BUNNY'S BRAVE ACT
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, as well as boys and girls," began Ben Hall,
who was a sort of ring-master, in the play-circus, "I am about to show
you that this lion does really eat bread and jam, and that he is a very
kind and gentle lion indeed, though he can roar. Roar for the people!"
cried Ben, shaking the horse blanket that was hung in front of the
"lion's cage."
The next second there came such a real "roar," that some of the smallest
children screamed.
"Don't be afraid!" cried Ben. "He won't hurt you. I will now raise the
curtain, and you can see the lion."
Slowly he pulled aside the blanket. And then everyone laughed--that is
they did after a few seconds. For at first it did look like a real lion
in the box.
He had a real tail, and a big, shaggy mane, and his mouth was wide open,
showing his red tongue and his white, sharp teeth. But when you looked a
second time you saw that it was only the skin of a lion, which had been
made into a rug for the parlor. And it was Tom White, one of the boys
with whom Bunny played, who was pretending to be a lion, with the skin
rug pulled over him, and the stuffed head over his head.
Underneath the open mouth of the lion peered out Tom's smiling face, and
as he looked through the wooden slats of the cage Ben put in a piece of
bread and jam, which Tom ate as he knelt there on his hands and knees.
"See! I told you this was a kind and gentle lion, and would eat bread
and jam," announced Ben. "I will now have him roar for you again, ladies
and gentlemen. Roar, lion, roar!"
But instead of roaring, Tom, for a joke, went:
"Meaou! Meaou! Meaou!" just like a pussy cat.
Of course everyone laughed at that. The idea of a big, savage lion
meaouing like a kitten! Tom had to laugh and then he couldn't pucker up
his lips to meaou any more.
"Ladies and gentlemen, as well as boys and girls," went on Ben. "We will
now pass to the next cage. This is a real wild animal. He has sharp
teeth, so do not go too close to his cage. He is the wild chicken-eater
of the woods!"
"Oh, I wonder what that can be?" whispered Sue.
"We'll see in a minute," Bunny answered. The two children, as well as
the other boys who were to take part in the show in the big tent later
on, were now following the crowd around to see the animals.
"Behold the wild chicken-eater of the woods!" cried Ben, as he pulled
aside a blanket from another wooden box-cage.
This time there was a sort of snarl and bark. It was so real that
everyone knew this was a real animal, and not a boy dressed up in a skin
or fur rug. Some of the little children tried to run out of the tent.
"Don't be afraid!" called Ben. "He can't get loose. There he is!"
He pulled the blanket aside and there everyone saw a small reddish
animal, as big as a dog, with a large, bushy tail, a sharp pointed nose,
and very bright eyes.
"What is it?" asked Sue. "Oh! what is it?"
"It's a fox," answered her brother. "I once saw one in the real circus
where grandpa found his horses the Gypsies took."
"Yes, it is a fox," said Ben. "And a fox just loves to eat chickens and
live in the woods."
"Where did you get him," Bunny asked.
"Oh, one of the boys caught him in a trap, and saved him for the circus.
He is going to tame him, but the fox is quite wild yet."
And indeed the fox was. For he jumped about, and tried to bite and
scratch his way out of the cage. But the wooden bars were too strong for
him.
The people who had come to the circus gotten up by the big boys, stood
for some time looking at the fox, which was a real wild animal. Some of
the farmers, though they had lived in the country all their lives, had
never seen a fox before.
"Now, if you will come down this way!" said Ben, as he started toward a
place in the tent that had been curtained off, "I will show you our
trained bear."
"Oh, is it real?" asked Sue.
"You'll see," said Ben, who seemed to know how to talk and act, just
like a real ring-master in the circus.
Ben stood in front of the little corner of the tent, that was curtained
off, so no one could see what was behind it.
"Are you all ready in there?" Ben called, loudly.
"Yes, yes, all ready!" was the quick answer. And the voice did not sound
like that of any of the boys from the nearby farms.
"Oh, I didn't know a bear could talk," cried Sue, and everyone laughed,
for the tent was very still and quiet just then, and Sue's voice was
heard all over.
"That wasn't the bear talking," said Ben. "It was his trainer. The man
who makes the bear do tricks you know."
"Oh, is it a trick bear?" Sue asked.
"Yes," answered Ben.
"A real truly one?" Bunny wanted to know.
"You'll see in a minute," Ben told her. "All ready now, Signore
Allegretti! We are going to have you do some tricks with your trained
bear!"
With that Ben pulled aside the curtain, and there stood a real, live,
truly, big brown bear, and with him was a man wearing a red cap. The man
had hold of a chain that was fastened to a leather muzzle on the bear's
nose.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried the children.
"Why, he's real!" gasped Sue.
"Of course he's real!" laughed Ben.
"He's just like the bear the man had out in front of grandpa's house
last week, doing tricks," said Bunny.
A man had gone past Grandpa Brown's house with a trained bear, and he
had stopped to make the big, shaggy animal do some tricks. Bunny and Sue
had given the man pennies, and Grandma Brown gave him something to eat.
The man gave part of his bread and cake to the bear.
"This is the same man," said Ben. "When I saw him, I thought he and his
bear would be just the thing for our circus. So I asked him to come back
to-day and give us a little show on his own account. And here he is. He
came last night and stayed in the barn so no one would see him until it
was time for the circus. I wanted him for a surprise."
"Well, he is a surprise," said Bunny. "I didn't think it was a _real_
bear."
"Let's see him do some tricks!" called a boy.
"All right. He do tricks for you," promised the man with the red cap.
"Come, Alonzo. Make fun for the children. Show dem how you laugh!"
The bear, who was named Alonzo, opened his mouth very wide, and made
some funny noises. I suppose that was as near to laughing as a bear
could come.
[Illustration: THERE STOOD A REAL, LIVE, TRULY, BIG BROWN BEAR
_Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus. Page 211._]
"Now turn a somersault!" cried the bear's trainer, and the big, shaggy
creature did--a slow, easy somersault. Then he did other tricks, such as
marching like a soldier, with a stick for a gun, and he pretended to
kiss his master. Then the bear danced--at least his master called it
dancing, though of course a big, heavy bear can not dance very fast.
"Now climb a pole!" cried the bear's master. "Climb a pole for the
little children, and they will give us pennies to buy buns."
There was a big pole in the middle of the animal tent, and the bear
trainer led the animal toward it.
"I make him climb dis!" he said.
"Is the pole strong enough to hold him?" asked Grandpa Brown. "The bear
is pretty heavy, I think."
"Oh, dat pole hold him! I make Alonzo climb very easy," the Italian
bear-trainer said. "Up you go, Alonzo!"
The bear stuck his long sharp claws in the pole. It was part of a tree
trunk, for the regular tent pole had been broken when the tent was
carried away in the flood.
Up and up went the bear, until he was half way to the top. The children
looked on with delight and even the old folks said it was a good trick.
And then, all of a sudden, something happened. The big centre pole,
half way up which was the bear, began to tip over. Some of the ropes
that held it began to slip, because they were not tied tightly enough to
hold the pole and the bear too.
"Look out!" called Daddy Brown. "The tent is going to fall! Run out
everybody!"
"They haven't time!" said Grandpa Brown. "The tent will come down on our
heads."
Bunny Brown stood right beside one of the ropes that held up the pole.
Bunny saw the rope slipping, and he knew enough about ropes and sails to
be sure that if the rope could be held the pole would not fall.
"I've got to hold that rope!" thought Bunny. Then, like the brave little
fellow he was, he reached forward, and grasped the rope with both hands.
He knew he could not hold it from slipping that way, however, so he
wound the rope around his waist as he had seen his father's sailors do
when pulling in a heavy boat. With the rope around his waist, brave
Bunny found himself being pulled forward as the pole swayed over more
and more, with the bear on it.