THE FLIGHT
The day before the circus found me at home again. Without delay I set
out to find Ed Mason, Charley Carter, and any of the others who could
give me the latest information on the topic that absorbed us all.
For, since the Fourth of July, there had been nothing so important as
the approach of this circus. For two weeks we had studied the posters.
Whether the hippopotamus would in very truth have a mouth somewhat
larger than the door of the barn to which his portrait was affixed;
whether the head of the giraffe would actually soar above the clouds,
as represented; and whether a beautiful lady would indeed stand on the
tip of an elephant's trunk and airily juggle three baby lions and a
Japanese parasol--these problems had vexed us for fourteen long days.
Charley Carter stuck out for the literal accuracy of the posters.
"'Cos if it wasn't so, they wouldn't dare to print 'em--it's against
the law."
This was his argument. Truth to say, none of us were strongly inclined
to oppose him. We were more than willing to accept the pictures as
photographic.
This point decided without further discussion, we could devote our
meditations to the circus itself. We could lay our plans and dream our
dreams in all felicity.
To hear some of these plans I started toward the Carters', and fell in
with Ed Mason on the way. In his garden we found Charley Carter, who
told us of his own and other boys' projects.
Rob Currier would rise, it seemed, before three o'clock on the morrow,
and go with his father to watch the unloading of the circus. Our desire
to join in this expedition subsided when Charley related his adventures
at a similar treat the year before. It was true that he had observed
the dim but mountainous forms of elephants and camels outlined against
the dawn, but he had also slipped on the car track and so sprained his
ankle that he had to forego, not only the great street parade at 10
A.M., but the show itself in the afternoon. The possibility of any such
tragic occurrence made Ed Mason and me decide to let the circus unload
as best it could without our assistance.
But on this, the very day before the circus would exhibit, we were
smitten by an unexpected grief. Charley Carter started the ball of
trouble rolling.
"Are you fellers goin' to the side-show?" he asked.
And he added, complacently, "_I_ am."
We had not considered the matter. We supposed we were going. The
pictures representing the attractions of the side-show recurred to us,
and straightway it became an imperative necessity that we find out if
we were going to see these wonders.
We repaired to our respective homes, but were soon back at the place of
meeting with dolorous faces. The parental mind in the House of Edwards
was at one with that in the House of Mason. The street parade in the
morning we should see, and we should be suitably provided with red or
green balloons for the more complete enjoyment of the spectacle. To the
afternoon performance we should go, pockets filled with the peanuts of
Mr. Mazzoni, who sold much better peanuts than the half-baked things
supplied by the circus venders. These we might share, if we felt so
disposed, with the elephants. Pink lemonade we should _not_ imbibe, as
it was "miserable stuff." And the side-show we should not enter, as it
was "vulgar."
Such were the terms of the ultimatum. To article one, concerning the
street parade and the balloons, we signified our assent. To the second
article, concerning peanuts, we also assented. Article three, which
forbade pink lemonade, was accepted with the understanding that we
yielded to superior force. But to the final article, prohibiting the
side-show, we entered an indignant protest.
It was promptly overruled.
Can one conceive a more irrational position? What was this thing,
vulgarity, which before now had stood in our path? Had the extra cost
of admission to the side-show been the cause for the refusal, we could
have understood, even while regretting, the parental attitude.
But vulgarity--what was it?
To us the different exhibits of the show, as portrayed upon the
posters, were both curious and wonderful. Were we not men and
philosophers, passengers through life, and observers of the human show?
Was it not our bounden duty to see all that was strange and marvelous
in this great world? Well, then, by what right did our tyrants act? We
were of the human race, and held none of its members alien.
Though it might be questioned if the dog-faced boy, the genuine
mermaid, the lady with a body like a serpent, and the man of
india-rubber skin, came unreservedly into the category of human
creatures--still such objections were mere quibbles. A golden
opportunity for delight and self-improvement was being denied us, and
for the flimsiest of reasons, so we straightway raised the standard of
revolt and nailed it to the mast.
"Let's run away!" said Ed Mason.
Really, it seemed the only possible suggestion. When you have simply
got to reduce your hard-hearted parents to contrition, milk-and-water
methods are useless. A blow must be struck--sharp and decisive. Then
they will recognize your value, be properly humbled, and come around to
a correct view of things.
Running away from home is at once the boldest of strokes and the most
subtle form of revenge. It asserts your independence at the same time
that it reduces your parents to humility.
We decided upon it, and then and there fixed the hour of five that
afternoon as the time of our departure from home and kindred. We would
sever all the ties that bound us to civilization, and plunge into the
trackless wilds.
Prompt to the hour, I met the resolute Mason on the farther side of the
frog pond. He was simply yet appropriately equipped with a cap-pistol,
and two bananas for provender while crossing the wilderness.
I carried a light sling-shot and a package of soda-biscuit.
Game--partridges, antelopes, and other creatures--might be slain _en
route_; while our thirst could be slaked at the brooks and streams.
We set out in silence, as became our high purpose. In a little over
an hour we had penetrated the desert as far as Brown's ice-house,
and there we decided to camp for the night. We had encountered no
antelopes, buffaloes, nor other animals, except a herd of cows
belonging to Mr. Haskell. They were being driven home by a small boy.
In a little grove of trees back of the ice-house we sat down and made
our supper of bananas and soda-biscuit. The ice-pond provided water to
wash down the meal. We faced the west, and received full in our eyes
the rays of the sun, now rapidly approaching the earth.
For a time we beheld the spectacle of the sunset, though our minds
were not upon it. We conversed upon the possibilities of adventure in
the Far West, upon the circus which we were leaving behind, and, most
of all, of the excitement probably now rife in our homes. Ed Mason,
it appeared, had left a note behind him to inform his family of our
departure, of the utter folly of any attempt at pursuit, and of the
fact that our first stopping-place would be Omaha.
Why he fixed upon Omaha, except that it is remote from our home on the
Atlantic coast, I am unable to explain.
By this time, we agreed, our families had begun to wish that they had
treated us better in the matter of that side-show.
Some low hills rose upon the western horizon, and the sun disappeared
behind them not long after we had finished supper. It cast a golden
outline on a strange procession of dark gray clouds which now came
out of the north and moved slowly across the place lately occupied
by the ball of fire. They followed one after the other like uncouth
animals--the dromedary with his hump was there, the elephant, and other
figures, longer and lower, like serpents and lizards.
We watched them without speaking.
A faint breeze moved the branches of the apple tree over our heads. It
was perceptibly darker now, and not easy to make out the details of the
fields and meadows. Two men passed along the dusty road on the other
side of the stone wall. They did not notice us, but we heard them
discussing a dog after they had vanished from sight. The sky in the
east and north turned rosy, and its colors were reflected in the pond.
A man with a lantern moved about Mr. Brown's barnyard for a while,
then disappeared indoors, and presently a light shone from one of the
windows of the house.
The glow in the west; the pageant of clouds, whose fiery edges
had grown dimmer; the immensity of the overarching sky, still
turquoise-colored--all these, together with the disappearance of the
familiar landscape, conspired to make the two outlaws under the apple
tree feel rather diminutive. The swallows had ceased their flight and
gone to bed. Two or three robins screamed excitedly for a while, and
darted in apparent hurry from tree to tree. Finally they became quiet,
except for an occasional outburst of twittering. Two bats began to
flutter about, with their high, thin, squeaking cries like the opening
and shutting of a new pair of scissors.
The darkness was far advanced; three or four stars were visible, and
the pink tint had faded from the sky. The pond gleamed like silver, but
its banks were black and mysterious.
"We ought to start awful early in the mornin'," said Ed Mason; "p'r'aps
we better go to bed now."
He began this remark in a voice that sounded fearfully loud, but said
the closing words in a whisper.
"P'r'aps we had," I agreed,--also in a whisper.
There was no one within hearing: it seemed strange that we should have
to whisper.
In another way, however, it appeared quite proper to whisper.
I was reflecting that, aside from a night spent in a tent with two or
three other boys, in Peter Bailey's garden, I had never slept outdoors.
It also occurred to me that we had no bedclothes nor pillows. We had
blankets that night in the tent, and made pillows out of piles of hay.
The hay tickled the back of your neck somewhat, but otherwise it was
all right.
"We might sleep in Brown's barn," I suggested.
"That's so," Ed replied.
Then an afterthought struck him.
"No; we couldn't do that."
"I don't see why not."
"Why, of course we couldn't. There ain't any barns on the prairies!"
I had never thought of that.
The objection was unanswerable.
"Besides," pursued Ed, with something like a shudder, "tramps sleep in
these barns."
I abandoned the plan hastily.
"Could we get some hay from the barn?" I wondered; "there won't be any
tramps in there now, will there?"
"I guess not. We needn't go all the way in,--we can reach some by just
openin' the door."
He was on the point of rising when another objection occurred to me.
"Maybe Mr. Brown wouldn't like it."
"He hasn't any right to say anything 'bout it. In time of war they take
what they want, don't they? They make a forced _levi_."
This subject of the forced "levi" had been discussed amongst us at some
length in connection with Mr. Hawkins' cherries. Jimmy Toppan and Rob
Currier had the impression that it had something to do with a clothing
dealer on Main Street.
"Anyway," Ed remarked, "we can put the hay back in the morning."
This seemed to be a reasonable solution in order to keep our career as
outlaws on a moral basis. So we arose and started cautiously for the
barn. Before we had taken five steps in that direction, a voice spoke.
It was a deep, resonant voice, charged with authority and menace. The
word or phrase that it uttered was not, it seemed to us, especially
relevant, but there could be no mistaking the import of its accent and
tone. It came from the earth, from the sky, from nowhere in particular
and from everywhere in general.
It said: "_Ker-r-rum!_"
Having said this, it was instantly silent. The final syllable ended
suddenly, but yet with a twang as if some giant had touched the string
of a great instrument.
The hush that ensued was appalling. I had sat down, as if struck to
the earth, the moment I heard the awful sound, and now I tried to
address Ed Mason, who was leaning faintly against a tree. But I made
three efforts before my vocal apparatus responded.
"Wh-what was it?" I asked.
He turned toward me, and said something in a whisper, which I could not
make out. I sat still for a moment longer, then hitched myself toward
him and repeated my question.
But he could not answer me.
Neither could he say whence the sound came. That was the horrible part
of it--the vague immensity of the note. We remained motionless for what
we thought a long time.
Then Ed suggested that we move our camp. Immediately the problem arose:
in which direction should we move? While we deliberated, in whispers,
suddenly again, ominous and terrible:--
"_K'r-rum!_"
That sufficed. In three seconds we were over the wall and running at
full speed along the highway. At the crossroads, an eighth of a mile
away, we saw the lights of a buggy. It contained certain male relatives.
"Hello, boys! Going home?"
We admitted that that was our destination.