Chapter II: Part 2

Your mother patiently darned your torn clothing, and submitted to having her own imperiled and her ankles nipped; while your father time and again gathered the scattered fragments of his evening paper, and from a patchwork strove to decipher the day’s news.

And “Look at him, will you!” cried the hired girl, delighted, indicating him as he was industriously dragging her mop to cover.

* * * * *

Well, like the storied peach, he “grew, and grew.” Speedily he was too large for you to hold in your arms, and although he insisted upon climbing into your lap, you could no more accommodate him there than you could a huge jellyfish. He kept slipping off, and was all legs.

He fell ill. Ah, those days of his distemper were anxious days! He wouldn’t eat, and he wouldn’t play, and he wouldn’t do anything except lie and feebly wag his tail, and by his dumbness place upon you the terrible burden of imagining his condition inside.

Here came to the rescue the old gardener,—Uncle Pete, black as the ace of spades,—who gave you the prescription of a nauseous yet simple remedy which you were compelled lovingly and apologetically to administer three times a day; and behold, the patient was cured. You didn’t blame him any for rising from his bed; and you wouldn’t have blamed him any for cherishing against you a strong antipathy, in memory of what you forced down his throat. But he loved you just as much as ever.

Now he developed roaming propensities, which took the form of foraging expeditions. Once he brought back a five-pound roast of beef, his head high in the air, and buried it in the garden. Diligent inquiry exposed the fact that the beef had been intended by a neighbor for a dinner for a family of six, and for subsequent relays of hash, etc. Your mother, with profuse apologies, promptly sent over a substitute roast, the original being badly disfigured.

Upon another occasion he conveyed into the midst of a group consisting of your mother and father, and the minister, guest of honor, sitting on the front porch, a headless chicken, still quivering. You were commanded to return the fowl, if you could; and after making a canvass of the neighborhood you found a man who, having decapitated a choice pullet, and having turned for an instant to secure a pan of hot water, was mystified, upon again approaching the block, to see, in all his level back yard, not a vestige, save the head, of the feathered victim. When you restored to him his property, he laughed, but not as if he enjoyed it.

Along with his foraging bent, the dog acquired a passion for digging. One day he accidentally discovered that he _could_ dig, and forthwith he reveled in his new power. Huge holes marked where he had investigated flower-beds or had insanely tried to tunnel under the house.

He grew in spirit as well as in stature. He had his first fight, and was victorious, and for days and days went around with a chip on his shoulder, which several lickings by bigger dogs did not entirely remove. Out of that first fight and the ensuing responsibility of testing the mettle of every canine whom he encountered came dignity, poise, and courage. His puppy days were over. He had arrived at doghood.

What sweet years followed! It was you and the dog, the dog and you, one and inseparable. When you whistled, he came. All the blows you gave him for his misdemeanors could not an iota influence him against you. Other comrades might desert you for rivals of the moment, but the dog never! To him you were supreme. You were at once his crony and his god.

When you went upon an errand, the dog was with you. When you went fishing or swimming or rambling, the dog was with you. When you had chores to do, the dog was your comfort; and when you were alone after dark he was your protection. With him in the room or by your side you were not afraid.

When you had been away for a short time, who so rejoiced at your return as the dog? Who so overwhelmed you with caresses? Not even your mother, great as was her love for you.

Did you want to frolic? The dog was ready. Did you want to mope? He would mope, too. He was your twin self, and never failed.

* * * * *

The sun and you were up together on that summer morning, and the dog joined you as soon as you threw open the barn door. Almost you had caught him in bed, but not quite, although he had not had time to shake himself, and thus make his toilet.

Intuition told him that such an early awakening meant for him a day’s outing, and he leaped and barked and wagged his glee.

You worked with a will, and when the hired girl summoned you to breakfast the kitchen wood-box had been filled, and all the other jobs laid out for you had been performed, and you were waiting. So was the dog, but not for breakfast. He was waiting for _you_.

How he gobbled down the scraps constituting his meal; never pausing to chew, and frequently desisting in operations in order to run around the house and investigate lest, by hook or crook, you might be slipping off without his knowledge!

Now your boy companion’s whistle sounded in front; and hastily swallowing your last mouthfuls, disregarding your mother’s implorations to “eat a little more,” with the paper packages containing your lunch of bread and butter and sugar and two hard-boiled eggs stuffed into your pockets, sling-shot in hand, out you scampered; and the dog was there before you.

Along the street you, gaily hied, the three of you, until the over-arching, dew-drenched elms and maples ended, and the board walk ended, and you were in the country.

Civilization was behind you; all the world of field and wood was ahead.

Don’t you remember how balmy was the air that wafted from the pastures where the meadow larks piped and the bobolinks rioted and gurgled? Don’t you remember how the blackbirds trilled in the willows, and the flicker screamed in the cottonwoods? Don’t you remember how you tried fruitless shots with your catapult, and how the dog vainly raced for the gophers as he sped like mad far and wide?

Of course you do.

The morning through you trudge, buoyant and tireless and fancy-free; fighting Indians and bears and wildcats at will, yet still unscathed; roving up hill and down again, scaling cliffs and threading valleys, essaying perilous fords, and bursting the jungles of raspberry-bushes; and you guess at noon, and sprawl in the shade, beside the creek, to devour your provisions.

During the morning, some of the time you have seen the dog, and some of the time you have not. Where you have covered miles he has covered leagues, and more than leagues; for a half-hour he will have disappeared entirely, then, suddenly, right athwart your path he hustles past, in his orbit, as though to let you know that he is hovering about.

While you are eating, here he comes. He seats himself expectantly before you, with lolling tongue, and gulps half a slice of bread, and looks for more. A dog’s only selfishness is his appetite. He will freeze for you, drown for you, risk himself in a hundred ways for you, but in the matter of food he will seize what he can get and all he can get, and you must take care of yourself.

The lunch is finished, and the dog, after sniffing for the crumbs, sinks down with his nose between his paws, to indulge in forty uneasy winks until you indicate what is to be the next event upon your program.

Presently, however, with a little whine of restlessness, he is off.

You are off, too. It is the noon siesta. The air is sluggish. The birds and the squirrels have relaxed, and the woods are subdued. The strident _scrape_ of the locusts rises and falls, and the distant shouts of men in harvest-fields float in upon your ear. You are burning hot; but the water of the creek is cool—the only cool thing in your landscape. A swim, a swim! Your whole being demands that you go in swimming.

The dog already has been in a number of times, as his wet coat has evidenced. Feverishly following the winding stream, envying the turtles as they plunge in, upon your approach, you arrive at a bend where the banks are high, and the current, swinging against them, halts and forms an eddy. Here the depths are still and dark and beckoning.

To strip those smothering garments from your sunburnt body is the work of but an instant, and in you souse, not without some misgiving as to possible water-snakes and snapping turtles, but spurred by a keen rivalry as to which shall “wet over” the first.

Oh, the glorious, vivifying thrill that permeates you as you part the waters!

The dog again! From the bank he surveys the proceedings with mingled curiosity and apprehension, and finally, with a whine of excitement, dashes into the shallows and makes for your side. You are neck-deep, and he is swimming. His hair feels queer and clammy against your skin, and his distended claws raise a welt upon your bare shoulder as he affectionately tries to climb on top of you. You duck him, and grab at his tail; and convinced that you are in no immediate danger, he plows for the shore, where he contents himself with barking at you.

Despite the dog’s remonstrances and entreaties, you sported in that blissful spot until the sun was well down the west; now you frolicked in the cool eddy, now you dabbled amid the ripples of the shoals just below, and now you dawdled on the warm, turfy banks. The dog stretched himself by your clothing and went to sleep.

At length, with blue lips and chattering teeth, and a ring of mud encircling your mouth, marking where years later the badge of manhood would appear, you donned your clothes, and, weak but peaceful, to the rapture of the dog started homeward.

He did not know that you were going home. When you had left home in the morning he did not know that you were coming here. He did not care then; and he does not care now. You are doing something, and he is a partner in it; and that is sufficient.

Homeward, homeward, through woods and across meadows where the birds were gathering their evening store and voicing their praises and thanks because the sun had been so good. Homeward, homeward, not talking so much as when your faces were turned the other way, not frisking so much as formerly, and with the dog trotting soberly near your heels.

You were dead tired, the three of you.

When you were about a block from the house, the dog pricked up his ears and trotted ahead, to wait for you at the gate. While you ate your supper he slept on the back porch; and after his own supper he slinked straight into the barn, to bed.

And soon, he in his nest up-stairs in the barn, you in your nest up-stairs in the house, alike you were slumbering; for neither could possibly sleep sounder than the other.

* * * * *

Years sped by, and the dog remained an integral part of the household. Such a quaint, quizzical, knowing old chap, with an importance ridiculous yet not unwarranted, with an individuality all his own, thoroughly doggish, but well-nigh human. He was affectionate toward the rest of the family, but you he adored. He might occasionally bluffly growl at others, but never at you. You could make him do anything, anything. To him you were perfect, omnipotent, and with you at hand he was happy.

You emerged from the grammar school into the high school. Then arrived that summer when you went to visit your aunt and uncle, and stayed three weeks. You remember the visit, don’t you?

And when you disembarked at the station on your return, and your mother was there to meet you, even while kissing her you looked for the dog.

“Where’s Don?” you asked.

“Why, John,” reproved your mother, as so often she had jokingly done before, “do you think more of seeing your dog than of seeing me?”

This silenced you.

But when you had entered the yard, and next the house, ungreeted by the familiar rush and volley of barks, you were impelled to inquire again:

“Where _is_ Don, mother?”

Mother put her arm around you, and laid her lips to your forehead; and even before she spoke you felt what was coming.

“Johnny dear, you never will see Don any more,” she said; and she held you close while you sobbed out your first real grief upon her breast.

When you could listen she told you all—how they had found him, lifeless, where he had crawled under the porch; how they had buried him, decently and tenderly, where you might see his grave and put up a headboard; how they had kept the news from you, so that your visit should not be spoiled; and how, all the way from the depot, her heart had ached for you.

Thus the dog vanished from your daily life, and for weeks the house and yard seemed very strange without him. Then, gradually, the feeling that you were to come upon him unexpectedly around some corner wore off. You grew reconciled.

But to this day you are constantly encountering him in dreamland. He hasn’t changed, and in his sight apparently you haven’t changed. You are once more boy and dog together. This leads you to hope and to trust—indeed, to believe—that, notwithstanding your mother’s gentle admonition, you _will_ see him again, in fact as well as fancy, after all.

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IN THE ARENA

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IN THE ARENA

WHEN a boy retorted with the direct challenge, “An’ you da’sn’t back it!” it was a case, if you did not wish to lose caste, of your either taking the aggressive or effecting some honorable compromise.

It was difficult to explain to an outsider, to one not in sympathy with the duello, the deep significance of “da’sn’t back it.” You felt the term, but you could not elucidate it, save, to some extent, by example; you yourself, with a red spot on your forehead, a scratch on your nose, a torn collar to your waist, a rent in your knickerbockers, and a proud spirit in your bosom, being the example.

“Now, I _should_ like to know what you were fighting about,” declared your mother, holding you prisoner at her knee while she stitched your collar so as to make you presentable for supper.

You squirmed, realizing the task before you.

“Well, we were playin’, an’ Ted he tripped me, an’ I said he did it on purpose (an’ he did, too), an’ he said he didn’t an’ I said he did, an’ he said I was a liar an’ da’sn’t back it, an’ I went to back it, an’ he hit me, an’—”

“But what _is_ to ‘back it’?” interrupted your mother.

“Why, to back it—to back it, you know. He said I da’sn’t _back it_, an’ I had to or else I’d be a coward, an’ he hit me, an’ I hit him, an’—”

“But how could you back being a liar? I don’t understand.”

She was a darling mother, yet at times surprisingly dense.

“I _did_ back it, though, just the same.” That ought to be exposition enough, and you galloped on with your narrative: “An’ I hit him, an’ he hit me right on the forehead,—but it didn’t hurt,—an’ I—an’ then we got each other down, an’ I was gettin’ on top, an’ then the kids pulled him off, an’ a man came by an’ wouldn’t let us fight any more. Ted’s ten, an’ I’m only nine.”

Thus, with a little valorous touch, you finished your story. This much you accomplished, even though you evidently had failed in bringing your mother to a clear perception of “backing it.”

Father looked at you inquiringly.

“What’s that, John? Fighting! With whom?”

“John had a fight this afternoon; have you heard about it?” asked your mother, gravely, of your father at supper.

It was a portentous moment.

“Ted Watson. He tripped me on purpose an’ nearly made me fall when I was runnin’, an’ then he told me I da’sn’t back it. But we didn’t fight long, ’cause a man came by an’ stopped us.”

“You can see he scratched his nose, and his collar was torn almost off his shirt,” supplemented your mother.

“I tore _his_ collar, too—an’ I bet he’s goin’ to have a black eye,” you hastened to state, in palliation.

“W-w-well, I’m astonished, John!” asserted your father, very solemnly.

You fastened your eyes upon your plate, and could think of nothing to say in rebuttal. You had stalked homeward a hero, fondly expecting that your parents would be proud of you, who, only nine, had combatted a boy of ten, and were “gettin’ on top”; but witness how they had wet-blanketed you!

“I told him that he ought to have refused to fight, and it would have made the other little boy ashamed,” informed your mother.

“By all means,” approved your father.

Coming from your mother, the advice, while of course absurd, had not seemed so strange; after all, she never had been a boy, and girls didn’t fight; but your father’s traitorous acquiescence goaded you to desperation.

“Did _you_ ever da’sn’t back it when you were a boy like me, papa?” you appealed; and although you were not fully cognizant of the fact, you had him hip and thigh.

He glanced at your mother, and had you been looking at him instead of still eying your plate, you would have seen his mouth twitch in a funny way.

“You do as mama says. She’s always right,” he answered, and you had a dim suspicion that he was begging the question.

The little encounter between Ted and you was described much more quickly than it had occurred. The duello as practised in your corps did not admit of undue precipitancy in falling to blows. A certain amount of palaver was obligatory first—an exchange of witticism and defiance, beyond which, as often as not, one did not proceed.

When Ted had tripped you, and you had angrily accused him of having done it on purpose, he had denied it just as angrily:

“Didn’t, neither!”

“Did’t, either!” said you.

“Didn’t, neither!” said he.

“Did’t, either!” said you.

“Didn’t, neither. You’re a liar!” said he.

“Did’t, either. You’re another!” said you.

“You’re another ’nother!” said he.

“You’re twice as big as anything you can call me!” said you—a crusher, and quite unanswerable.

“You’re twice as big as that, an’ you da’sn’t back it!” said he, also scoring a point.

“He says you da’sn’t back it! Ya-a-a-a-ah! he says you da’sn’t back it!” gibed the boys about you, glorying in the crisis.

Ted and you were now uncomfortably in the center of a circle which was ever being increased by the jubilant cries of “Fight! Fight!” which summoned spectators from all quarters.

“G’wan an’ back it! You can lick him!” urged your supporters.

“Aw, he’s ’fraid to! He’s ’fraid to!” scoffed your rivals.

Ted and you, grimy fists doubled, not knowing exactly what to do, faced each other. Neither of you wanted to fight. Fighting was being forced upon you. You were to amuse the pitiless crowd.

“I ain’t, either, afraid,” you asserted sullenly.

“I wouldn’t let him trip _me_ up that way, you bet,” inspired a friend on your right, boldly.

“An’ call me a liar an’ everything!” added a friend on your left.

Oh, how solicitous of your honor were they who were not to do the fighting!

“He _is_ a liar if he says I tripped him on purpose,” stoutly reiterated Ted, slightly qualifying his former blunt statement.

“You’re another!” you returned. “Anyhow, it _looked_ as if you tripped me on purpose.”

You, likewise, were hedging a mite.

“There! He called _you_ a liar, too!” admonished the circle to Ted.

“Then he’s another, an’ he da’sn’t back it,” responded Ted, grimly performing his duty.

This harmless verbal fencing might have been continued up to the very present, and the ethics of the duello not have been violated, had not some over-zealous enthusiast pushed Ted and you together, with the result that, in fending each other off, you, according to the eager verdict of the highly observant critics, “backed it,” and he hit you, simultaneously; whereupon, not seeing anything else left to do, at each other you went like a couple of jumping-jacks, until (fortunately, you held, for Ted) the approach of the man caused him to be removed from on top of you.

Flushed, excited, and disheveled, you went your way; and flushed, excited, and disheveled, Ted went his way. Throughout your route, you and your babbling escorts, with many a “Gee!” and “Darn!” discoursed upon what you had done, and what Ted had not done, and what would have happened had the fight lasted only a minute longer.

Loudly you wrangled with them as to which got the worst of it, quite blind to the fact, which now you are free to acknowledge, that the one who got the worst of it was your mother, for she had to mend your clothes.

She was always getting the worst of it. She was the unlucky non-combatant.

The duello produced the best of feeling between Ted and you. Fights were for mutual benefit. Swelling dignity and biceps so demanded expression that they could not forever be gratified by merely playfully poking chums in the ribs.

Therefore it is plain why, when a friend mischievously reported to you, “Say, Speck says he can lick you,” it was all that was required. Like to a strutting cockerel who hears a distant crow, you bristled in answer.

“He can’t, either. I can lick him with one hand tied behind my back.”

Fast flew the news to Speck, and Speck promptly resented the slur, as he should. The boys of the neighborhood were pleased.

Now you, and likewise Speck, are the objects of much flattering attention. You let your following feel your muscle, and they let you feel theirs, and you are firmly convinced that yours is the hardest. Also, you are convinced that you have a great knack at fisticuffs, and are the inventor of a peculiar, irresistible blow which you deliver, the knuckle of the middle finger carefully protruded, under your warding left arm. More or less secretly you have demonstrated it while “fooling” with your companions.

You can chin yourself six times, and you are, in valor and strength, a boy wonder.

Your companions favor you with adulation to a degree compatible with their own self-respect; for most of them, too, are boy wonders.

Well as Speck and you are satisfied with bravado and careful avoidance of each other, it is inevitable that you meet.

“There’s Speck—see? Come on; _you_ ain’t afraid of _him_!”

You have committed yourself too far for graceful retreat, and in the midst of your crowd you advance boldly to join Speck and his crowd.

The rival clans come together and mingle, but Speck and you pretend not to see each other.

“John says he can lick you, Speck!”

Yes, you have said so, but it was under provocation of, presumably, a direct challenge from him. However, the duello does not thrive on explanations, and Speck and you are in the hands of your friends.

The all-engaging topic has been broached. Speck apparently does not hear. Maybe the matter will be dropped. But no.

“He says he can lick you with one hand—aw, Speck!”

“He can’t, though,” defends Speck.

“Speck says he can’t, either,” obligingly announces his backers.

“Well, he can, I bet you.”

“Bet you he can’t.”

“He’ll show him whether he can or not.”

“Huh! I’d just like to see him once!”

You find yourself hustled forward and set against Speck, who in like manner has been pressed to the front. Your hands hang limply by your side; so do Speck’s. You feel very tame and pale and artificial; not a whit mad; not a whit like fighting. The pugnacity is your seconds’.

Somebody laboriously balances a small block on Speck’s shoulder.

“Knock that off, if you dare,” bids a Speck chorus.

“I will if I want to,” you assert.

“Well, do it, then!” invites Speck.

“I will if I want to.”

“Well, do it, then!”

“I will if I want to.”

You strive to work up steam by biting your lips, and raising your voice, and spitting ferociously into the dust; you are assisted by the irritating shoves bestowed upon you from behind.

“Well, do it, then!”

“I will if I want to.”

Impatient fingers supply you also with a gage of defiance, an impertinent sliver laid athwart your collarbone.

“Now let’s see Speck knock _that_ off!”

Speck disdainfully lifts his hand and brushes the offending chip to the ground.

“Hit him, John!”

“Don’t you stand that!”

“There!” you say, tapping him gently on the breast.

“There!” he answers, tapping you a little harder.

“There!” you return, tapping him harder still.

“There!” he retaliates, tapping you yet harder.

Then with a final “There!” that breaks through all restraint, and amid shrill, rapturous cheers, two pairs of arms begin to whirl with wild rapidity, the sole thought of their owners being a blind offense according to hit-who-hit-can rules.

The engagement did not last long. A horrified and meddlesome old lady interfered, and after informing you both many times that “little boys shouldn’t fight,” your temperature down again to normal, she sent you off with your disappointed encouragers, while she conscientiously watched you out of sight.

Up to date the question whether you can lick Speck or Speck can lick you is no further settled. Henceforth the spirit of amity prevailed between you. Mettle had been proved, the fight had been fought, and now somebody else must furnish entertainment.

Although victory, actual or prospective, of course never was doubtful (either you were winning, or the other fellow was winning, according as to which did the telling), at some times it appeared to a spectator more decisive than at others.

You were feeling very spunky that noon when amid your preserves you descried a stranger boy; but civilly you challenged him. One may witness two bluff but wary fox-terriers thus approach each other, accost, and investigate.

“Hello!” you wagged; that is, said.

“Hello, yourself!” wagged he.

“Say—what’s your name?” you inquired, as you had every right to do.

“Puddin’ tame; ask me again, an’ I’ll tell you the same,” he replied insolently.

At the unmerited rebuff you stiffened.

“Better not give _me_ any of your sass!” you growled.

“Pooh! What’ll _you_ do!” he growled back.

“I’ll show you what I’ll do.”

“You couldn’t hurt a flea.”

“I couldn’t, couldn’t I?”

“Naw, you couldn’t, ‘couldn’t I.’”

Walking circles around each other, after this fashion you and he sowed crimination and recrimination, while larger and larger waxed an audience hopeful of seeing them spring up as blows.

Only when the flurry came did you discover too late how much taller and stronger and older than you he was. Your bleeding nose showed this to you; and cowed and weeping, you retreated in bad order.

“I’ll tell my big brother, an’ _he_’ll fix you!” you howled threateningly.

“Aw, he ain’t got any big brother,” jeered the heartless crowd, who saw no pathos in your abused organ.

That was true; you had none.

“I’ll tell my father, then,” you wailed angrily—another empty boast; and still sniffling and, fearsomely gory, with the handkerchiefs of yourself and your one faithful companion quite exhausted, you reached the haven of a friendly pump.

Yet you had not been whipped—not exactly.

“Got licked, didn’t you?” unkindly commented various friends and enemies.

“I didn’t, either!” you asserted, indignant. “I had to quit ’cause my nose was bleedin’. It takes more’n him to lick me.”

“He gave you a bloody nose just the samee.”

You would not admit so much as that.

“He didn’t, either; he never touched my nose. It bleeds awful easy. It bleeds sometimes when you just _look_ at it—don’t it, Hen?”

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THE CIRCUS

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THE CIRCUS

TIME: When “You” were a Boy
PLACE: Up-stairs in Hen’s Barn

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

HEN SCHMIDT, Proprietor and Ringmaster
YOU, Proprietor and Contortionist
BILLY LUNT, Trapeze and Tumbling
TOM KEMP, Trapeze and Juggling
NIXIE KEMP, Trapeze and Tight Rope
FAT DAY, Clown
SNOOPIE MITCHELL, Everything

ADMISSION—Ten Pins to All, including Grand Menagerie

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THE CIRCUS

CIRCUS was in the air. Circus had been in the air for some time, exhaled broadcast by village billboards and fences, and the fronts and exposed sides of numerous buildings. Breathing this atmosphere, small wonder is it that you and your compatriots were circus-crazy, and cared not who knew it.

The circus came. From half-past four, in the pink of the dawn, until nightfall, it was given your unremitting aid and presence—the two in one. Your fellows were equally assiduous. Nothing that might be done outside the tent was left undone; nothing that might be inspected was overlooked. As for the inside, some of your friends penetrated, like yourself, with the escort of father, mother, uncle, brother, or neighbor; some, like Snoopie Mitchell, “snuk under”; but all were there.

The circus went. Behind it remained, as evidences of its visit, the still contagious bills; one more welt in the shape of a ring, added to the other similar but older welts upon the face of that historic pasture patch; and a burning ambition in the breast of every youth.

Now witness each back yard a training-school for tumblers, trapeze-experts, weight-slingers, jugglers, bareback-riders, and tight-rope walkers. Right among the foremost were _you_.

“Hen and me are goin’ to have a circus,” you vouchsafed importantly at the family board.

“Hen and who?” queried father, quizzically.

“Hen and _me_.” Why fuss with grammar, when greater things were impending? It is not what one says, but what one does, that counts: at least, according to your copy-book at school, in which you had laboriously written, “Deeds, not Words,” twenty times.

“We’re goin’ to give it in Hen’s barn, and you and mama’ve got to come.”

“I don’t know that I can get away, having just been to one,” stated father, gravely. “I didn’t expect another so soon.”

“_I_’ll come,” comforted mother. “When is it?”

“We dunno yet; but everybody that gets in has got to bring ten pins—and bent ones don’t count, either. Hen’s mother’s comin’.”

“Do you think we can spare ten pins?” inquired mother of father.

The idea seemed preposterous to you, with a whole cushion bristling on the bedroom bureau; but nevertheless you awaited, with considerable anxiety, father’s reply.

“I guess so,” answered father. “But members of the performers’ families ought to go in free. How’s that, John?”

You shook your head decidedly. Such a suggestion must be nipped in the bud.

“_Naw_, sir! Everybody has to pay!”

* * * * *

There was no dearth of performers; they were as plenty as ball-players, and you had an embarrassing number of volunteers, who offered themselves as soon as the news of your circus spread through the neighborhood.

Snoopie Mitchell was among the earliest.

“Say, I’ll be in your circus,” he proposed. “I can skin the cat twice, an’ do the giant’s swing, an’ turn flip-flops both ways, an’—”

“Pooh! That’s nothin’. So can I,” scoffed Hen.

“You can’t, neither!” contradicted Snoopie. “Le’ ’s see you, now.”

Hen obligingly cut a caper.

“Aw, gee!” sneered the redoubtable Snoopie, in high scorn. “That ain’t no hand-spring! That’s a cart-wheel! Anybody can turn a cart-wheel! Aw, gee! Lookee here! Here’s the way _you_ did.” He demonstrated. “Lookee!”—and again he demonstrated.—“_That’s_ a reg’lar hand-spring.”

“Well—I can do it, only my back’s lame,” faltered the abashed Hen. “And I can skin the cat, too. Can’t I, John?”

You nodded.

“But I’ve skun it twice, an’ John’s seen me, haven’t you, John?” trumpeted Snoopie.

You nodded confirmation to this, also.

“Yep,” you said; “he did, Hen; truly he did.”

“Without changin’ hands?” insisted Hen.

“Of course,” asserted Snoopie.

Snoopie was accepted.

Tom Kemp and Nixie Kemp were organizing a circus of their own, but consented to be in yours if you’d be in theirs.

Over Billy Lunt occurred almost a fight, because a rival company set up the claim that he had promised them; but by bribe of a jews’-harp he was won to your side. Fat Day was asked chiefly on account of his pair of white rats, which would prove a valuable addition to the prospective menagerie.

“If you’ll lemme be clown, I’ll bring ’em,” consented Fat.

“But John he’s clown,” explained Hen.

This was true. Before advertising for talent, Hen had preempted ringmaster, and you, clown, as the choice positions, which was only the part of ordinary discretion.

“I tell you, Fat: you can be fat boy, and wiggle your ears and make folks laugh,” suggested Hen, eagerly.

“Uh-uh! If I can’t be clown, I won’t be nothin’,” declared Fat. “An’ you can’t have my white rats, either.”

Hen looked at you dubiously.

“All right. I don’t care. Let him,” you assented moodily, kicking up the dirt with your toe.

“You can be one clown, Fat, and John’ll be the other,” proffered Hen, with fine diplomacy. “And you and he can make b’lieve fight, and things. We ought to have two clowns, you know.”

But the glowing picture of the two clowns did not appeal to Fat’s imagination.

“Naw,” he whined. “If anybody else is goin’ to be clown, _I_ don’t want to.”

Accordingly Fat was awarded the clownship, and you said you’d just as lief be contortionist, which he _couldn’t_ be.

Clowns were really a drug on the market. Not a boy but aspired to the chair, and it required no little tact to steer them into other lines.

The organization, as finally effected, was as follows:

Hen, ringmaster.

You, contortionist.

Billy, who could hang by his toes and do other things on the trapeze, and who, as a tumbler, could stand on his head (sometimes) without touching his hands.

Tom, who could do things on the trapeze, and who was a juggler learning to keep three balls going in the air.

Nixie, who also could do things on the trapeze, and who was an aspiring (and at times almost an _ex_piring) clothes-line walker.

Fat, who could wiggle his ears.

Snoopie, indefatigable, marvelous, a genius of one suspender, whom a special providence seemed to have endowed.

Menagerie (in prospect): Don, your dog; Snap, the Kemps’ dog; Lunt’s cat; Fat’s white rats; Hen’s “bantie” rooster.

A rehearsal was not only unnecessary, but impracticable as well; that is, a rehearsal in company. However, individual practice went on daily, and not a member of the troupe but emulated the most daring feats produced under Barnum’s tent, as could be testified to by the most casual observer, and by that emergency Band of Mercy, the Sisterhood of Mothers, adepts with court-plaster and needle.

“Oh, John!” sighed your own mother. “How _do_ you manage to tear your pants so! This is the third time, and in the very same place! Can’t you be careful?”

“I’m practisin’ splits,” you offered.

“‘Splits’?” repeated mother, densely ignorant.

“Yes. You straddle, and you keep on straddlin’, and see how near you can come to sittin’; and you’ve got to get up again without usin’ your hands. There was a man and woman and little girl and boy no bigger ’n me in the circus that could go clear down till they touched. I can ’most do it.”

“John!” exclaimed mother, in horror. Then she noted something else. “And your waist, too!”

You condescended to explain farther.

“Yes; I tumbled off the trapeze when I was swingin’. Look here!” Pulling up your sleeve you proudly exhibited an elbow. It was an elbow that earned you distinction among your comrades, although Nixie had a knee which he boasted was “skinned” much worse.

The date of the circus was set for Wednesday afternoon, and that morning a show-bill, tacked upon the Schmidt front gate-post, announced it to all the world.

All the little girls of the neighborhood were by turns flippant and wheedling, and boys, your rivals, were positively libelous in their derision.

Schmidt’s barn-loft had long been empty of hay and tenanted chiefly by spiders and rats and mice. It was a splendid place for the circus, a commodious tent being lacking.

Throughout the morning you and Hen, assisted by your associate performers, labored like fury, a profound secrecy enveloping your operations. No one except Billy’s small brother (he having sacredly been sworn “not to tell,” an investiture of confidence that gave him a decided strut) was admitted to gaze upon the advance proceedings; but the noise of hammering and other preparations was carried afar, together with a cloud of dust out of the open loft door.

“Where was your parade?” asked father at noon, when, hot and excited and somewhat grimy, you feverishly attacked your well-heaped plate.

“Didn’t have any,” you mumbled. “Fat wouldn’t let us take his rats out on the street, ’cause he said they’d get away; and, besides, we didn’t have wagons enough for all the cages.”

But to the timid inquiries of the little girls during the morning you had replied boldly:

“There ain’t goin’ to be any parade. Of course there ain’t! Do you s’pose we’re goin’ to let everybody see what we got?”

At half-past one o’clock the public was invited to ascend. The ticket-taker was Billy’s small brother aforesaid, and never was receiving-teller of a national bank more vigilant or particular.

“You didn’t gimme only nine!” he would accuse shrilly. “You didn’t, either! You didn’t, either! You’ve got to gimme another pin or you sha’n’t come in!”

“I gave you ten! I did! I did! Didn’t I, Susie? You dropped one.”

Peace would be restored by the number being made up through the prodigality of a friend, and the ruffled damsel would pass in.

Your mother and Hen’s mother, and your hired girl, and the Schmidt hired girl arrived together, their appearance causing a flurry and contributing to the circus the importance due it. Mrs. Schmidt panted heavily after the toilsome climb,—she was a large, short-winded woman,—and, choosing a seat near the door, fanned herself vigorously.

A few boys, after poking their heads above the floor and grinningly surveying the scene, ended by trooping in with apologetic and bantering mien. But in the main the spectators were feminine.

The amphitheater, constructed of boards laid across boxes, in two lines, slowly filled. As the etiquette of the profession required that circus-performers not be seen until the time for their act, you and Hen and the other stars remained in close seclusion, huddled in the dressing-room—the far corner, veiled by a calico curtain (from the Schmidt clothes-press) tacked to convenient rafters. Meanwhile the public might enjoy the collection arrayed at one side of the loft, where was conspicuously exposed the sign, in white chalk: “Managerie.”

In a soap-box with slats across the front wrathfully crouched Lunt’s gaunt gray Thomas-cat, who had been rudely awakened from a matutinal slumber in the Lunt cellar and ignominiously confined. At regular intervals he uttered an appealing, protesting “Yow!” while he glared through his bars.

Next to him was Hen’s red “bantie,” also in a soap-box, but more composed.

Then came Don, for whom no cage procurable was ample enough; so he was tied to a nail, which afforded him liberty to fawn impartially upon old and young, and occasionally to make frantic endeavors to reach you in the dressing-room.

Next to him was Snap, the Kemps’ black-and-tan, miserable in close quarters; and at the end of the row, quaking in abject terror over the proximity of so many enemies, were Fat’s precious white rats.

“Is _that_ all the m’nag’rie you kids got? Aw, gee!” sneered the invidious boys among the spectators.

“It’s more’n _you_ got, anyhow!” you and Hen retorted from your covert.

“Don’t you touch those rats!” commanded Fat, with a jealous eye out for meddling fingers. “They’re my rats.”

It was very hard restraining the members of the troupe in their quarters until time was ripe. Fat, his face streaked in red and white water-colors, and wearing a costume devised by his mother from large-figured calico, was wild to exhibit himself; and Snoopie, bursting with prowess, demanded careful watching or he would anticipate the program.

“Stay in here, darn you! You’ve all got to wait till the ringmaster says to come.”

“Let go of me, will you!”

“You sha’n’t go out! ’Tain’t your circus!”

“Who’s goin’ out!”

Signs of revolt manifested themselves.

“Why don’t you begin?”

“Gee, I’m hot!”

“If you don’t begin pretty soon I’m goin’ home, and I’ll take my rats, too!”

So, urged from behind, Ringmaster Hen stalked forth and announced:

“We’re ready to begin now.”

He swaggered and magnificently cracked his whip—a treasure consisting of a double length of leather lash, cut by the shoemaker from a square of oak calf, with a twine snapper and a skilfully whittled stock.

Fat Day, needing no second summons, immediately bolted out. He gamboled and pranced and grimaced and “wiggled” his ears, to the applause of the amphitheater and the tremendous excitement of the menagerie.

“Lem_me_! It’s my turn!” besought Snoopie.

“No, lem_me_!” implored Nixie.

“You said _I_ could go first, didn’t you, John?” reminded Billy.

Privately, you thought that the honor should be yours; but you waived your rights as proprietor and decreed:

“Yes, let Billy go first, ’cause I promised.”

Out went Billy and distinguished himself by all the feats in his repertoire, after each one saluting with the expansive gesture of the real professional. Having exhausted the trapeze, and having poised for a breathless instant on his head, he finished by vaulting over three saw-horses, in lieu of elephants, and plunging into the dressing-room.

“Now _I_’m goin’,” asserted Snoopie.

“Naw; it’s my turn!” opposed Tom and Nixie together.

But Snoopie shoved between them and past you, and was in the ring.

Snoopie Mitchell—ragged, wandering, independent, but at times despised Snoopie—was as one inspired. Never before had he such a circle of witnesses, and the wine went to his brain.

He flip-flopped frontward clear across the loft from the dressing-room corner into Mrs. Schmidt’s lap, and flip-flopped backward to the dressing-room again; and bowed. He walked about on his hands; and bowed. He stood on his head (“That ain’t fair!” called Billy. “I did that!”) longer than Billy did, and while in that position spit, besides; and bowed. He did the “splits” farther than you could, and kissed his hand, while the spectators murmured various acknowledgments of his posture.

He rubbed his palms and lightly sprang to the trapeze dangling from the beam.

_He_ skinned the cat, but he skinned it twice, and half into the third, and impishly hung poised, while his shoulder-joints cracked and the Schmidt hired girl moaned:

“Howly saints!”

_He_ hung by his toes and threw wide his arms; but, suddenly letting go, with preconceived adroitness fell on his back, amidst muffled shrieks.

_He_ chinned himself, but he did it ten times.

“Come in! That’s enough!” you ordered.

He obeyed you not. Instead, he hung by his knees; he hung by one elbow and swayed and kicked; he straddled the bar and went around it faster and faster; and with feet between hands, soles against it, he went around that way, too.

In the dressing-room reigned despair and lamentation.

“’Tain’t fair!” wailed Tom, hotly. “I was goin’ to do some of those things myself.”

“So was I!” declared Nixie.

Snoopie was now juggling balls while traversing the official tight rope stretched between two of the saw-horses.

“Make him come in, Hen!” you called.

Hen snapped his whip at Snoopie’s bare legs, and brought him to the boards.

“Quit, will you!” snarled Snoopie. “Don’t you go whippin’ _me_, or I’ll paste you!”

“You darned old fool!” you scolded.

He wiggled his ears—wiggled them much more than Fat could his—and twitched his scalp, accommodatingly turning to right and to left so that all might see.

Then, breathless, crimson, perspiring, he walked on his hands into the dressing-room.

“What did you do all that for?” demanded you, angrily.

“Do what?” retorted Snoopie. “_I_ didn’t do nothin’! What’s the matter with you kids, anyhow?”

“You did, too!” berated Nixie. “You showed off an’ spoilt everything. _I_ ain’t goin’ out.”

“Don’t you—an’ we won’t, either!” chorused Tom and Billy.

“Oh, Jock! Fat’s got his rats and he’s takin’ ’em away with him!” announced Hen.

“You come back, there, Fat! Darn you! bring them back!” you cried, rushing to the rescue.

Too late. Fat was stamping rebelliously down the stairs. The disintegration of Schmidt & Walker’s United Shows, through jealousy, had begun.

“Aren’t you fellows comin’ out?” queried Hen.

“Uh-uh! ’Tain’t any fun,” grunted Billy, spokesman.

“They say they won’t play any more,” you reported to Hen.

“I guess that’s all, then,” stated Hen to the spectators.

With high hoots from the boys, and rustling of dresses from the ladies, the amphitheater was emptied.

“_I_ didn’t do nothin’,” insisted Snoopie, grinning. “You needn’t go to blamin’ _me_!”

But nobody answered him; and with a derisive, “Ya-a-a! Your old show ain’t worth shucks!” he scampered below, to join riotous, admiring spirits elsewhere.

* * * * *

“How was the circus?” asked father, politely, at supper.

“Aw, Snoopie Mitchell spoilt it,” you accused.

“What was the matter with Snoopie?”

“Why, he went and did everything ’fore the rest had any chance—didn’t he, mama!” you asserted.

“Is that so?”

Father glanced at mother, and they exchanged a subtle smile.

“What’s become of the receipts?” he inquired.

You did not comprehend.

“Papa means the pins you took in,” explained mother.

“Oh, I dunno,” you responded, your chief interest just now being in your dish of strawberries.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHEN YOU RAN AWAY

------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHEN YOU RAN AWAY

Oh, the noble king of France,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up the hill one day
And he marched them down again.

FATHER and mother not only cherished the idea that “it was good for boys to have some work to do,” but they cherished it in a distorted form. ’Twas not as though you were opposed to work, per se. No, indeed; there was a time for work and a time for play, and any day you would have been very willing to stay out of school and run errands or pile wood or rake up. Then, work would have been (just as your copy-book informed) a “privilege.”

But witness: only Saturdays and after-school and vacation would do for that, and the privilege was changed into a hardship, with your father, from his security, recollecting what he did “when he was a boy,” and evidently taking it out on you!

For “when he was a boy” father “had to work,” and rather vaingloriously (egotistically, to say the least) presented himself as a living, moving argument to apply to your case. However, he was of little weight with you because, privately, you bet with yourself that he never had to work as hard as you—never! Other fellows could skip off fishing, and everything, while _you_’d got to pile wood or rake the yard.

“Can I go fishin’ to-morrow?”

With a bluffness cloaking sundry misgivings you laid the question before mother, hoping that she would unwittingly answer yes, and that you might entrap her into a family division. Alas, mother was not to be entrapped.

“Ask your father,” she evaded, just as you had feared that she might.

So, reluctantly, you sought father.

“Well, John?” he prompted as you stood before him.

Sharpened to X-ray acuteness through strenuous sire-ship, he interpreted perfectly what was forthcoming.

“Can I go fishin’ to-morrow?”

“But you have the yard to rake, you know, don’t you?”

“I’ll rake it after school next week.”

The promise tumbled eagerly out for inspection, and father summarily condemned it.

“You promised that if I let you off last Saturday you’d rake it _this_ week—”

“It rained,” you faltered.

So it did. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday you had carefully reconnoitered, estimated, circled the prospect, so to speak; given the yard every chance within your power to rake itself, and thus add to nature phenomena; and then, on Friday, when you had got all ready, had come the rain, and balked your farther efforts.

Yes. You had done your best, and now was it for you or yours to discourage Providence? But father rashly plunged ahead.

“I guess you’d better rake and have it done with. Then you can go.”

“I promised Snoopie and Fat I’d go to-morrow. Fishin’ will be dandy to-morrow. It’s always best right after a rain.”

You had begun to whine.

“John!”

When father said “John!” in that tone, and with one exclamation-point, it indicated that your cause was finally and flatly dismissed. An additional exclamation-point might mean committal for contempt. Accordingly, unwilling to provoke this, after sniffling a moment, on the safe side of his newspaper, and morosely kicking the porch railing, you stalked off, slamming behind you the inoffensive gate, and quite ripe for any desperate deed that could readily be undone, if necessary.

The next day dawned splendidly. Never was a better fishing day—never! Never would be another so good—never! Yet father and mother did not seem to care, and ate breakfast as indifferently as though raking the yard was fully as much fun for a boy as pulling out bullheads!

From in front somebody whistled persistently.

“There’s Snoopie. He wants me to go,” you reminded.

Still remained time for a revision of the program, if—if—

“I hear him,” responded mother, mildly.

“Run out and tell him, so he won’t wait,” suggested father.

Enveloped in sorrow and shame you emerged to the impatient Snoopie and broke the news.

“I can’t go. My father says I’ve got to rake the yard.”

Snoopie stared in amaze. _He_ never had any yard to rake, for his father was dead, or something, and his mother worked out by the day. He never had to change his clothes, and he could play hooky whenever he pleased. Sometimes you almost envied Snoopie.

“Aw, hang the old yard!” advised Snoopie, incredulous. “Come on. She’s a daisy day.”

“I can’t,” you confessed miserably.

“Pooh! You bet _I_’m goin’, tho’, all the samee! You’re missin’ it!”

And on he passed, whistling, with ostentatious blitheness, a disjointed tune, leaving you to lean disconsolately over the fence and remark him, and then to retire to face the flinty tyrants within.

You plumped into your breakfast chair, and ruthlessly banged your plate with your knife, and scowlingly bolted your food. But nobody appeared to notice. After breakfast the routine of the day was calmly taken up as usual. Father went down town, to business; mother bustled about household duties; Maggie the girl sang as she removed the breakfast dishes. It seemed to be accepted as a matter of course that you should rake. For this was such a morning made—raking. You raked.

Higher rose the sun, and higher rose your wrath. Happily scratched the poultry, and viciously you scratched, with the rake. What was your life, anyway, but one unremitting round of coercion! Who cared whether you had any fun? Nobody! Other boys could do as they chose; but not you. No; not you. You were always being made to do things that you didn’t want to do. You were nothing but a slave. And you would submit to it no longer.

The darned old fools! You would show them! You would run away!

Then—_then_ (you hoped) would come upon that household the time when, gathered together, one member would say to another:

“I wish that Johnny was here.”

“Yes,” would confess father; “if he were only here he might go fishing whenever he pleased. I would be kinder to him; the yard could wait.”

“And I, too,” would quaver mother. “I understand, now. I used to send him after a yeast-cake, and never think how tired he must be.”

“And I’d never mind again his being in the kitchen,” would sob Maggie the girl. “No, indeed. He should have all the cake and lumps of brown sugar he wanted.”

“Oh, Johnny, Johnny!” would wail all. “Come back and try us once more. We’ll be so different.”

But they would plead too late. You would be far away; perhaps at the very moment dying, unknown, miserable, forlorn and forsaken; dying in the gutter or by the roadside, of starvation and exposure; and the people who found you would inquire, among themselves, pityingly:

“Who is he? Has he no friends?”

And the answer would be:

“None. He is only a poor little outcast, driven by abuse from home.”

That would be a grand way to die, if only the household would know about it. Your eyes grew wet, while your heart swelled triumphant, as the picture took hold upon your sympathies.