Lebbeus Mitchell - The Circus Comes to Town
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Lebbeus Mitchell >> The Circus Comes to Town
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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:
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