The Circus Comes to Town Part 9

"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 m.u.f.f 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 un.o.bstructed 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.