The Story of a Calico Clown Part 4

"But maybe, toward morning, I'll be well again, and then I can dance for you," he promised.

"I hope so," mewed the Cat. "I have never seen a Calico Clown do a dance."

"You should see him--he is quite wonderful," whispered the Candy Rabbit behind his paw.

"Well, if I can't dance for you, I can ask a riddle," said the Clown, after a bit. "What makes more noise than a pig under--"

"Oh, PLEASE don't start that over again," begged the Candy Rabbit.

"You used to ask it in the store, and none of us could think of the answer. Don't tell riddles! Let's just talk!"

So the toys talked together and told one another their different adventures. The night pa.s.sed. Madeline, Herbert and Sidney slept, and Sidney dreamed of the fun he would have with his Calico Clown when the broken leg was firmly glued together again.

And as the night pa.s.sed the glue dried and set, and the Clown, feeling his leg growing better, grew happier.

"I say!" he called out just before morning to the Rabbit and the Cat.

"Are you asleep?"

"I was, but I am awake now," the sugar Bunny answered.

"And I am awake too," added the Cat.

"Then I will dance for you," went on the Clown. "My leg is better."

He stood up and he cut such funny antics by clapping his cymbals together, standing first on one leg and then on the other, jiggling his hands and feet, that the Cat went into mews of laughter and the Rabbit chuckled until his pink nose seemed to wrinkle all up like an accordion.

CHAPTER IV

UP IN A TREE

Faster and faster danced the Calico Clown. No one needed to pull his strings now, for he could dance by himself, no eyes of children or grown folk being in the closet to watch him.

Up and down, first to this side and then to the other, now on his left foot and now on his right, tapping his cymbals softly together, and wagging his head, the Calico Clown amused the Match-Safe Cat and the sugar Bunny in the closet.

"Oh, don't dance any more! Please stop!" begged the Candy Rabbit, holding one paw to his side.

"Don't you like it?" asked the Calico Clown, rather surprised.

"Oh, yes!" was the answer. "But your dance is so funny that it makes me laugh so hard that my ears ache! Do please stop!"

"Yes, please do," begged the Cat. "If you don't, I'm afraid I'll laugh so hard my head may come off and roll to the floor."

"Oh, I wouldn't want THAT to happen!" exclaimed the Clown, as he brought his queer, jerky dance to an end. "If you'd rather, I could tell a riddle."

"Not the one about what makes more noise than a pig under a gate!"

exclaimed the Candy Rabbit. "Don't ask that one!"

"Well, it's the only one I know," said the Clown. "I'll try to think of another. But, anyhow, I'll stop my dancing. However, I'm glad for one reason that I did it. It shows that my broken leg is almost as good as the other. A bit stiff, perhaps, but almost as good."

"Yes, you danced as well as I ever saw you jig back in the toy store,"

said the Rabbit. "You have made the night pa.s.s very pleasantly for us."

"You have indeed," added the Cat. "We appreciate your dancing and your fun very much."

"Thank you, both," replied the Calico Clown. "It is a pleasure to do things for fellows such as you."

Then they rested quietly.

A little later Sidney opened the door of the closet to see if his Calico Clown was all right. There lay the yellow and red chap on his back, with one leg stuck straight up in the air, as if he had just kicked a football and then had fallen down.

"Why! Why!" exclaimed Sidney in surprise. "I didn't leave my Clown like THAT!"

"What has happened to him?" asked Madeline, who came to see if her Candy Rabbit was dry.

"He has one leg stuck up in the air," went on her brother. "I left him lying flat on his back, so the broken leg I mended would get good and hard and stiff again. Now look at him!"

"It IS funny," agreed Madeline. "Didn't you move him?"

"I didn't touch him, and I don't believe anybody has come to this closet since I put him here, except you. Wouldn't it be funny, Madeline, if the Clown got up by himself to see if he could walk on his glued leg?"

"Yes, it would be very funny," agreed the little girl. "But maybe my Rabbit helped him, or this Match-Safe Cat. Maybe they moved the Clown!"

"How could they?" Sidney wanted to know.

"They couldn't, unless they came to life," went on Madeline in a whisper. "And sometimes," she went on, looking around to make sure no one else heard her, "sometimes I think that our toys CAN do things by themselves when we can't see them."

"Oh, ho! Course they can't do anything!" laughed Sidney.

But if he could have seen the Calico Clown dancing on the closet shelf, and if he could have heard the Cat and the Candy Rabbit laughing until one's head nearly came off and the other had pains in his ears, then Sidney would have thought differently, wouldn't he?

"Well, anyhow, I'm going to take my Calico Clown out and see how he jumps around this morning," said Sidney, after a while.

Sidney found that the Calico Clown was almost as good an acrobat, or jumper, as ever. When punched in the chest, the Clown would bang his cymbals together. And when the strings were pulled, out shot the arms and legs like those of a Jumping Jack, only in different fashion.

The red and yellow trousers of the Clown had not been soiled by his giant's swing accident, and Sidney had been careful not to get any spots of glue on his toy when he mended him.

"The only thing wrong is that the broken leg is a little stiffer than the other," Sidney said, as he made his Clown do all sorts of funny tricks. "I suppose that leg is a little shorter, or maybe the glue made it stiff. But he is just what I want, and I'd rather have him than the musical top I traded for him. Maybe Herbert and I can get up a little circus, as Herbert once had a show with his Monkey on a Stick. A clown belongs in a circus, and so do monkeys. Maybe we'll have one."

The Calico Clown, who heard Sidney say this, thought it would be very jolly to be in a circus.

Sidney certainly liked the Calico Clown. He made him do many funny tricks for the boys and girls--d.i.c.k, Dorothy, Mirabell, Arnold, and for Madeline and Herbert, who were Sidney's brother and sister.

"With my Monkey on a Stick and your Calico Clown we surely can have a fine circus some day," said Herbert, as he and Sidney were playing out on the porch one warm, summer day.

The Monkey and Clown had been glad to see each other when they met again after having been separated at the store. Each one had different adventures to tell.