NERO RUNS AWAY
Once more Nero roared as he looked over the heads of the crowd to see
what had become of the boy who had tried to give Tum Tum the rotten
apple.
"Hold on there, my lion boy! What's the matter? Don't do that!" called
Nero's trainer to him in a kind voice. "What happened, anyhow? Why are
you roaring so, and trying to get out of your cage? Don't you like it
here in the circus?"
Nero stopped roaring at once, and no longer dashed against the bars of
his cage. Perhaps he thought that, as long as his kind trainer was at
hand, everything would be all right.
"Did some one try to hurt my lion friend?" asked the trainer, looking at
the crowd near the cage.
"No," some one answered. "But the lion, all at once, tried to reach out
and claw a boy who was going to give an apple to an elephant. I saw
that. I don't know what made the lion act so."
"There must have been some good reason," said the trainer. "Nero is a
good lion. He wouldn't want to claw a boy just for fun."
And then one of the other boys, who was in the crowd that had been
around the lad who had the rotten apple, spoke up and said:
"Mister, Jimmie was going to play a trick on the elephant. He was going
to give him a bad apple just to see what a funny face the elephant would
make."
"Oh, ho! Now I understand!" said the trainer. "My lion must have smelled
the rotten apple and didn't like it. He tried to scare away the boy, I
guess."
"Well, the boy was scared all right," said a man. "He ran away as fast
as he could go."
"He ought to!" said the trainer very sharply.
The excitement, caused by the loud roaring of Nero, was over now,
though, for a time, many persons had been frightened, for Nero had sent
his powerful voice rumbling through the circus tent as his father, and
the other big lions, had used to make the ground tremble when they
roared in the jungle.
Then, as things grew quiet and the people passed along the row of cages,
looking at the animals, Tum Tum, who heard what had happened, turned to
Nero and said:
"I'm much obliged to you, my dear lion friend, for scaring the boy who
wanted to give me the rotten apple. Most likely, as soon as I'd have
taken it in my trunk, I'd have smelled that it was bad, and I would not
have eaten it. But some one might have given me a popcorn ball in my
trunk at the same time, and that might have smelled so good that I
wouldn't have noticed the rotten apple until too late. So you saved me
from having a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm much obliged to you."
"Oh, that's all right," replied Nero. "I'm glad I could do you a favor.
You have been kind to me, pushing my cage around, and I want to be kind
to you."
So the two circus animals were better friends than ever, and that day in
the performers' tent Nero opened his mouth very wide indeed when his
trainer wanted to put in his head.
For many weeks Nero traveled about the country with the circus, living
in his iron-barred cage, from which he was never taken. Nero might be a
tame lion, but the circus folk did not think it would be safe to let him
out, as Dido, the dancing bear, was allowed to come out of his cage.
However, later on, something happened--
But there, I must tell about it in the right place.
So, as I said, Nero went about from town to town with the circus, living
in his cage, eating and doing his tricks whenever his trainer called on
him to do so. And the people who came to the circus performances seemed
to like, very much, seeing Nero do his tricks. And they always clapped
loudest and longest when the trainer put his head in the lion's mouth.
And Nero never bit the trainer once, nor so much as scratched him, even
with the tip of one sharp tooth.
One afternoon of a long hot day, when big crowds had come to the circus,
and after Nero had done his tricks, and Dido, the dancing bear, had done
his, and Chunky, the happy hippo, had opened his big mouth so his keeper
could toss loaves of bread into it--one afternoon Tum Tum, the jolly
elephant, swaying as he chewed his hay, spoke through his trunk and
said:
"Something is going to happen!"
"What makes you think so?" asked Nero, from his cage.
"Well, I sort of feel it," answered Tum Tum. "I think we are going to
have a big thunderstorm, such as we used to have in the jungle!"
"I hope we do!" growled a striped tiger in a cage next to Nero. "I like
a good thunder storm, where the rain comes down and cools you off! I
like to feel the squidgie mud of the jungle, too, and when it thunders I
growl as loudly as I can. I like a storm. I want to get wet!"
[Illustration: Then the trainer put his head in the lion's mouth.
_Page 100_]
"I like a thunder storm, too," said Tum Tum. "But you animals in your
cages--you lions and tigers--aren't very likely to feel any rain. We
elephants will get wet, and so will the camels and the horses, for we
walk out in the open. But, Nero, I guess you in your cage won't feel the
storm any."
"No, I don't believe we shall," agreed the lion. "But I wish we could. I
am so hot and dry, sitting in this cage, that I wish I could get out and
splash around in the mud and water. So the sooner the thunder storm
comes the better."
"It isn't likely to do you much good," went on Tum Tum, "but it will be
cooler, afterward, anyhow."
And it certainly was very hot in the circus tent that day. It did not
get much cooler after dark, and when the circus was over, and the big
tents taken down, it was still hot.
"We are not going to travel on the train to go to the next town where
the circus is to show," said Tum Tum to Nero, as the men began hitching
horses to the animal cages and the big tent wagons. "We are to go along
the road, in the open."
"Then maybe I can see the lightning!" exclaimed Nero. "And, if it rains,
I can stick my paws out through the bars and get them wet."
"Maybe," said Tum Tum. Then he had to go off to help push some of the
heavy wagons, and it was some time before Nero saw his big elephant
friend again.
Soon the circus caravan was traveling along the road in the darkness.
And yet it was not dark all the time, for, every now and then, there
came a flash of lightning. The thunder rumbled, too, like the distant
roaring of a band of lions.
"The storm will soon be here," said the striped tiger, as he crouched
down in one corner of his cage, which, like that of Nero, was being
hauled along the road by eight horses.
"Well, we'll feel better when it rains," said the lion.
And then, all at once, the wind began to blow, there came a brighter
flash of lightning, a loud clap of thunder, and the storm broke. Down
came the rain, in "buckets full," as is sometimes said, and the horses,
camels and elephants loved to feel the warm water splashing down on
their backs, cooling them off and washing away the dust and dirt.
Some of the rain even dashed into the cages of Nero and the tiger, and
the jungle cats liked the feel of it as much as did the other circus
beasts.
But the rain did something else, too. It made the roads very soft and
slippery with mud, and in the middle of the night, when Nero's cage was
being pulled up a steep hill, something broke on the wagon. It got away
from the horses and began to roll down the hill backward.
"Look out! Look out!" cried the driver, as he tried to put on the brake.
"The lion's cage is running away downhill! Look out, everybody! Look out
behind there, Bill on the tiger's cage! Look out!"
But the lion's cage did not crash into the tiger's cage, which was the
next wagon behind. Instead, Nero's house on wheels rolled to one side of
the road and toppled over into a ditch. There was a loud crash as the
wooden sides and top cracked and broke.
All at once Nero saw the door of his broken cage swing open. He could
walk right out, and, as soon as he got steady on his feet, after being
tossed about by the fall, the lion gave a leap and found himself
standing clear of his cage in the soft mud, with the rain beating down
all about him.
"Why--why, I'm loose!" roared Nero. "I'm out of my cage for the first
time since I was caught in the jungle! Oh, and this is like the jungle,
a little. I can feel the soft mud on my paws, and the rain on my back!"
Nero opened his mouth to roar, and the rain dashed in, cooling his
tongue. As the lightning flashed he could see his broken cage at one
side of the ditch, but he was clear of it. When the thunder roared Nero
roared back in answer.
Up above him Nero could hear the circus men shouting. What they were
saying he did not know, but they were telling one another that the
lion's cage had rolled downhill, had broken, and that the lion was
loose.
Nero looked around him. He could see quite well in the dark. Off to one
side he saw some tangled bushes and a clump of trees.
"Maybe that is the jungle!" thought Nero. "I'm going to find out. I'm
going to leave the circus for a while. It was very nice, but I want to
be free. I want to feel the rain and the mud. Now that I am out of my
cage I'll stay loose for a time!"
And so Nero ran away!