination of the unknown for Jerry and Chris and Celia +Jane and Nora, but not for Danny, who had been to the vaudeville theater +twice and who knew that this outside sample never could come up to the +glories to be revealed inside for fifty cents, or a dollar and a half +for reserved seats in the boxes, and was critical. + +The dancing girl in short skirts and the man with the beard which fell +to his feet and the very red-faced snake charmer merely whetted his +appetite for what was to come, while to Jerry and the rest of the +Mullarkey children it was a substantial part of the feast itself. + +The free show seemed to Jerry not to have much more than started when +the raucous voice of the ballyhoo announced: + +"This, ladies and gents, concludes the free show. The main show will not +begin for half an hour, thirty minutes--just time enough to see the side +show, the world's greatest congress of freaks and monstrosities. See the +sword-swallower from India to whom a steel sword is no more than a +string of spaghetti to an Italian. Kelilah, the famous dancer of the +Nile, whose graceful contortions have delighted the eyes and moved the +hearts of kings. See Major Wee-Wee, the smallest man in the world, no +bigger than a two-year-old baby, and Tom Morgan, the giant who stands +seven feet three inches in his stocking feet. They are all there--every +kind of human freak from the living skeleton to the fat woman who weighs +four hundred pounds. The price is the same to one and all--twenty-five +cents, only a quarter of a dollar. This way and get your tickets for the +side show. There is just time to take in all its wonders before the big +show in the main tent begins." + +The promise of all these delights proved irresistible to Jerry and Chris +and they left the children and were almost first in line, but the ticket +taker refused them admittance. + +"Those tickets are not good to the side show," he said. "They admit you +to the main tent." + +Stunned at this disaster, Jerry and Chris slunk under the ropes at the +entrance and rejoined Danny and Nora and Celia Jane. They stood in +silence as the crowd surged around the ticket seller for the side show +and watched the people stream through the door. Never had the lack of +"twenty-five cents, only a quarter of a dollar", meant so much to any +small boy as it meant to Jerry and Chris. Some of the people were +already going into the main tent, passing up the glories of the side +show. Jerry wondered if they, too, didn't have the necessary quarter of +a dollar. + +"It would be just grand to see all them freaks," sighed Celia Jane. "If +I could only see just half the circus." + +Jerry, his ticket still in his hand, looked up and saw Danny glancing +covetously at it. + +"What'll you take for your ticket?" he asked eagerly. "I'll give you +anything of mine you want." + +"I won't trade," replied Jerry, stuffing the ticket into his blouse +pocket. "I'm a-goin' to see the circus." + +Danny made the same proposition to Chris but Chris also refused. There +was nothing of Danny's that could compensate Jerry or Chris for missing +the circus, especially when they were right there on the ground with +their tickets in their hands. + +After the crowd had disappeared--part into the side show, part into the +main tent, some to their homes and some to wander about the +grounds--Jerry and Chris were debating whether they should go into the +big tent at once or wait until time for the main performance, when they +observed Danny, who had edged away from them, talking in a low voice to +Celia Jane. From the motion of Celia Jane's head and the entreating +position of Danny's hands, they knew she was refusing some request of +his. + +If they had not just then become absorbed in watching some circus +employee leading two big, fat, white horses out of a tent they would +have seen Celia Jane's negative shakes of the head become weaker as +Danny's attitude became more and more commanding, and all that occurred +afterward might never have happened. But they didn't look around. + +When the horses had disappeared, Jerry spoke: + +"They might start early," he said. "Let's go in now, Chris." + +"All right, let's," Chris replied. + +They turned to tell the other Mullarkey children good-by and saw that +Celia Jane was crying. Her shoulders shook and she seemed to be in the +utmost despair. + +"What's the matter with Celia Jane?" Chris asked. + +"I don't know," said Nora. "What ails her, Danny?" + +"I don't know," Danny asserted quickly. "What're you cryin' for, Celia +Jane?" + +"I want to see the circus," sobbed Celia Jane. She raised her face and +there were tears running down it. + +"You ain't got no ticket, have you?" asked Danny. "Nor fifty cents?" + +"N-n-no," sobbed Celia Jane. + +"Then there ain't no chance at all of your gettin' in, is there?" + +"I ain't never seen no circus," moaned Celia Jane. + +"Come on, Jerry," said Chris; "let's go in now, so's we won't miss +anything if they start early." + +At that Celia Jane started crying harder than ever and Jerry stood +still, a curious something making his heart beat faster and his throat +growing all choky. + +"Let's go home, Celia Jane," proposed Nora, in a soothing tone. "Mebbe +next time we can go. They might let us carry water for the elephants and +earn a ticket to the circus, even if we are girls." + +"I want to see it now," sobbed Celia Jane. + +Jerry began to feel sort of shuddery inside and his mouth puckered up +the way it did when he felt like crying. + +He was awfully sorry that Celia Jane didn't have a ticket too. He knew +he would be crying out of sympathy if Celia Jane kept on that way, and +started towards Chris, who had gone halfway towards the entrance to the +tent and then had stopped to wait for him. His joy at the thought of +what he was going to witness was clouded through the fact that Celia +Jane could not see and enjoy it too. He walked very slowly towards Chris +and looked back at Celia Jane. + +"Oh, J-J-Jerry!" cried the weeping girl, "I-I-I want to see the circus +too." + +At that appeal Jerry felt as though his heart had stopped beating and +was sinking down into his bare feet. He winked hard to keep the tears +from coming. He just couldn't bear to see Celia Jane so heartbroken +about not being able to see the circus. + +"You can have my t-t-ticket," he said slowly and pulled the treasured +bit of blue cardboard out of his pocket. There were tears in his eyes +but he walked slowly to Celia Jane, holding out the ticket to her. + +"Oh, Jerry!" cried Celia Jane. "Will you really give it to me of your +own free will?" + +Jerry couldn't speak at first. He nodded his head, but Celia Jane just +took one end of the ticket between her fingers. + +"Do you give it to me, Jerry?" she asked, in a voice in which there was +no trace of weeping. Yet the tears stood on her face. + +"Yes," said Jerry at last and let go of the ticket. "You can have it, +Celia Jane." + +"Then I give it to Danny," said Celia Jane and straightway handed the +ticket to Danny, who snatched it and ran to the entrance of the main +tent. + +Jerry was so surprised at the treachery of Celia Jane after her recent +evidences of affection and at the suddenness of it all that he could not +even cry out,--could do nothing but stare after Danny. He saw the +precious bit of pasteboard taken from Danny's outstretched hand by the +ticket-taker and dropped into a box and then saw Chris give up his +ticket and go in. + +"Celia Jane!" he heard Nora cry, "I'm going to tell mother what you did +to Jerry. You'll catch it." + +"Danny!" Jerry at last found his voice, and it rose in a forlorn wail. +"The ticket is mine! Danny!" + +Jerry had forgotten how easily Celia Jane could make the tears come +whenever she liked, no matter if she didn't really want to cry. He would +show that Celia Jane that she had gone too far this time. He didn't know +what he would do, but turned to go to her. As he did so, a crowd of +persons going to the circus passed between them and when they had passed +he saw Celia Jane running for home with Nora following at a slower pace. + +"Why, what's the matter, little boy? Why are you crying?" he heard a man +ask. + +Jerry felt the hot tears of bitter disappointment coming and he did not +want all those persons to see him crying. So he turned and ran blindly +around the big tent; when he was alone he flung himself down on the +ground and sobbed out his grief, with face pressed into the grass. + +Never, never, never would he forgive Celia Jane for her perfidy,--nor +Danny either for taking the ticket, when he knew that it had been given +to Celia Jane because Jerry thought she was really crying because she +wanted to see the circus. He would really run away this time. He would +run away without going back to tell Mother 'Larkey and Kathleen and +Nora good-by. + +Now he would not get to see the elephants jumping the fence, nor the +trapeze performers, nor the dancing pony. Even the trained seals took on +a halo of enchantment now that the magic ticket that was to open all +those joys to him was irrevocably gone. + +His sobbing rose in a renewed outburst, but even as he sobbed he felt +something shake his foot very slightly. He stopped sobbing so hard. +There was no further shaking of his foot and he again gave himself up to +the bitterness of his grief. + +Then there came a tug at his foot; it was shaken harder than before and +then pulled. Very much startled, Jerry sat up and found himself staring +into a pair of twinkling yet sympathetic eyes and a face which was just +as white as chalk, with very, very red lips. It was a man, and he wore a +white skullcap over his head and a white, loose sort of gown with blue +dots all over it. + +It was Whiteface, the clown, sitting on his heels right there in front +of him! That very surprising individual suddenly turned a handspring, +and without standing up, kicked his heels together straight up into the +air and then sat down in front of Jerry, leaned his head on his elbow +and smiled with twinkling eyes, without uttering a word. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CLOWN OF CLOWNS + + +Jerry was so surprised that he almost forgot that he had been cheated +out of his ticket to the circus, and he stopped crying except for a long +shuddering sob every now and then, though the tears stood on his cheeks. + +The clown looked at him long and steadily; finally he made a little +squeaky noise with his mouth, and then opened his lips as though +laughing, but did not utter a sound. His mouth seemed to keep broadening +in a hearty laugh until Jerry thought it would really touch his ears. It +was such a good-natured grin and his eyes twinkled so that Jerry smiled +ever so little. + +At that little smile the clown's silent laugh suddenly disappeared and +with that funny little squeak in his mouth, which Jerry knew meant joy +in spite of its being nothing but a squeak, he jumped suddenly to his +feet and turned a series of handsprings around in a circle, kicking his +heels in the air and ending up just where he started, directly in front +of Jerry, squatting down on the ground, with elbow on knee, chin in +hand, looking intently into Jerry's eyes. + +The clown's lips were very sober in spite of the general laughableness +of his face, but as he kept looking at Jerry a smile started right at +the corners of his mouth and then disappeared. That smile seemed to be +waiting for encouragement, for after a time it started up again and +followed the clown's lips almost to the center of his mouth. It didn't +get quite that far, however, but raced quickly back to the corners of +his mouth, as though in disappointment, and disappeared. + +Then a remarkable change came over the clown's face. The corners of his +mouth began to droop and his eyes to close. Jerry thought he was going +to cry. His shoulders hunched forward until the clown was the most +forlorn looking object Jerry had almost ever seen. The corners of his +mouth kept going down and down until they nearly touched his chin. + +Jerry kept fascinated eyes on that chalky white face with the very, +very red lips. It was the drollest expression of grief he had ever seen, +and a smile began to play about his own lips. + +That tentative smile on Jerry's part brought another sudden and +remarkable change over the clown's countenance. He began that silent +laugh again and it grew and it grew until the face was all a huge grin. +Jerry found himself grinning out of pure, contagious sympathy. + +Then the clown laughed harder than ever, still without making a sound, +and held his sides as though he had laughed so hard that they ached. He +emitted one short, little staccato laugh and stopped suddenly, as if he +were waiting to see if Jerry liked the sound before continuing with it. + +Jerry did like it and laughed out loud himself. + +The clown's face was all changed at that laugh of Jerry's and became so +comically still and sorrowful that Jerry laughed harder. Then the clown +started laughing out loud, holding his sides until it became a laughing +duet between them. + +Jerry was happy again. He had forgotten all about Danny's perfidy and +the tears of Celia Jane and the stolen "ticket to paradise." + +The clown's features suddenly fell calm and he jumped to his feet and +pirouetted on his heels with little graceful leaps in the air, as though +he were light as a feather and going to take flight. Jerry was sure that +that was the clown's way of rejoicing at having made him laugh. + +Then the clown was suddenly sitting in front of Jerry again. "So you've +found the secret," he remarked in a very human and pleasant voice. + +"What secret?" asked Jerry. + +The clown whispered in his ear, "The secret of laughter." + +"The secret of laughter?" repeated Jerry wonderingly. + +"Shush!" warned Whiteface, looking cautiously about. "Don't let anybody +know you've found it till it's had time to get used to you. It might +like somebody else better and leave you for that somebody else, though I +don't see how the secret of laughter could like anybody better than you. +You're such a brave little boy." + +"What will the secret of laughter do?" Jerry asked in a low tone. + +"It will make you happy," replied Whiteface. "Nothing is as bad as you +think it is if only you can keep the secret of laughter at your side. It +will make you forget your sorrow and laugh and laugh till the sorrow +slinks away." + +"Never to come back?" asked Jerry. + +The clown's mouth drooped again and his shoulders sunk forward. + +"That's the tragedy of it," he said. "Sorrow takes such a firm hold on +us sometimes, especially when one is grown up, that it comes back even +after the secret of laughter has driven it away. But it is different +with children; with them the secret of laughter almost always drives +sorrow away for good and all and leaves them happy." + +"How can it make them happy?" asked Jerry. + +"By making them forget." + +"Forget what?" pursued Jerry, puzzled. + +"What made them cry," responded the clown, "as you have." + +Then his face clouded and his white, chalky brows frowned. + +"You have forgotten, haven't you?" he asked eagerly. + +"Y-y-yes," replied Jerry, "almost." + +"Almost!" exclaimed Whiteface, very much disappointed. "Then it has come +back if you haven't forgotten it altogether. I wonder what it can be if +the secret of laughter can't drive it away?" + +He looked up so questioningly that Jerry responded at once. "It's Celia +Jane." + +It was the clown's turn to be surprised. + +"Celia Jane!" he exclaimed. "Cupid starts in so young nowadays!" + +"It was not Cupid," said Jerry, who had no more idea than the man in the +moon who or what Cupid might be. + +"No?" said the clown. "That's good! What did Celia Jane do?" + +"She cried." + +"Was that what you were crying for--because Celia Jane cried?" + +"No," Jerry answered. "I gave her my ticket to the circus which I got +for carryin' water for the el'funts." + +"Ah!" said the clown. "She cried to get your ticket so she could see the +circus herself. I see." + +"No! She gave my ticket to Danny," pursued Jerry, and his grief was +coming back so rapidly that he felt his lips begin twisting again. + +"And Danny went to the circus in your place?" questioned the clown. "And +the crocodile tears of Celia Jane made you shed so many real ones!" + +"Celia Jane always does what Danny wants her to," continued Jerry. + +"It was very naughty of her!" said the clown. "And Danny should be +spoken to." + +"Will you speak to him?" asked Jerry. "Then mebbe he'll give me my +ticket back." + +"I don't know Danny," replied the clown, "but I'll probably think up a +way to get you into the circus even if you don't have a ticket." + +"Oh, can you?" cried Jerry excitedly. He got to his feet and in his +eagerness put an arm over Whiteface's shoulder. + +"I'm sure I can if I think very hard," returned the clown. + +"You will think _very_ hard, won't you? Please." + +"Oh, awfully hard," replied Whiteface. "But don't you worry. The secret +of laughter made your grief slink away for good. But I must know your +name. It will help me to think." + +"Jerry Elbow," replied Jerry promptly. + +"Well, Jerry Elbow," said the clown, "now I'll think. You may watch me +think, but don't say anything, as I might get to thinking your thoughts, +and if our thoughts get crossed there's no telling what would happen." + +"I won't," Jerry promised. + +The clown put his chin in his hand, palm out so that his thumb and +forefinger half encircled his face, and began slowly rolling his head +from side to side. Then with the forefinger of his other hand he tapped +the top of his head slowly several times. + +"Think!" he commanded his own head. "Here's a very small boy that you +can make very happy. Think of a way to do it. Think!" + +Jerry sat down again and watched him eagerly, holding on to himself to +keep from speaking and getting their thoughts mixed up. + +Every emotion pictured on the clown's mobile face was reflected on +Jerry's. When the clown brightened as though he felt the thought coming +that would provide a means for getting Jerry into the circus, Jerry's +face likewise brightened. But when Whiteface slumped down into the most +discouraged attitude in the world, Jerry knew that that idea wouldn't do +and the corners of his own mouth drooped and, unconsciously, he rested +his chin in the palm of his hand just as the clown did and despair made +him huddle down in a heap. + +All of a sudden the clown made a clicking noise with his tongue and his +figure began to straighten up and his face to lighten until it was all +smiles. Jerry bounded to his feet. He forgot all about Whiteface's +caution not to speak and cried: + +"Have you got it? Did the thought come?" + +"Yes!" cried the clown. "I'll buy you a ticket!" + +"Will you?" exclaimed Jerry. "_Will_ you?" + +"Yes, here's the money," and Whiteface reached for his pocket. His hand +kept sliding down his loose, blue-spotted, white costume, but did not +enter into any pocket. + +"Can't you find your pocket?" asked Jerry fearfully. + +"I had one this morning," replied the clown solemnly, "and there was +money in it--enough to buy you a ticket to the circus and more, but now +I don't seem to be able to find it. You don't see a pocket on me, do +you, Jerry Elbow?" + +Jerry went close and walked all about the clown. There was not a sign of +a pocket and he began to feel dreadfully disappointed. + +"There ain't no pocket," he said sorrowfully. + +"Then there must be some pocket. If there ain't no pocket, there must be +a pocket somewhere. If you had said there is no pocket it would be so. +Look again." + +Jerry looked carefully, more and more sorrowfully. + +"There _is_ no pocket," he said at last in a voice that was trembly, all +ready to cry. + +"That's funny," said the clown. "I know there was one this morning +because I used some of the money that was in it." He sank into thought +for a moment and then looked suddenly at Jerry. + +"I know why we can't find a pocket!" cried he. "While I was thinking +very hard of a way to get you into the circus and almost had the +thought, you said, 'Have you got it? Did the thought come?' Now, didn't +you?" + +The appalling truth burst upon Jerry. He had spoiled Whiteface's thought +by interrupting and their thoughts had got mixed. + +"I didn't know I was going to," he said. "I tried so hard not to." + +"And didn't you think that it would take only fifty cents to buy a +ticket?" asked the clown. + +"Yes," Jerry miserably admitted. + +"That's it!" exclaimed the clown. "That's what mixed my thoughts all up +with yours. I was trying to think of a way to get you in without any +money. Then, when our thoughts got mixed, I began thinking of the +ordinary way of getting into a circus by buying a ticket." + +"Can't you think again?" Jerry pleaded in a very contrite voice. "I +will keep still this time. I _will_!" + +Just as he spoke a band inside the tent started playing. It was so near +him that he was startled, and jumped. + +"The circus is about to begin," said the clown. "The band is playing for +the parade. I must think quickly so you won't miss any of it." + +There was no need of warning Jerry not to say anything this time. He +would have said nothing if he had seen the clown turn into an elephant. +It was an awful hard thought to think, for the clown stretched out on +the ground right close to the tent and looked under the canvas. Then he +rolled over, sat up and wagged his head solemnly at Jerry. + +"I've got it!" he cried and bounded to his feet and jumped clear over +Jerry's head. + +"I didn't say nothing this time!" boasted Jerry. "I didn't say nothing +this time!" + +"No," said the clown, "you didn't and our thoughts didn't all get mixed +up." + +"Will I get in before it starts?" asked Jerry. + +"Yes, or my name's not Jack Robinson," said the clown. + +"Is that your name?" asked Jerry. + +"Only to-day," replied the clown. "To-morrow it may be Tom, Dick or +Harry." + +"Robinson?" questioned Jerry. + +"Or Smith or Kettlewell," replied the clown, smiling. "Now you must do +just what I tell you to and do it quickly." + +"I will," promised Jerry. + +"Shut your eyes. Are they shut?" + +"Yes," said Jerry, closing them so tight that he saw funny little green +and red and purple streaks of light. + +"Keep them shut. Don't open them once till I tap you on the back twice. +Then you count to twenty, and if I don't tap you on the back again, open +your eyes and you will be in the circus. Then you walk right ahead till +you come to the first row of seats where there will be a lot of children +and you just pick out any empty seat you see and sit there. Do you +understand?" + +"Yes," replied Jerry. + +"Eyes shut," commanded the clown. "Come with me." + +He led Jerry quite a distance away from the tent, Jerry thought, and +then had him sit down on the ground so that the clown was directly +behind him. + +"Now," said Whiteface, "you are going to be carried into the circus, but +don't open your eyes till I tap twice on your back and you have counted +to twenty." + +"I won't," promised Jerry. + +"If you see me in the circus," said the clown, "you can speak to me if +you want to. No, don't open your eyes." + +For Jerry, in his eagerness to assure Whiteface that he would speak to +him if he saw him in the circus, was about to look up at him. For fear +that he yet might do so, he shut his eyes tighter, till they hurt, and +covered them with both hands. + +"Lean over," whispered the clown, "close to the ground." + +As he did so, Jerry felt his forehead brush something that felt exactly +like the canvas of a tent. + +"Now," said the clown, "good-by till you speak to me in the circus." + +"Good-by," whispered Jerry in a daze of delight and mystery. + +He heard a swishing sound and then felt the clown push him along on the +ground. A moment later he felt two thumps on his back and he started in +to count. He reached twenty without feeling another thump and opened his +eyes. + +He was in the circus tent! + + + + +CHAPTER X + +"GREAT SULT ANNA O'QUEEN" + + +Jerry knew that he was in the circus tent although he had not expected +it to be anything like that. A band was playing and hundreds and +hundreds of persons, mostly children, were sitting on boards, each one +raised a little higher than the others, and whistling and clapping their +hands. And clear around the tent were other sections of seats, all +filled with men and women and children. Eyes wide open with wonder at +the smell and the bigness of the tent and the paraphernalia used by the +performers, Jerry rose to his feet. He looked back of him, but only the +canvas side of the tent met his gaze. Whiteface, the clown, had entirely +disappeared! + +The lively air the band was playing seemed to get right inside of Jerry, +for his heart began to pound fast and his eyes were dancing. + +He was going to see the circus! The clown had got him in without a +ticket! He saw many boys and girls and older persons, too, hurrying to +find places on the board seats and he joined the throng. He remembered +that Whiteface had told him to take any seat there he could find and he +sat down in one in the second row between a boy a good deal older than +himself and a man with a black mustache. + +He had hardly got seated when, from the farther side of the tent, there +entered a gorgeous carriage drawn by a pair of milk-white horses. When +the carriage got around in front of him, Jerry saw that it contained Mr. +Burrows, the man who had let him carry water for the elephants even if +he was too young, but he didn't pay much attention to him, for there was +such a variety of different things to absorb his attention,--beautiful +women in richly colored garments on horses and on sober, humpbacked +camels, and even in little houses on the elephants, just as he had seen +them in the street parade. + +There was the sword-swallower and the fat lady, the giant and the dwarf, +and so many other things that Jerry couldn't remember them all. When the +last of them had passed out at the other side of the tent, he became +aware of a smell that was most enticing, quite different from the smell +of the circus,--the sawdust and the animals and the crowd. He had just +identified it as the smell of freshly roasted peanuts when a boy in a +white coat in the aisle asked if anybody there wanted freshly roasted +peanuts for five cents, only a half a dime. + +Jerry did, and after watching other small boys buying bags of the +delicacy, he fished out the dime from his blouse pocket and gave it to +the boy, who handed him back a bag of peanuts and a nickel. + +Jerry had just cracked his first peanut shell and was munching the two +nuts in it when he suddenly became aware that the circus was going on. +In fact, there was so much going on that he could not see it all. He +watched the trapeze performers for a minute, swinging and turning +somersaults and throwing each other about in the air, and then his eyes +wandered to the acrobats going through the most surprising contortions +on a platform. He hadn't seen half enough of that when his attention was +captured by the form of a woman sliding down a wire that went clear to +the top of the tent and she was not holding on to the wire at all! She +was hanging from it by her teeth! He expected to see her dash into the +crowd of people when she reached the end of the wire, but two men +stopped her. + +Fast and furiously the circus stunts were performed. Men in shaggy +trousers on horses threw ropes about each other and picked up +handkerchiefs from the ground while their horses were running +lickety-split. They just leaned over in the saddle until Jerry thought +they were falling off, and picked up the handkerchiefs. + +And there was a tight-rope walker. It was a woman with no skirts on at +all, and the rope was way up much higher than a man's head and she +didn't touch the ground with her balancing pole at all. Nora could never +walk the rope like that. And the dancing ponies and the trained seals +and the dog that wound in and out among the spokes of a buggy wheel and +all the other acts thrilled Jerry and made him almost dizzy, they came +so fast; but best of all he liked the clowns with their funny faces and +droll antics. He did not pick out Whiteface the first time the clowns +came out, there were so many of them and they looked so much alike with +their white faces and red mouths. + +But just after the dancing horses had left the tent and the clowns +swarmed in again, Jerry saw one of them stop and look up at the boys +above him. He had a bulldog under his arm. + +Jerry, unmindful of those about him, stood up and shouted: + +"Whiteface! Here I am!" + +The clown turned to him, made that funny clicking noise in his mouth and +bowed. + +"Jerry Elbow," said the clown and clapped his hands. + +"It's Jerry!" exclaimed Danny's startled voice somewhere among the +hundreds of boys and grown-ups back of Jerry. Then Danny added in an +awed voice, "The clown spoke to him!" + +Jerry suddenly sat down, for all eyes were directed towards him. He +didn't look around for Danny and Chris, for he was too confused to face +all those pairs of eyes. + +Four or five of the other clowns gathered about Whiteface, looked up at +Jerry and clapped their hands, too. Jerry shut his eyes for a moment, +and when he opened them Whiteface and the other clowns were all doing +something there right in front of him. + +Whiteface was placing his bulldog down on the ground and Jerry kept +fascinated eyes on him. He never could tell afterwards what the other +clowns did then except that as they left to go to another part of the +circus, one of them, who wore the biggest and longest and flattest shoes +Jerry had ever seen, stepped on his own foot and couldn't get off! +Another clown had to help him off his own foot! + +But everything that Whiteface did Jerry saw and remembered, for he knew +that Whiteface was playing just for him alone. The bulldog stood +perfectly still until Whiteface held out a stick; then the clown jerked +upon the strap which he held in his right hand, one end of which was +fastened to the dog's collar, and the dog jumped right over the stick! + +Next time Whiteface raised the stick much higher, but when he signaled +to the dog by jerking on his collar that it was time for him to jump, +the dog jumped over the stick again. + +Jerry heard the crowd laughing and applauding. He thought no one could +help laughing at the ludicrous expression on the clown's face as he +looked up at the spectators every time the dog jumped the stick. Jerry +did not awake to the fact that the bulldog was a stuffed toy one, and +not a real dog, until the clown took it by the tail and struck another +clown on the back with it. + +The gasp of astonishment that came from many small throats told Jerry +that others had thought it a real dog, too. He joined in the laughter at +the easy manner in which the clown had fooled them. The look that +Whiteface turned on Jerry sent a warm glow surging over his body. He +liked Whiteface and was happy in the knowledge that Whiteface liked him. + +He watched the clown fasten the life-size toy bulldog to the back of his +costume. How he did it, Jerry could not tell, but the mock terror +depicted on Whiteface's features when he found the bulldog with what +seemed to be a death-grip on the seat of his clothes caused Jerry and +the rest of the children to shriek with laughter. With that look of mock +terror on his face, the clown started to run to get away from the dog, +and he ran and cavorted and leaped so ludicrously that many eyes besides +Jerry's followed him all the way around the arena until he disappeared +through the entrance. + +Then Jerry found that there were several acts going on, of which he had +missed much. When they had finished, another clown came along with a big +head that looked like some kind of a bird's head. It was way up in the +air on a long neck with a wide yellow bill that every now and then +opened and showed a red tongue. + +Almost in front of Jerry, the clown stopped, bent down his bird-head +sidewise and suddenly gave a loud kiss to a little girl sitting on the +end of the first row. + +The little girl gave a shriek of surprise and terror and jumped from the +seat and ran up the aisle back of Jerry, amid a roar of delight from the +crowd. The girl hid her face and refused to go back to the front row, +despite the coaxing of her mother. + +Jerry offered to let her have his seat. He wasn't afraid of the clowns. +Then the boy next to him got up and the woman and the girl took their +seats while Jerry and the boy sat down in the front row, Jerry at the +very end. He would be close enough to touch Whiteface the next time he +came around. + +He had forgotten all about Danny and Chris and the trick Celia Jane had +played on him. He was so happy that he would willingly have shared with +them the pleasure of seeing the circus and getting acquainted with +Whiteface, if that had been possible. He wished Kathleen and Nora and +Mother 'Larkey could see it. Never in all his life had he been so +excited and so happy. He wanted more and more. If only the circus would +never end!--Anyway, not until he was too tired to stay awake one second +longer. + +Suddenly the band struck into a different air,--one that set Jerry's +pulse to beating even faster. It was like an echo from the past; he had +heard it before. It was the music he had thought he heard when he stood +before the circus poster of the elephant jumping the fence! +Unconsciously Jerry began saying something softly under his breath. + +And the elephants were coming! Several clowns were running ahead. Among +them Jerry espied Whiteface, and in his excitement rose to his feet, as +they came closer and closer. + +As the band played on, words seemed to be coming of themselves to +Jerry's tongue, and in a sort of rhythmical chant he was repeating in +time to the music as the elephants got directly in front of him: + +"Great Sult Anna O'Queen, in the jungle, Carryin' water for the +ellifants, Great Sult Anna O'Queen, in the jungle Carryin' water for the +ellifants." + +Jerry was aware that he was crooning, but did not know that he had risen +to his feet and was repeating those two lines of verse out loud. + +The band suddenly stopped playing, and in the ensuing silence the +childish treble of Jerry's voice was heard by every one in that section +of seats saying: + + "Great Sult Anna O'Queen, in the jungle, + Carryin' water for the ellifants." + +He had hardly finished the words when the leader in the line of +elephants turned small, beady eyes towards Jerry, lifted up its trunk +and trumpeted aloud. Jerry was not frightened at all by that cry, but +held out his arms toward the elephant, crying, "Up! Up! Sult Anna!" as +though that were the most natural thing in the world to do and he had +been doing it all his life. + +The elephant trumpeted again and lumbered heavily towards the tier of +seats where Jerry stood, lowered its trunk and curled it about Jerry's +body. + +A great gasp went up from the people about Jerry and then some women and +men cried out and a girl screamed. + +"It's mad! It's run amuck!" some one cried, and in an instant there was +an uproar of terror as the people left their seats and surged back to +higher tiers where they hoped the elephant could not reach them. + +"It's Jerry! It's Jerry!" came an agonized scream which Jerry, from his +seat high in the air on the elephant's trunk, recognized as the voice of +Chris. + +"He'll be killed!" cried Danny's remorseful voice, high and shrill +above the uproar. "And it's all my fault!" + +"Up! Up! Sult Anna!" commanded Jerry, and laughed aloud and waved his +arms. Why were all those people afraid? Sult Anna wasn't going to hurt +him! + +All the clowns had come running about the elephant. + +"It's Jerry Elbow!" exclaimed Whiteface. + +"It's Gary!" cried a woman's voice from the palanquin on the elephant's +back. Jerry looked at her. She was a very pretty woman in a most +wonderful sparkling dress, and she leaned forward, extending her arms +towards him. + +Jerry heard the strident voice of the elephant-tender commanding Sult +Anna to lower him and the man started to jab the elephant in the trunk, +but Whiteface shouted: + +"Don't touch the elephant! She knows the boy!" + +"He's not hurt at all!" cried an amazed voice in the crowd. + +"Take your seats! There is no danger!" Whiteface called to the +frightened and huddled mass at the top tiers of seats. + +Then the band struck into a lively air and circus attendants and +spectators ran up to the elephants. Among those who arrived early were +Danny and Chris, frightened but curious, and Mr. Burrows. The +performance was going on in other parts of the big tent and the +spectators there seemed already to have forgotten the incident, but the +unreserved seat section still seethed with interest, apprehension and +curiosity. + +"What's all this fuss?" asked Mr. Burrows, puffing from the speed with +which he had hurried to the scene. "We can't have the performance held +up this way and the people frightened." + +"As the elephants came along," explained Whiteface, "a boy was singing +some of the words of my elephant song, and Sultana, I believe, +recognized him. She trumpeted twice, reached out her trunk and carried +him high into the air. He kept crying, 'Up! Up! Sultana!' She has not +hurt him at all." + +Mr. Burrows looked up at Jerry, still sitting on the elephant's trunk. + +"Why, bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "It's the orphan boy who helped +carry water for the elephants this morning!" + +"Robert, it's Gary!" again cried the beautiful lady in the palanquin on +the elephant's back. + +Jerry looked up at her and found her weeping. He wondered why she was +crying and who Gary might be. + +"The other elephants are getting restless," said Mr. Burrows. "Get the +boy down, Bowe, and take him with you to the dressing rooms. The act +must go on." + +Whiteface went up to the elephant and began talking to her gently, +patting her shoulder. Her keeper approached and ordered her to put Jerry +down. + +"Down, Sult Anna, down!" cried Jerry. + +Hardly were the words out of his mouth when Jerry was literally placed +by the elephant in the arms of Whiteface. + +"Who are you?" asked the clown of Jerry, looking long into his eyes. + +"He's Jerry Elbow," said Danny who, with Chris, had edged in close to +the little crowd surrounding the elephant. "He's a orfum and lives with +us." + +"When did his parents die?" + +"He ain't got no parents," replied Danny. "Have you, Jerry?" + +"No," said Jerry. + +"Robert, help me down!" called the beautiful lady on the elephant. + +Whiteface set Jerry down and with two of the elephant keepers went to +Sultana's side and caught the woman as she half slid, half jumped from +her high seat. + +As soon as she touched the ground, the lady ran to Jerry and he found +himself gathered convulsively in her arms. + +"Oh, Gary, my son! Don't you know me? I am your mother!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A BOY NAMED GARY + + +Jerry looked long into the face of the lady. It was all pink and white +and her lips were very red. Her hair was a golden brown and it was long +and thick and hung down her back. + +"Are you my mother?" asked Jerry wistfully. He would like very much to +have a mother as beautiful as this. + +"Oh, yes, I am! I am!" cried the lady and clasped Jerry close to her +breast. + +"Helen," said Whiteface, "you mustn't let your hopes get too high." + +"He is an orphan," observed Mr. Burrows, "his brother here said so," and +he pointed at Chris. + +"He's not my brother," interposed Chris quickly. "Father found him +before he died and brought him home." + +"Then it is Gary! It is!" exclaimed the beautiful lady. "As if I +wouldn't know him--his eyes, his hair and his lips! Or as if Sultana +could be mistaken. What is your name, dear; do you remember that?" + +"Jerry Elbow," replied Jerry. + +"What is yours?" Whiteface asked Chris. + +"Chris Mullarkey," he replied. + +"How long has Jerry been with you?" + +"Three years," put in Danny. + +"He was only three and a half then," said the woman, "and probably +couldn't say his name very plainly. He couldn't at the time he was +stolen. Gary L. Bowe would sound very much like Jerry Elbow to any one +who didn't know." + +"You're right," said Whiteface. "I believe he is our boy." + +Jerry looked up at the clown and such an expression of delight came over +his face at the idea of the clown being his father that Whiteface's +voice went all husky and he took Jerry in his arms. + +"Do you remember anything about your parents?" he asked. + +"Seems as though there was a man with a white face," replied Jerry. + +"That would be you, Robert," said the woman named Helen. + +"Are you my father?" Jerry asked, putting an arm timidly about the +clown's shoulder. + +"Of course he is!" cried Mr. Burrows, blowing his nose until it made a +formidable sound. "Bowe, you take your wife and child into the dressing +tent, so the circus can go on. Sultana is getting restless." + +Whiteface took Jerry up in his arms and his new-found mother clung to +his hand as they started to leave the arena, tears still in her eyes. +She stopped to call to Danny and Chris to follow them. Sultana lifted up +her trunk and trumpeted. As they tramped along, the spectators craning +their necks to get a better view, Jerry heard Mr. Burrows saying in a +loud voice to the audience in the section where he had sat: + +"Ladies and gentlemen, there is no occasion for alarm. The elephant, +Sultana, recognized in the boy, Jerry Elbow, the son of our famous +clown, Robert Ellison Bowe, who was stolen from the circus in a +neighboring State three years ago by a disgruntled employee. The police +of the country had been searching for him and Mr. Bowe had spent +thousands of dollars in the effort to find him. What money and mind and +trained detective intelligence failed to do, the retentive memory of the +elephant, Sultana, has accomplished and, thanks to her, a grieving +father and mother are reunited with their long-lost son. The performance +will now continue and you will see what a great degree of intelligence +is possessed by these pachyderms in the tricks which they will now +perform for your gratification." + +And how the people shouted and applauded at that! + +"Bow to them. They are cheering for you," said Whiteface to Jerry. "They +are glad you have been found." + +Jerry waved his hands to them and bowed and a patter of hand-clapping +ran along the audience as they passed until they reached the entrance. + +Chris suddenly cried, "Danny! Look at them el'funts! They're standin' on +their heads! Lookee!" + +Jerry just had to see that and he squirmed around in Whiteface's arms. + +"They're funny!" he laughed. "Which one is Sult Anna?" + +"She's the one at the table," replied his mother, "ringing the bell for +a waiter to bring her something to eat." + +"Can el'funts do that?" Jerry asked amazed. + +"Much more than that, Gary," she responded. + +"I guess el'funts know more'n some people," Danny remarked. + +Jerry craned his neck to see the elephants. + +"Are they going to jump the fence now?" he asked. + +Whiteface burst into a joyous laugh. + +"Helen, I told you my idea for a circus poster would fetch the +children!" he said. "They don't jump a fence," he explained to Jerry. + +"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Jerry. "The picture shows them doing it!" + +"They don't really, Gary," said his mother. "The picture was just drawn +that way to fit the old nursery rhyme about the elephant's jumping up to +the sky." + +"Then it ain't so?" Jerry asked, terribly disappointed. + +"No," replied Whiteface, "but they do other things more remarkable than +that." + +"What?" asked Jerry. "I want to see them." + +"Of course you do," said his father. "You want to see all the circus and +you shall to-night, and Mrs. Mullarkey and Celia Jane, too." + +"All of it?" questioned Jerry. "The little man no bigger than a +two-year-old baby and the sword-swallower and all?" + +"And all," replied Whiteface. "The menagerie and the side show and the +main performance." + +"Will Nora and Kathleen see it all, too?" + +"Who are Nora and Kathleen?" his mother asked. + +"Why, they're Danny's sisters!" he replied. "Didn't you know that?" + +"You hadn't mentioned them before," said Whiteface, "but they'll see it, +too. Are there any more in the Mullarkey family?" + +"No," answered Jerry, "just Danny and Chris and Nora and Celia Jane and +Kathleen and Mother 'Larkey." + +By that time they had reached a part of another tent which was all +screened off into small rooms, into one of which Whiteface and the lady +carried Jerry, followed by Danny and Chris, who, torn between their +desire to see the elephants perform and their curiosity about Jerry's +new-found father and mother and their desire to obey the beautiful lady, +had kept close at their heels. + +"Now," said Mrs. Bowe, seating herself on a bench and taking Jerry on +her lap, addressing Danny as the oldest, "tell me all you can about +Gary." + +"Father found him one night along a country road, cryin' in a fence +corner, and brought him home," said Danny, "an' he's lived with us ever +since. That's all." + +"How long ago was that?" she questioned. + +"It was when I was five an' a half," replied Danny. + +"How old are you now?" Whiteface asked. + +"Eight and more'n a half." + +"Three years ago," said Mrs. Bowe. "That was only a few months after he +was stolen. How did he happen to be alone in a country road?" + +"I don't know," replied Danny. + +"Perhaps your mother knows," suggested Whiteface. + +"I don't think so," Danny replied. "Father always said it was a mystery. +It was very late at night--almost midnight, I guess." + +"We must see her, Robert, and thank her for taking care of Gary." + +"Yes," said Whiteface, "she kept him after her husband's death--with +five children of her own. She must have liked him very--" + +"She does," Chris interrupted eagerly. + +"We all do," Danny stated. + +"How could you help it?" asked Mrs. Bowe. "Now, Gary, can you tell me +anything about what happened to you? Think hard." + +"Yes," said his father. "We left you in the dressing room with one of +the girl acrobats while we were on and when we came back you were gone. +The girl had been called out for a few minutes and got back just as we +did. We hunted all over the circus for you and got the police to help +us." + +"Do you remember any one taking you away?" asked the beautiful lady who +was now his mother. + +"No'm," replied Jerry. + +"Say, Mother, Gary," pleaded her low, beautiful voice close to his ear. + +"No, Mother," Jerry repeated obediently. + +"Try to think awfully hard," said Whiteface; "was there a man with a big +mark across his forehead--" + +"A red mark?" interrupted Jerry eagerly. + +"Yes!" cried his mother. "Robert, it was John Rand! I knew it was that +low creature." + +"I feared it," said the clown. + +"What did he do to you, Gary? Was he kind to you?" asked his mother. + +Jerry seemed to see in a flash a man with a red mark across his forehead +cuffing him over the head and twisting his arm till he cried out from +the pain. + +"I'll pull your arm right out if you ever tell any one you ain't my +brat," a coarse, thick voice seemed to be saying in his ear, "or if you +ever let on as how I ever hurt you in anyway at all." + +Jerry cowered down in his mother's arms and hid his face against her +breast. He did not answer her questions. His heart was galloping with +fear. The man with the red scar might come back. + +"Why don't you answer, Gary?" asked the clown gently. "Don't you +remember?" + +Jerry felt the lady who was his mother holding him tighter in her arms +and then she gave a sudden start. He did not answer. He was afraid to. + +"Robert!" she cried. "His heart is beating as though it would burst! The +memory of that beast must frighten him terribly." + +"He can never hurt you again, Gary," Whiteface assured him. "You will +always be with us from now on and we won't let him ever come near you +again. Did he ever hurt you?" + +Jerry, remembering now vividly what the man had done to him, became more +frightened than ever and, instead of answering, began to cry. + +"We must not hurry him into confidence," said Whiteface. + +"Oh, my boy!" wailed the elephant lady. "How terribly you must have +suffered when my heart was aching so to know you were safe and to +comfort and love you!" + +She kissed him passionately and squeezed him so hard that his breath +went entirely out of his body for a moment. + +"Has Gary ever told you anything about the man who stole him?" asked +Whiteface of Danny. + +"No," he replied, "but Jerry ran away from him." + +"How do you know that?" + +"He said he had when he was going to run away from us." + +"Why was he going to run away from you?" + +Danny swallowed rapidly but didn't answer. + +"Because Danny wouldn't let him be el'funt in our play circus," Chris +explained for his brother. + +Mr. Bowe took Chris' words up so quickly that Jerry thought his father +was angry with Chris. + +"Wouldn't let him be the elephant!" he exclaimed. "Why did Gary want +especially to be the elephant?" + +"I don't know," Chris answered. + +"Remember, if you can," urged Whiteface. "It will help me to prove to +every one that Gary is our boy." + +"I guess it was because he knew something about el'funts," Danny +ventured. "He knew that el'funts' tails are small and round like a rope, +but he didn't know how he knew." + +"I see," said the clown. "That is an important fact. I'm glad you told +me." + +"An' he said 'O Queen' when he saw the picture of the el'funt jumping +the fence!" cried Danny excitedly. "Just the same as he did at the +circus when the band stopped playin' an' before the el'funt picked him +up." + +"He didn't know he said it," Chris added, "an' he couldn't tell Danny +what he meant by it, could he, Danny?" + +"No," Danny replied. + +"That clinches it!" exclaimed Whiteface, and took Jerry from his +mother's arms. "Don't you cry any more, Gary-boy. Nobody shall hurt you +again. O'Queen was what you used to call Sultana, the elephant--'Sult +Anna O'Queen,' as though that were her name. It was the way you said a +part of one line in my elephant song: 'Great Sultana, Oh, Queen of the +jungle!" + +"Carryin' water for the ellifants," said Jerry, through his tears. + +"Do you remember any of the chorus?" + +Jerry thought hard, but finally shook his head. Whiteface then started +to repeat the chorus: + + "'Ho, ye drowsy drones! The Queen is a-thirst; + A penny for him who brings a pail first. + Hurry and scurry--'" + +Jerry suddenly found that he did remember what came next and interrupted +his father: + + "'--an' go at a prance!'" + +"That's it!" cried Mrs. Bowe. + +"'Run to the spring,'" quoted Mr. Bowe and Jerry finished: + + "'--an' back at a dance. + Bringing water for the ellifants!'" + +Jerry felt so proud of himself for having remembered so much that he +forgot all about the man with the red scar and being afraid of him. + +"I 'membered it, didn't I, Whiteface?" + +"Yes," answered the clown, "you did, and it proves beyond the shadow of +a doubt that you are my lost little son and you've got the right to call +me father." + +"Father," said Jerry experimentally, trying to see how it sounded. And +then "Father!" he cried exultantly. + +"And not mother, too?" asked the elephant-lady in a reproachful tone. + +"And Mother!" cried Jerry, sliding out of his father's arms and running +to her. He climbed upon her lap and buried his face on her shoulder and +gave her neck a very hard hug, just to show how much he was going to +love her. + +"Oh, you are my own darling, loving Gary!" she cried in a voice that was +tearful, but very joyful through the tearfulness, while she almost +squeezed the breath out of Jerry again. "And now we must go at once and +thank kind, good Mrs. Mullarkey for caring for our boy." + +"Yes," said her husband. "The circus is out and we will have time before +the evening performance." + +"Mother 'Larkey will be awful glad to see the circus," Jerry remarked. +"She ain't seen none since just after she was married. An' so will Nora +and Celia Jane." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE DIZZY SEAT OF GLORY + + +"You boys wait here while Helen and I get ready," said Whiteface, "and +then we'll pay our respects to Mrs. Mullarkey and Nora and Celia Jane +and Kathleen." + +"You won't go out of the tent, will you, Gary?" asked the elephant-lady. + +"No'm," Jerry promised, and then at the look of disappointment and +longing on her face, cried, "No, Mother!" He ran and gave her a good-by +hug. "I'll wait right here." + +When Jerry and Danny and Chris were left alone, there was an abashed +silence at first, broken after a minute by Chris' remarking: + +"Gee, ain't it excitin', Jerry! Findin' your father and mother an' being +lifted up in a el'funt's trunk an' your father a clown in the circus and +all?" + +"Yes," smiled Jerry with satisfaction. "He's the greatest clown ever +lived." + +"I guess that's so," Danny stated judicially and also apologetically, +for he wished to make up with Jerry for getting his circus ticket away +from him. + +"It is so!" cried Jerry emphatically. + +"That's what I meant, Jerry--I mean, Gary." A silence fell and then +Danny continued: "I wish I'd never of asked Celia Jane to cry and get +your ticket away from you." + +Jerry said nothing, as he remembered how Danny had tricked him, and +Danny, after shifting about uneasily, added as though in justification +of his action: + +"If I hadn't of, you'd probably never of met your father. He couldn't of +spoken to you if he hadn't seen you before you got into the circus." + +That impressed Jerry as a point of view that might be true and somehow +he didn't feel angry at Danny and Celia Jane any more. He was too happy +at having a clown for his father to hold resentment. + +"Mebbe not," was all he said, but Danny took those words as meaning that +Jerry wasn't going to stay mad. + +"How'd you get in?" he asked eagerly. + +"Whiteface thought of a way that didn't cost any money," replied Jerry. + +"What kind of a way was that?" Danny was all eagerness for information +of that sort. + +"I don't know," said Jerry. "He thought of something an' told me to keep +my eyes shut an' I didn't see what he done." + +"Didn't you open 'em jest once?" demanded Danny. "I would of and then +mebbe we could of got into other circuses that way." + +"It might of mixed our thoughts, like when I said something when he told +me not to," Jerry observed. + +"What d'you mean, mixin' your thoughts?" + +Jerry was saved by the entrance of Mr. Burrows from trying to explain +just what he did mean by that, for he hadn't understood very well +himself. The circus man was smiling all over as he approached Jerry and +seemed just as pleased that Jerry had found his parents as Jerry was +himself. + +"Well, well, well," he said, holding out a hand which Jerry accepted in +the same amicable spirit in which it was offered, "so you're the son of +Robert Bowe! We were good friends before you were stolen and I hope +will be again when you get reacquainted with me. Maybe your father and +mother will be satisfied to stay with the circus now that you have been +found." + +"Was they goin' to leave the circus?" asked Danny in an awed voice. + +"So they said," answered Mr. Burrows, "but now I guess they'll stay." + +"Go away an' not be a clown no more?" Jerry asked this new-old friend, +as one man to another. + +"Go away and not be a clown any more," Mr. Burrows asserted. + +Just then a man and woman entered and came straight to Jerry. Why, it +was Jerry's mother and a strange man! + +Mrs. Bowe didn't look the same in an ordinary blue dress and without the +paint on her cheeks and lips and yet Jerry had recognized her almost at +once; perhaps it was her golden-brown hair, or, more likely, the joy +which sparkled in her eyes and lighted up her face. + +"I didn't go away once, Mother," he said. + +She smiled at him and the strange man spoke. + +"I knew you wouldn't," he said. + +Jerry was dumfounded and so must Danny and Chris have been, for they +gasped. The voice that issued from the lips of the strange man was the +voice of Whiteface, the clown, the new-found father of Jerry! + +Jerry's thoughts were paralyzed for a minute and he could only stare up +at Robert Bowe, ordinary citizen, in stupefaction. + +So that was what his father looked like when he didn't have the clown +costume on, with his face all chalked and his lips rouged! Just a +common, ordinary, everyday, plain man, like--like Dan Mullarkey was, or +Tom Phillips or Darn Darner's father. He was not very tall and not very +big, and his face was rather long and there was quite a sprinkling of +gray in his hair. + +Jerry was so terribly disappointed in his father that, after that long +stare, he gazed away and would not look up at him again. He winked his +eyes to keep the tears from coming. + +"What is it, Jerry?" asked Mrs. Bowe. "Tell mother." + +Jerry tried to think of something to say that wouldn't hurt his +father's feelings or his mother's, but couldn't, and he stood there in +misery and disappointment, his lips quivering and twisting and the tears +gathering on his eyelashes. + +It was Danny who voiced the emotions that Jerry was experiencing. + +"You look different," he said. "Only your voice sounds the same." + +"Bless my soul!" cried Mr. Burrows, and laughed heartily. "The boy's +disappointed that his father's just a man and not a clown." + +"Is that it, Jerry?" asked his mother, falling to her knees and +gathering him close to her breast. + +"He ain't Whiteface," Jerry mourned softly in her ear. + +Mr. Bowe laughed at that, and it was such a good-humored, infectious +chuckle of mirth that Jerry at last looked up at his very disappointing +father, and the twinkle in his father's eyes and the engaging, twisty +smile that played about his lips comforted Jerry. This father of his +wasn't so ordinary looking, after all! But a clown is so much more +interesting than just an everyday father. + +"You'll see Whiteface often enough," he promised Jerry, "to satisfy even +you." + +"Nora won't," said Jerry, "nor Kathleen nor Celia Jane." + +"The boy's right!" exclaimed Mr. Burrows. "Dress up as the clown to see +the woman who's cared for Gary and I'll have Sultana got ready for you +to ride on. The boy's a better press agent than the one I pay to +advertise the circus. I announced that Sultana had found your stolen +child and told the newspaper men all about it. You and your wife ride on +Sultana through the town, and you'll be followed by all the children at +the circus and those who are not here, and the circus will get such an +advertising as it never had before. And it will make Gary happy, too." + +"Will it, Gary?" asked his father. + +"Yes!" cried Jerry, thrilled at the thought of riding through the town +on an elephant, with his father and mother. "It'll be better 'n a +circus." + +"Robert Bowe, disappear!" commanded Robert Bowe. + +That surprising father of Jerry's wagged his head solemnly with such a +comical look that Jerry shrieked with delight as Mr. Bowe turned a +handspring that carried him through the curtains into another part of +the tent. + +Mr. Burrows went out laughing, to have Sultana brought around, and Jerry +waited impatiently for Whiteface to reappear. His most blissful dreams +had been exceeded this wonderful day, and now the most wonderful part +was still to come. + +He was too excited to pay very close attention to what his mother said, +and Danny and Chris seemed to have been struck dumb by this dazzling +height of glory that was about to befall "Orfum" Jerry Elbow, who had +suddenly been transformed into Gary L. Bowe, son of a clown and of an +elephant-lady. + +Suddenly there sounded the delightful clicking that Whiteface made with +his mouth and Jerry's eyes almost popped out of his head in his +eagerness for Whiteface to reappear. He watched the curtain where his +everyday father had disappeared, without daring to wink his eyes for +fear Whiteface would get in without his seeing him. + +As he watched, he felt himself being lifted in a pair of strong arms +and twisted his head around to see who it might be. + +It was Whiteface! He had got back without Jerry's seeing him! Yet Jerry +was sure he hadn't winked his eyes, not even once. + +"Away we go to the Mullarkey house! Away we go to the Mullarkey house!" +chanted Whiteface, whirling around and around, as he carried Jerry on +his shoulder out of the tent to where Sultana and an elephant keeper +were awaiting them. Jerry's mother followed close, smiling at his +delight. From the corner of his eye, Jerry saw Danny and Chris walking +slowly behind her. + +The keeper put up a little ladder against the elephant's side and +Whiteface ran lightly up it and deposited Jerry on a cushioned seat that +ran around the little house on Sultana's back that he called a howdah. +Then he helped Mrs. Bowe up and sat down by her. The keeper had taken +the ladder away when Jerry again saw Danny and Chris looking up at him +in envy. There was plenty of room in the little house for them. He +turned to his father. + +"Is Great Sult Anna O'Queen's back strong enough for her to carry Danny +and Chris, too?" + +The most surprised look spread over Whiteface's features and the +beautiful lady remarked: + +"Gary has your kind, thoughtful nature." + +"I think Great Sult Anna O'Queen's Irish back is strong enough to carry +Danny and Chris. I'll ask her. First though, we'd better find out how +much they weigh?" + +"How much do you weigh, Danny?" Jerry called down. + +"I don't know," replied Danny. + +"If you don't weigh too much, mebbe you and Chris can ride, too." + +"Us ride on a el'funt!" exclaimed Danny. "Why, why, I don't weigh much, +do I, Chris?" + +"No," replied Chris eagerly. "You're not big enough to weigh much and +I'm littler than you are." + +"I think I can tell near enough," said Whiteface; "Danny weighs about +sixty pounds and Chris about forty. That makes one hundred pounds and I +weigh one hundred and sixty-five. Helen, how much do you weigh?" + +"A hundred and twenty pounds," she answered. + +"I never can remember that. That makes two hundred and sixty-five and +one hundred and twenty is three hundred and eighty-five pounds and +there's Gary. He must weigh thirty pounds--say four hundred and fifteen +pounds altogether." + +Whiteface jumped from the little house on Sultana's back to her head, +sat down on top of that, leaned over and whispered something in the +elephant's ear. + +Jerry stood up so he could see better, and as he did so the elephant's +ear, which Whiteface had lifted up, wiggled and flopped out of the +clown's hand. + +"She says four hundred and fifteen pounds is not too much on this +occasion," Whiteface announced and directed the keeper to help Danny and +Chris up to Sultana's back. But Danny and Chris didn't need any help in +running up the ladder. + +Then Mr. Burrows approached and tossed a bit of paper up to Mrs. Bowe. + +"That's a pass for a box at the circus to-night for Mrs. Mullarkey and +all her family," he said. + +"Is one pass good for all of them?" asked Jerry, as Danny caught the +precious bit of paper and handed it to Mrs. Bowe. + +"Yes," laughed Mr. Burrows, "it is when it's got the name of Edward J. +Burrows on it. Just tell her to show that to the ticket seller and he'll +give her the seats." + +Then Whiteface, still sitting on top of the elephant's head, told the +keeper he was ready and Sultana started. It took Jerry and Danny and +Chris quite a while to become accustomed to the manner in which the +palanquin joggled about on Sultana's back, but they were getting used to +it when the elephant reached the street close to the entrance of the +main tent where the people were streaming out from the performance. + +There was a shout from the small boys in the crowd who immediately +swarmed about Sultana and tagged on in the rear as she ambled patiently +down the street. They looked enviously at Jerry and Danny and Chris and +raised such a hubbub that every child they passed and many of the grown +persons, too, fell in line. The story of how the elephant had recognized +the lost boy and picked him right up out of the audience passed rapidly +from mouth to mouth, with the result that no one left the ever +lengthening procession that followed the elephant. + +Jerry took turns with Danny and Chris in directing the elephant keeper +how to get to Mrs. Mullarkey's. Jerry would not have missed one joggle +or sway of that ride for worlds. He saw Darn Darner in the crowd +following them, and he was glad that such a stuck-up boy should see what +a high place in the world Jerry Elbow had reached and be envious of him. +He even waved to Darn to make sure that Darn knew that he saw him. + +"Hello, Jerry!" cried Darn in a loud voice, so that everybody would know +he knew Jerry, and swaggered up close to the elephant. "How does it seem +to be ridin' on an el'funt?" + +"Fine!" Jerry exclaimed ecstatically. + +"Don't you wish you was up here?" Danny asked in a voice that was not +nearly so friendly as Jerry's had been. + +"Anybody would, I guess," was Darn's reply. + +"Well, you ain't," said Danny. "You're down there breathing the dust we +make." + +"There's the house!" cried Jerry. + +"Which one?" asked Whiteface from his seat on the elephant's head. + +"The one with the paint all wore off," Danny explained. + +"There's Nora and Celia Jane!" cried Chris. + +"I see them!" Jerry exclaimed and called his mother's attention to them. +They were standing by the gate, watching the strange procession +approach. + +"Hello, Celia Jane! I'm ridin' on a el'funt!" Jerry cried shrilly to +make her hear. + +Celia Jane both heard and saw and she seemed glued to the gate-post with +surprise. Her mouth opened as though she were going to speak and +remained open, without a word coming out. Nora turned and fled into the +house crying: + +"Mother! Mother! Jerry's ridin' by on a el'funt from the circus!" + +A moment later the keeper halted Sultana in front of the gate, and that +fact unglued Celia Jane from the gate-post and caused words at last to +flow from her opened mouth. + +"Mother! They're stoppin' here!" she cried, in turn running to the +house. She kept her eyes turned back on the elephant and ran into Nora, +who was pulling Mrs. Mullarkey, with Kathleen in her arms, out through +the door. + +Whiteface now commanded Sultana to help him down, and she raised her +trunk, wrapped it around his body and lowered him to the ground. The +crowd of boys and girls who had pushed up as close as they could made +way for him, while Jerry and his mother climbed down the ladder the +elephant trainer placed for them, followed by Danny and Chris. + +"Mother!" called Celia Jane. "There's Danny on the el'funt and Chris +too!" + +"For land sakes!" cried Mrs. Mullarkey. "Nothing has happened to any of +the children, has there?" + +"We're all right, Mother 'Larkey!" Jerry assured her. + +"Nothing at all, madam," said Whiteface approaching her, "except that +Jerry Elbow has found his parents." + +Mrs. Mullarkey stared at Whiteface, too astounded to speak. + +"An' his name ain't Jerry Elbow," cried Danny. "It's Gary L. Bowe." + +"An' the el'funt knew him in a whole crowd of people," Chris added, "an' +picked him up with its trunk." + +"The people thought the elephant was mad at first," said Darn Darner, +who had approached as close as he could get to the clown. + +"The el'funt picked him up in its trunk?" gasped Celia Jane, her eyes +growing bigger and bigger. + +"An' we're all goin' to the circus to-night!" Danny informed them. + +"All of us!" Celia Jane got breath enough to utter. + +"Me, too?" Nora asked. + +"Yes, all of you!" laughed Jerry. "And Kathleen, too." + +"I wanta see serka," cried the baby. + +"And so you shall," said Whiteface, so close that Kathleen drew +whimpering away from his white, chalky features. "It's all true, Mrs. +Mullarkey." + +"Don't be afraid of Whiteface, Kathleen," called Jerry. "He's father." + +At last Mrs. Mullarkey found her voice, but at the queer, choking sound +she made, Jerry looked up and saw tears running down her face. + +"I can't tell you how _glad_ I am that you have found your father and +mother, Jerry," she said. "Mr. Darner is here now and, after all, he was +going to take you away--this very day. And Celia Jane--" She couldn't +finish, but put Kathleen down and covered her face with her apron, +rocking her body back and forth. + +Jerry looked towards the house and saw at the living-room window the +face of a man,--a large, heavy face that seemed to scowl out at the +crowd. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"--AND ELEPHANTS TO RIDE UPON" + + +Jerry's new-found mother went quickly to Mother 'Larkey and placed a +comforting arm about her shoulder. + +"_I_ am Mrs. Bowe, Gary's mother," she said, "and oh, how can I ever +thank you for loving him and giving him a home? I never can repay you." + +"That we can't, Mrs. Mullarkey," Whiteface interposed. "But what is this +about taking Gary away? And Celia Jane?" + +"Let's go into the house first," suggested Mrs. Bowe. "We have too big +an audience here." + +She led the way, her arm still about Mrs. Mullarkey's shoulder. Jerry +and his father followed, though Jerry turned at the door to have another +look at Sultana and the admiring throng of children gathered about her. + +Nora and Celia Jane, who had lapsed into tongue-tiedness after learning +that they were all going to see the circus that night, now started +slowly into the house, Kathleen clinging to Nora's hand to keep from +falling. But their eyes were turned back towards Sultana until they +passed through the door. + +Danny and Chris were also of two minds whether to follow the great clown +or remain outside with the elephant, but their mother's statement that +Mr. Darner had come to take Jerry away and was even then in the house +finally drew them as a magnet, their eyes also directed towards Sultana +until they stumbled through the door. + +Jerry saw Darn Darner's father sitting by the living-room window and +came to a stop. Mr. Darner was a dour, heavy-set man with a coarse, +bristling gray beard. He glared at Whiteface through thick glasses. + +"What does all this hullabaloo mean?" he asked Mrs. Mullarkey, in a +gruff voice. + +"It means," said Whiteface, answering for her and advancing towards Mr. +Darner, Jerry's hand held tightly in his, "that Jerry Elbow has found +his parents and the people have followed us here to show how glad they +are." + +"You his father? A clown in a circus?" asked Mr. Darner. + +"Yes, I am his father and I am a clown in a circus," replied Whiteface. + +"Mr. Darner is the County Overseer of the Poor," Mrs. Mullarkey +explained. "He's been at me to give Jerry up and let him take him to the +poor farm ever since my Dan died." + +"It's for your own good and your children's--and Jerry's, too, if you +weren't too blind to see it," the Overseer stated. + +"After Dan's insurance money was all gone--and a good part of it went to +finish paying for this house," Mrs. Mullarkey continued, "I couldn't +make enough to keep the children decently. Mr. Darner's kept telling me +that if I didn't let him take Jerry to the poor farm, I'd break down +sooner or later and have to send my own children there or let them be +adopted out. Mr. Phillips thought he could help--" + +"Phillips is always butting into things that are none of his business," +growled Mr. Darner. + +"But this afternoon Mr. Darner came to take Jerry and I just couldn't +hold out any longer--I haven't the money or the strength. And he wants +Danny to go to a place in the country to work for his board and wants me +to let Celia Jane be adopted by a family in Hampton who are looking for +a girl. He thinks I ought to see if Celia Jane won't suit them." + +"Mother! Take me away from home!" wailed Celia Jane aghast. + +"I'm at the end of my string," Mrs. Mullarkey's discouraged voice +continued. "I've never been able to make both ends meet since Dan died." + +"She couldn't make them meet so's to give us money to buy tickets to the +circus," Jerry explained corroboratively to his father. + +"You'll have to come to it eventually, Mrs. Mullarkey," warned the +County Overseer. "This is a good chance for Celia Jane. The Thompsons +are well fixed; they'll give her a fine home and a good education." + +Celia Jane at that sat down on the floor and let her body relax into a +limp bundle. + +"I won't go!" she sobbed. "I won't leave mother! What would I do without +mother?" + +Jerry was very much distressed at Celia Jane's misery and he looked +pleadingly up at his clown-father; that extraordinary man knew without a +word having been spoken that Jerry expected him to fix things so that +Celia Jane could stay with her mother. Whiteface spoke at once. + +"Don't cry, Celia Jane. Nobody is going to take you away. Both ends are +going to meet now. You're all going to stay here with your mother." + +"You talk big," grumbled Mr. Darner. "Now to come down to brass tacks. +Who's--" + +"As long as I have any money, Mr. County Overseer," said Whiteface, "or +as long as I have the power to make any, the Mullarkey household will +not be broken up." + +"Of course it won't, Robert," chimed in Jerry's mother in a crisp voice, +as she raised Celia Jane from the floor and comforted her. "You always +know just what to do." + +Jerry's father continued: + +"We are going to take Gary with us now, but we are going to try to repay +Mrs. Mullarkey a little for all she has done and suffered for our boy. I +have some money saved up and make a good salary. I want you to go to +Mr. Burrows, one of the proprietors of the circus, and satisfy yourself +on that point and that I am a man of my word. While you are doing that +we can arrange with Mrs. Mullarkey. We want to be alone with her. I'll +see you again before to-night's performance." + +Mr. Darner stood up. + +"I do not doubt your desire or ability in the matter," he said, "and, as +you wish it, I will consult Mr. Burrows. Nobody can be gladder than I am +that things have turned out this way. I don't like breaking up families +and taking children out to the farm, though some people say that I do. I +have to do a lot of things that go against the grain. I've wanted to do +what was best for you, Mrs. Mullarkey." + +"We are sure you meant things for the best, Mr. Darner," said Jerry's +mother. "Good-by." + +Mrs. Mullarkey was looking so hard at Jerry's parents that she did not +return Mr. Darner's "Good afternoon" as he left the house or seem even +to have heard it. + +"It can't be true, what you just said," she at length articulated in a +choked voice. "Such things don't happen to us." + +"It is true," Jerry's mother assured her. + +"We shall not forget what you have done for Gary," said Whiteface. "I +calculate that I owe you at the least one thousand dollars for taking +care of him--" + +"A thousand dollars!" gasped Danny. "Why, that's as much as father's +insurance! I didn't know anybody could get that much money unless they +died!" + +Mrs. Mullarkey said nothing; her lips were trying to smile though the +tears still stood in her eyes. + +"Besides which," continued the clown, "Helen and I will help you look +out for the children and we want you to call on us any time that you may +be in trouble." + +"We do, indeed," said Jerry's mother. "You cannot work so hard and take +care of your children the way you want to. If you only lived near us--" + +"Helen," interrupted Jerry's father, "I've been thinking, now that we +are going to settle down in business, it would be a wise thing for Mrs. +Mullarkey to sell her place here and move to Carroll with us. Then +we'll know how they are getting on and can look after the children some. +I'll help her dispose of the place here and buy one in Carroll, if she +would like such an arrangement." + +"Would you, Mrs. Mullarkey?" asked Jerry's mother. + +It took her such a long time to answer that Jerry looked up and saw her +lips were twisting. She was crying inside so that you couldn't hear her. +Jerry knew how that hurt--to cry when you didn't dare cry out loud. He +had often done it in the night, before he ran away, so the man with the +big red scar wouldn't hear him. He left his mother and Kathleen, climbed +up on Mother 'Larkey's lap, put one arm about her neck and with his +other hand patted her wet cheek. + +"An' then Kathleen won't cry for me," he coaxed, "'cause I'll be right +there an' can run over any time, couldn't I, Mother?" + +"Yes, of course you could, dear." + +"There, you see," he continued. + +"I should love to," Mrs. Mullarkey replied at last to Mr. and Mrs. Bowe. +"It would be such a relief to have some one I could go to for advice +about the children. It's not that they're wayward or bad, but Danny is +hot-headed like his father and thoughtless. I'm sure, he didn't mean to +steal Jerry's ticket to the circus--" + +"Why, mother!" exclaimed Danny. "I didn't steal it! He gave it to Celia +Jane of his own free will and she gave it to me, didn't you, Celia +Jane?" + +"Yet it was stealing," replied his mother, "for you put Celia Jane up to +it. Nora told me all about it and Nora never tells what is not true." + +"You gave your ticket to Celia Jane, didn't you, Jerry--I mean, Gary?" +appealed Danny. + +"Yes," Jerry replied hesitantly. + +"There, you see, Mother, I didn't steal it," Danny defended himself. + +"Because you put Celia Jane up to getting Jerry's ticket for you," +continued his mother, "you must stay home to-night and--" + +"Not go to the circus!" exclaimed Danny. "When it don't cost nothin'!" + +"And Celia Jane can keep you company. I've told you again and again +that you couldn't impose upon Jerry just because he's not a Mullarkey." + +"Stay home from the circus!" wailed Celia Jane, appalled, and then she +burst into a flood of tears. Jerry was sure they were not crocodile ones +this time, for her body shook with the sobs of anguished disappointment. +He wanted Celia Jane to see the circus and Danny, too, and he knew Danny +was sorry. + +"Mebbe I wouldn't never have seen Whiteface--Father," he said to Mother +'Larkey, "if Danny hadn't gone into the circus." + +"That is true," Whiteface corroborated. "I found him crying outside the +tent and told him he could speak to me inside if he recognized me. He +did recognize me and that was undoubtedly one of the things that led to +the discovery of his identity." + +"Danny likes me," Jerry added. "He fought Darn Darner when he said they +was goin' to take me to the poor farm." + +"So do I l-l-like you, J--J--Jerry," sobbed Celia Jane. "--I--I'm sorry +I--" A fresh outburst of sobbing prevented further speech. + +Jerry's heart was touched at her grief and his own lips began to twist. + +"I want Danny and Celia Jane to see the circus, too, Mother 'Larkey," +Jerry protested. "I ain't mad at them any more." + +"Please let them come," urged Jerry's mother. "I am so happy that I +can't bear to think of them being so terribly disappointed. And Gary's +pleasure would be spoiled knowing they were here at home while the rest +of you were at the circus." + +"It does seem hard-hearted," Mrs. Mullarkey relented, "but Danny knows +he can't pick on Jerry and not suffer for it. They can go to the circus, +but I'll leave it to them what they shall do as a reminder that they +mustn't pick on Jerry again. Danny, what will you do?" + +Danny hesitated a moment and then said without a tremor: + +"Jerry can have all my marbles and I'll feed his white rabbit for him +all summer." + +"Not _all_ your marbles?" queried Jerry, knowing what a pang it must +have cost Danny voluntarily to decide to part with all his agates and +glassies and pee-wees and commies and steelies. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Mullarkey, "every last one. Now, Celia Jane, stop your +crying and tell us what you will do." + +"I'll sweep the kitchen every day and do dishes without grumbling," +Celia Jane sniffled, while Danny was off upstairs at a run. + +"That will remind you to be more careful," said Mrs. Mullarkey, "and +remember you are to work willingly, without any grumbling." + +"I will, Mother," sobbed the girl. + +"And now," Jerry heard his father saying, "it is time for us to be going +back to the circus and of course Helen wants Gary with her now. We'll +keep him with us for three weeks and then, when we play Hampton, I'll +bring him back here for the rest of the summer. When our season closes +we'll come for him and take him to Carroll." + +"And we hope you will decide to move there, too, Mrs. Mullarkey," said +Mrs. Bowe. + +"I will if Mr. Bowe thinks it will be best for the children," she +replied. + +"I do think it so," said Whiteface. "To-morrow I'll mail you a check +for one hundred dollars and the rest of the thousand I'll send to you as +you want it. We'll arrange that when I bring Gary back. I have nothing +with me now, as I haven't any pocket in these clothes." + +"I have," said Mrs. Bowe and took several bills from her bag and pressed +them into Mrs. Mullarkey's hands. + +"I can't thank you," said Mother 'Larkey. "I don't know how." + +"You've loved Gary, Mrs. Mullarkey. He wouldn't love you so much if you +hadn't. That is more thanks than I want. We owe more than thanks to you. +Tell them good-by, Gary. We must start." + +Jerry was awfully glad that he had found his parents and that he was +going with them and was much excited at the thought of traveling with +the circus for three whole weeks and getting real well acquainted with +Great Sult Anna O'Queen, but his throat grew all lumpy at the thought of +leaving kindly Mother 'Larkey, loving Kathleen and gentle Nora and Chris +and--yes, and Danny and Celia Jane, too. + +Mrs. Mullarkey gathered him up in her arms and kissed him. + +"Good-by, Jerry. You've brought good fortune to this family and put food +into the mouths of my children and clothes on their backs when I +couldn't see where they were to come from. You must love your mother +hard for all the time she has been without you--and your father, too." + +"I will," Jerry promised and squeezed her neck very hard and kissed her. +Just then Danny came tumbling breathlessly downstairs and thrust a +little cloth sack, which was very heavy, into Jerry's hand. + +"Here are my marbles," he said. "All thirty-two of them." + +"I don't want them," said Jerry. + +"Take them with you, Jerry," Mother 'Larkey urged him. "It will help +Danny to remember some things which he mustn't forget." + +Jerry consulted his mother's eyes. She nodded her head and he took the +marbles. Then he shook hands with Danny and Chris and Nora and kissed +and hugged Kathleen, leaving Celia Jane till the last, because she was +still sobbing. + +Celia Jane did not feel entirely forgiven because Jerry seemed to avoid +her and she abased herself before him. + +"I--I'm s-s-sorry, Jerry. I'll n-n-never do it again. You ain't mad at +m-m-me any m-m-more, are you, Jerry?" + +"No, I ain't mad at you," Jerry assured her. + +"Then will you m-m-marry me when we are g-g-grown up, Jerry?" + +Jerry flushed uncomfortably at that and felt that Celia Jane was taking +an unfair advantage of him, so he did not answer. + +"W-w-will you, J-J-Jerry?" Celia Jane besought him. + +"No," said Jerry at length. + +"Why w-w-won't you?" + +Jerry felt himself flushing still more hotly from head to foot, partly +at the smile he saw his father and mother exchange and partly at Celia +Jane's importunity. + +"Because," he said. + +"I'll g-g-give you my silver ring if you will, Jerry." + +"No," said Jerry more firmly. + +"Why won't you, J-J-Jerry?" + +"Yes, Gary," interposed his father with a dancing, twinkling light in +his eyes, "why can't you promise it to oblige the lady?" + +"'Cause," Jerry informed him gravely, "when I grow up I'm goin' to marry +Kathleen." + +Jerry was somewhat dumfounded at the burst of laughter which followed +his announcement. They did not know, he thought, that Kathleen had given +him her old, adored rag dog of her own free will. + +"The darling!" cried Mother 'Larkey, after she had stopped laughing. +"But there is plenty of time to change your mind yet." + +"Then you must be very kind to Kathleen, always," said Jerry's mother. + +"He has been," said Mrs. Mullarkey. + +Kathleen looked up at Jerry and gurgled. + +"Never mind, Celia Jane," consoled Nora. "He'll be in the family, +anyway." + +Celia Jane was greatly cheered by that consolation and brightened +visibly, much to Jerry's relief. She kissed him good-by, throwing both +arms tightly about his neck in her impetuous fashion. + +It was with a sad and yet singing heart that Jerry followed his father +and mother out to Sultana,--sad at leaving behind all that had made his +life and his world the past three years, and singing at the thought of +the new world and the new life he was about to enter into, with a father +and mother of his very own, a circus twice a day, every day in the week +but Sunday, and elephants to ride upon. + +[Illustration] + + +[Transcriber's Note: All punctuation normalized.] + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Circus Comes to Town, by Lebbeus Mitchell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 16991.txt or 16991.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/9/9/16991/ + +Produced by Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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