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.
"Oh, Jerry! Don't go!" pleaded Celia Jane.
"You stay an' be audience for this circus," said Danny quickly, "an'
I'll give you one of my tops."
Jerry returned to the fence. "The one with the red on it?" he asked.
"No, the other one."
"It's broken," Jerry objected.
"An' I'll give you two fishhooks," Danny hurriedly promised, "an' a line
an' pole, an' a horseshoe nail."
"The rusty one!" cried Jerry, in a tone that was sarcastic.
Danny hesitated, swallowed quickly and responded, "No, the shiny one."
"I don't want no fishin' pole an' all," said Jerry; "an' the broken top
an' the shiny horseshoe ain't enough."
"I'll give you my toy pistol," said Danny.
"The trigger's gone," Jerry objected, "an' a pistol ain't no good
without a trigger."
"The golf ball I found in the weeds," Danny offered.
"I don't know how to play golf."
"Aw, be reasonable, Jerry. I can't give you what you want. I bought it
with the money I got for mowin' old man Barnes's yard for a month."
"I'll be the audience for your white rabbit," Jerry bargained, "an' I
won't run away."
"You want too much," Danny objected. "'Tain't as if I could get another
rabbit right away."
"An' then Mother 'Larkey won't think you made me run away," pursued
Jerry, pressing home his advantage. "I won't say nothin' to her nohow
about that."
Danny did not reply at once and Jerry spoke again.
"You can keep your top an' your shiny horseshoe nail, too."
"You won't say nothin' to mother a-tall?" Danny weakened.
"No," Jerry assured him.
"Cross your heart, hope to die an' spit?"
"Cross my heart, hope to die an' spit," repeated Jerry, suiting the
action to the word.
"All right, you can have the ole rabbit. You'll have to feed it, though.
I wouldn't raise my finger to feed it, not if it was starvin' to death.
I'd got kinda sick of always havin' to feed it whenever I wanted to do
something else, anyway."
"All right, I'll be the audience," Jerry promised, "but the rabbit's
mine."
"Then go in the house and put away your cap an' coat an' mittens, so's
mother won't suspect nothin'. An', Chris, don't you dare ever tell, nor
you, Nora, nor you, Celia Jane. I'll get even with you if it takes to my
last livin' day if you do."
"We won't ever tell," his brother and sisters assured him.
Jerry flew back to the house, and put away his winter clothes and the
cloth dog Kathleen had given him, and then dashed out to the circus
ground and climbed upon an old barrel which Danny and Chris had turned
upside down for a seat. He kicked his heels against its sides and
whistled as best he could as a sign of the audience's impatience for the
circus to begin.
"We'll begin all over again," announced Danny and marshaled his three
fellow performers back to the woodshed and led them forth in parade to
the strains of "I Went to the Animal Fair." Jerry duly applauded the
parade and waited for the real performance.
Then the green elephant rose up on his hind legs and with one front leg
pushed his trunk to one side while the voice of Danny Mullarkey
announced, "Ladies and gents, I'm pleased to make you acquainted with
Flora, the lady tight-rope walker, who will now walk the tight rope for
you an' I hope you'll like her."
This time, by dragging one end of her balancing pole on the ground as
she walked forward on the rope, Nora, or, as the circus-master called
her, Flora, managed to walk the ten feet to the opposite post without
falling off.
Jerry, rejoicing over the possession of the white rabbit, applauded her
generously.
"The el'funt will now jump the fence," came the voice of Danny, issuing
from the mouth of the green elephant. "Hey, you kids! Get the boards for
the fence," he called to Chris and Celia Jane, who had sat down on the
ground while Nora walked the rope.
With a front foot, the elephant put his trunk in place and took a
curious little huddled run on all fours up to the very low fence made of
two boards, together not more than ten inches high, which Chris and
Celia Jane held for him, and then half rose on his hind legs and leaped
over the fence, palm-leaf-fan-ears flopping and brown trunk and blue
tail wobbling. No elephant jumping up into the sky and balancing the
moon on the end of his trunk was this, truly, but, Jerry thrilled at the
first jump, imagining what it might have been.
"Whee!" trumpeted the elephant as he turned back and jumped the fence
again. He seemed to develop a very passion for wheeing and jumping the
fence, returning to the charge again and again.
Jerry clapped his hands and kicked the sides of the barrel in approval
and laughed at the ungainly antics of the jumping elephant, but by dint
of the frequent repetition of the jumping he began to become
disappointed that Danny didn't jump higher. He grew tired of the
performance before Danny wearied of jumping the fence.
"It's my turn now!" Chris called, after Danny had jumped for the twelfth
time. "Come on, Celia Jane."
They dropped the fence and, as there was nothing for the green elephant
to jump unless he could clear the tight rope, two feet from the ground,
Danny perforce gave way to the dancing pony and the clown.
Chris was trying to crack an old whip which he and Danny had made by
braiding three strands of leather, with a "cracker" at the end, and
Celia Jane was dancing gracefully about the ring, her tail switching and
her mane blowing, when the unexpected voice of Darn Darner from the
alley brought the circus to a sudden halt.
"Hullo! What do you kids think you're doin'?" he asked, in the gruff
voice which he adopted when he wanted to be particularly disagreeable.
Jerry squirmed around on the barrel until he could see Darn. "We're
playin' circus," he answered with a feeble, placating smile, before the
others had recovered from their surprise.
"Yah! You call _that_ a circus? Chris can't even crack the whip."
"I can, too, sometimes," Chris disputed.
"I'll show you how to do it," Darn offered, clambering over the fence.
"Here, give me the whip!"
He took it out of Chris's surprised and reluctant fingers and began
circling it over his head and giving it a sudden jerk. It didn't crack
at first, but soon he got the knack of it and cracked it loudly as close
to Celia Jane's ears and ankles as he could come without touching her.
"Giddap!" he commanded the dancing pony. "Show your paces." That time he
tried to crack the whip too near Celia Jane and the end of the lash
wound around her leg.
"Oh! Oh!" cried the dancing pony, hopping about on one leg. "That hurt!
It ain't no fair makin' it crack so close an' I won't play no more."
Half crying from the pain, Celia Jane ran to the house, followed by
Nora.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," Darn called to Celia Jane. "The whip must
be a little too long, or I wouldn't have sized up the distance wrong."
He turned to Danny. "What do you think you are?"
"I'm a el'funt," said Danny proudly, "an' I jump the fence like the
circus el'funt."
"An el'funt!" cried Darn, turning his eyes up to the sky. "And he calls
that an' el'funt!"
"It is a el'funt," protested Jerry.
Darn Darner laughed derisively.
"You can 'maginary it's a el'funt," Chris explained.
"It would take some imagination," was Darn's only comment on that.
"What's wrong with it?" asked Danny. "I bet you couldn't do any better."
"What's wrong with it!" exclaimed Darn. "Ask me what's right with it.
Everything's wrong with it."
"It looks like the picture of the el'funt--almost," defended Jerry.
"It looks as much like that as I do like a giraffe."
Danny turned his back on Darn and the latter exclaimed:
"What's that blue pants leg for, hangin' down from your coat tail?"
"Why--why--that's the el'funt's tail," Danny replied reluctantly.
"My gorry!" cried Darn, giving way to shrieks of laughter so that he had
to sit down on the ground and double up with the paroxysms of mirth.
"_An el'funt's tail!_ Oh, my gorry!" and again he rocked back and forth,
holding his sides. Then he was attacked by a fit of coughing and
finally, when he got his breath, he said:
"Don't you kids know nothing of national history? Hain't you ever seen a
picture of an el'funt? Its tail is nothing like that a-tall."
"How's it different?" Danny asked in a very meek voice.
"It's small and round, like a rope," Jerry interposed quickly.
"Of course it is," was Darn's comment.
"I told him so!" exclaimed Jerry.
"But how'd I know that you knew," asked Danny, aggrieved, "when you
didn't know how you knew?"
"I don't know," was all the explanation that Jerry could give.
"All I can say is, you'd better study national history, Danny, and learn
how the four-footed friends of man are made," remarked Darn.
"How do _you_ know el'funts' tails are small and round?" asked Chris.
"Because I'm no dumb-head and learn things."
"I ain't no dumb-head," protested Chris and at the same time Danny
asserted:
"Chris ain't no dumb-head."
Jerry saw the green elephant's front feet double up and he jumped down
from the barrel, a little bit scared.
"He is, too," said Darn, "and so are you. Jerry Elbow there's got more
sense than both of you put together, even if he ain't got no father and
mother."
"I haven't either," said Jerry. "I jest somehow knew one thing Danny
didn't about el'funts' tails. Danny knows lots more'n I do."
"I guess you'd better take that back about Chris bein' a dumb-head,"
threatened Danny, scowling from under the elephant's trunk.
"An' you'd better take it back about Danny's bein' one," remarked Chris.
"I won't any such thing," retorted Darn.
"We'll make you," challenged Danny, all his Irish fighting blood up.
"I'd like to see the kid could make me do anything I didn't want to,"
and Darn doubled up his fists and flung them out in the air at an
imaginary adversary.
"I'll show you," Danny boasted and quickly divested himself of the
elephant's skin.
"Take a board," cautioned Chris, "an' then you can keep him from runnin'
in on you." Chris followed his own advice and Darn, seeing himself
attacked from two sides, one of his foes armed, decided he would live to
fight another day and scrambled over the fence.
"Yah!" he cried in derision from the alley. "Dumb-heads! Dumb-heads! Oh,
Chris, you blue-eyed beauty, turn around and do your duty! Blue-eyed
beauty!"
He dodged just in time to avoid the board which Chris, incensed at that
most horrible of epithets--for his eyes were blue--had hurled at him
with all his might.
"Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed beauty! Ole Danny dumb-head! Blue-eyed
beauty!" chanted Darn, thrusting his face between two palings of the
fence and sticking out his tongue.
Then Danny picked up a board and, flanked by Chris, advanced to the
fence, whereat Darn took to his heels, shouting, "Blue-eyed beauty! Ole
Danny dumb-head!" as loud as he could.
At the end of the alley he turned and shouted,
"A pants' leg for an el'funt's tail! Oh, my gorry!"
When he disappeared from sight, the three boys surveyed the elephant's
skin lying on the ground.
"Let's not play any more," said Danny.
"I'm tired of the ole circus, anyway," replied Chris.
They went into the house, Jerry slowly following them. Even he could not
'maginary the old green wrapper and the stuffed brown coat sleeve and
blue trouser leg into an elephant any more.