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Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 23. Ben Does A Trick |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII. BEN DOES A TRICK "Look out!" "Run, everybody!" "Somebody help that little boy hold up the pole! He's doing it all alone!" "Oh, Bunny! Bunny Brown! You'll be hurt!" It was Bunny's mother who called this last. It was some of the farmers in the circus tent who had shouted before that, not seeming to know what to do. Daddy Brown and grandpa were hurrying from the other side of the tent to help Bunny hold the rope. The pole was slowly falling, the tent seemed as if it would come down, and the Italian was calling to his bear. As for the bear, he seemed to think that he ought to climb higher up on the pole. He did not seem to mind the fall he was going to get. Bunny Brown, small as he was, knew what he was doing. He had seen that the rope, which help up the pole, ran around a little wooden wheel, called a pulley. If he could stop the rope from running all the way through the pulley, the pole would not fall down, and the tent would stay up. "And if I keep the rope tight around my waist, the end of it can't get over the pulley wheel," thought Bunny. He had often seen sailors do this with his father's boats, when they slid down the steep beach into the ocean. And then, all of a sudden, Bunny found himself jerked from his feet. He struck against the bottom of the tent pole, and his side hurt him a little, but he still held to the rope about his waist. "The pole has stopped falling! The pole has stopped falling!" some one cried. "Yes, and Bunny stopped it!" said Sue. "Oh, Bunny, are you hurted?" Bunny's breath was so nearly squeezed out of him that he could not answer for a moment. But his mother had reached him now. So had Daddy Brown, his grandpa and some other men. In another moment the rope that held up the big pole was unwound from Bunny's waist and made fast to a peg in the ground. "Now the pole can't fall!" said Grandpa Brown. "We're safe now!" "Is--is the tent all right?" asked Bunny, as his father picked him up in his arms. "Yes, brave little boy. The tent is all right! You stopped it from falling on the people's heads." "And the bear--is the bear all right?" asked Bunny. From where his father held him Bunny could not see the shaggy creature. "Yes, the bear is all right," answered Mr. Brown. "He is coming down the pole now." "That bear is too big and heavy to climb the tent pole," said Grandpa Brown. "He is too fat. But it's lucky Bunny grabbed that rope." "I--I saw it slipping," said Bunny, "and I--I just grabbed it!" The bear came to the ground, and made a low bow, as his master had taught him to do. The tent pole was now made tight and fast, and the circus could go on again. Some of the ladies, with their little boys and girls, who had run out of the tent when they thought it was going to fall, now came back again. "The show in the animal tent is now over," said Ben Hall. "We invite you, one and all, into the next tent where we will do some real circus tricks." "And there's preserved seats for grandpa and grandma, and daddy and mother!" called out Sue, so clearly that everyone heard her. "The preserved seats have carpet on," said Sue. "Reserved seats, Sue, not preserved," said Bunny in a shrill whisper, and everyone who heard him laughed. Into the big tent, with its rows of seats around the elevated stage and sawdust ring the people walked. They were still laughing at the funny sights they had seen, the lion, made from a parlor rug, with a boy inside it. And they were talking about Bunny's brave act, in stopping the pole of the tent from falling down. "You and Sue go and get ready for what you are to do," whispered Bunker Blue to the two children. "I'll tell you when it's your turn to come out on the stage." "All right," answered Bunny. "Come on, Sue. Now's the time for our secret." He and Sue went into a little dressing room that had been made especially for them. It was a part of the big tent, curtained off with blankets. In this little room Bunny and Sue, earlier in the day, had taken the things they needed to do their "trick." You will soon learn what it was they had kept secret so long. It took some little time for all the people to take their places in the "preserved" seats, as Sue called them. Daddy Brown and his wife, and grandpa and grandma were given places well down in front, where they could see all that went on. "The first act!" cried Ben Hall, "will be some fancy riding on a horse, by Ted Kennedy! Come on, Ted!" he called. "Oh, Ben's dressed up like a real clown!" called Bunny to Sue, as they looked out between their blanket curtains, and saw what was going on. Ben had made himself a clown suit out of some calico. With a pointed cap on his head, and his face all streaked with red and white chalk, he looked just like a real clown in a real circus. Ben and some of the others had "dressed up," while the people were taking their seats in the big tent. "Oh, look, Bunny!" cried Sue. "It's a real horse Ted is riding!" And so it was. When Ben called for the first act, in came Ted riding on the back of one of his father's farm horses. Ted wore an old bathing suit, on which he had sewed some pieces of colored rags, and some small sleigh bells, that jingled when he danced about on the back of the horse. For the horse was such a slow one, with such a broad back, that there was no danger of Ted's falling off. Around and around the sawdust ring rode Ted. Now he would stand on his hands, and again on his feet. Then he would sit down and ride backwards. Finally, when the horse was going a little faster Ted jumped off, jumped on again, and then turned a somersault in the air. [Illustration: OUT CAME BUNNY, THE SCARECROW BOY, AND SUE, THE JACK-O'-LANTERN GIRL. _Page 224._ _Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus._] "Wasn't that great, Bunny?" cried Sue, who was watching. "It sure was. But hurry up, or we'll be late." The people clapped and laughed as Ted rode out of the ring after his act. Then came more of the circus tricks. Two of the bigger boys pretended they were an elephant. One was the hind legs and tail and the other boy was the front legs and trunk. The boys were covered with a suit of dark cloth, almost the color of an elephant, and when they walked around the ring it was very funny. Then a little boy was given a ride on the "elephant's back." He liked it very much. Two other boys pretended they were horses, with long bunches of grass for tails. Each one took a smaller boy on his back, and then these "boy horses" raced around the sawdust ring. Two of the girls were dressed up like real circus ladies, one in a pink, and the other in a blue dress, made from mosquito netting. They sat on sawhorses, which Bunker Blue got from the village carpenter shop. And though the sawhorses could not run, or gallop, or even trot, the girls pretended they could, and they had such a funny make-believe race that everyone laughed. The girls even jumped through paper hoops, just as the real riders do in a circus. Then there was a wheelbarrow race between two boys, each of whom had to push another boy around the tent. All went well until one of the clowns put a pail of water in front of one of the wheelbarrows. Over this pail the boy stumbled, and he and the one he was wheeling got all wet. But it was only in fun, and no one minded. There were several boys who did fancy tricks on the trapeze bars. They hung by their arms and legs, and "turned themselves inside out," as Bunny called it. Other boys did some high and broad jumping, while Bunker Blue pretended he was the big strong giant man, who could lift heavy weights. But the weights were only empty pasteboard boxes, painted black to look like iron. Bunker pretended it was very hard to lift them, but of course it was easy, for they were very light. One boy, Tommie Lutken, did a very good trick though. He walked on a tight rope stretched from one end of the tent to the other. This was a real trick, and Tommie had practised nearly two weeks before he could do it. He walked back and forth without falling. But when the people clapped, and wanted him to do it again, Tommie did not do so well. He slipped and fell, but he did not get hurt. "Now, Bunny and Sue, it's your turn!" called Ben to them, when he came out of the ring, after having done some funny clown tricks. "Are you all ready?" "All ready!" answered Bunny. "Come on, Sue." Out of their dressing room the children came, and when the people saw them they laughed and clapped their hands. For Bunny was dressed like a scarecrow out of a cornfield, with a suit of such ragged and patched clothes on that it is a wonder they did not fall off him. He had a black mask, cut out of cloth, over his face, and he held his arms and legs stiff, just as the wooden and straw scarecrow does in the cornfield. And Sue! You'd never guess how she was dressed. She was a Jack-o'-lantern. She and Bunny had scooped the inside out of a big yellow pumpkin, and had made it thin and hollow. Then they had cut a hole in the bottom, made eyes, a nose and mouth, and Sue put the pumpkin over her head. From her shoulders to her feet Sue was covered with an old sheet, and as she walked along it looked just as if a real, Hallowe'en Jack-o'-lantern had come to life. Out on to the wooden platform of the circus tent went Bunny, the scarecrow boy, and Sue, the Jack-o'-lantern girl. They made little bows to each other, and then to the audience, and then they did a funny dance, while Bunker Blue played on his mouth organ. "Say, isn't that just fine of our children?" whispered Mother Brown. "It certainly is," said Daddy. Up and down the platform danced Bunny and Sue. They were the smallest ones in the circus, and everyone said they were just "too cute for anything." There were many more tricks done by the boys in the tent, and the circus was a great success. Ben and the other clowns made lots of fun. They threw water on one another, beat each other with cloth clubs, stuffed with sawdust, which didn't hurt any more than a feather. "And now I will do my great jumping trick!" called Ben, "and then the show will be over. I am going to jump over fourteen elephants and ten camels." At the end of the tent was a long board, which sprang up and down like a teeter tauter. It was called a spring-board, and some of the boys had made their jumps from it, turning somersaults in the air, and falling down in a pile of soft hay. Ben asked some of the boys to stand in a line at the end of the spring board. "I'll just pretend these boys are elephants and camels," said Ben, "as it's hard to get real camels and elephants this summer. But I will now make my big jump." Ben went to the far end of the spring board. He gave a run down it, and then jumped off the springy end. Up in the air he went, and, as he shot forward, over the heads of the boys standing in a line, Ben turned first one, then two, and then three somersaults in the air. "Oh, look at that!" "Say, that's great!" "How did he do it?" "He must be a regular circus performer!" "Do it again! Do it again!" Everyone was shouting at once, it seemed. Ben landed on a pile of soft hay. He stood up, made a low bow, and kissed his hand to the audience, as performers do in the circus. A strange man, who had come into the circus a little while before, started toward Ben Hall. Ben stood there bowing and smiling until he saw this man. "Come here a minute, Ben. I want to talk to you," said the man. But Ben, after one look at the stranger, gave a jump, crawled under the tent and ran away, all dressed as he was in the clown suit. "Why--why! What did he do that for?" asked Bunny Brown, very much surprised. _ |
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