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.