Laura Lee Hope

“ So I went back to my circus, and made up my mind I'd come back here again to-day. I'm glad I did, for now I've found you, Ben."
Ben told Mr. Hooper, just as he had told Bunny and Sue, about sleeping all night out in the field, under a pile of hay, and then of creeping back to sleep in the tent.
"Well, do you want to come back with me, or stay here on the farm?" asked Mr. Hooper. "I'll promise that you'll be well treated, Ben, and the head clown, who was so mean to you, isn't with us any more. You won't be whipped again, and you'll have a chance to become a head clown yourself." ”

“ Run for grandpa!"
Bunny was almost choking, and his face, tanned as it was from the sun and wind, was red now—almost as red as the boiled lobster, the hollow claw of which Bunny once put over his nose to make himself look like Mr. Punch, of the Punch and Judy show. For when boys, or girls either, hang by their feet, with their heads upside down, all the blood seems to run there if they hang too long. And that was what was happening to Bunny Brown. [Pg 12]
"Are you sure you isn't playin' circus?" asked Sue. ”

“ Holding the hands of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, Ben, the strange boy, who had been so queerly found under the straw in the tent, walked toward grandpa's house.
"Well land sakes! Where'd you come from?" asked Grandma Brown, as she saw him. "And such a looking sight! You look as if you'd slept in a barn all night!"
"I did—almost," said Ben, smiling.
"Well, come in and get that clown suit off you," said Mrs. Brown. "Then tell us all about it. What made you run away?"
"I was afraid that man would get me," said Ben. ”

“ They were just eating the last crumbs of the cookies, and drinking the last drops of milk, when Bunny, looking out toward the road, saw, going past, a man with a large number of balloons, tied to strings, floating over his head. There were red balloons, and blue ones; green, yellow, purple, white and pink ones.
"Oh, look, Sue!" cried Bunny. "The balloons! That's just what we want for our circus."
"What do we want of balloons?" asked the little girl.
"I mean we ought to have somebody sell them outside the tents," Bunny went on. "It won't look like a real circus without toy balloons." ”

“ And it is a good thing that Bunny could not get his feet loose just then, or he would [Pg 11] have wiggled himself to the ground, and he might have been badly hurt, for he would have fallen on his head.
"Oh, Bunny! Bunny! You is playing circus!" cried Sue again. She had finished her first peach, and now, dropping the stone, from which she had been sucking the last, sweet bits of pulp, she stood looking at her brother, dangling from the tree.
"No, I'm not playing circus!" and Bunny's voice sounded now as though he was just ready to cry. "Run and tell grandpa to help me down, Sue!" he begged. ”

“ And there were no big fish in the pond, only little minnows, about half as big as a lollypop stick.
"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, as she saw the hen mother watching the little ducks paddle about, "Oh, Bunny, I know what we can do."
"What?"
"We can give the hen mamma a ride on our boat. Poor thing! She never can go paddling or swimming with her family. Let's take her on our boat, and she can sail with her little ducks then, and not get wet."
"That's what we'll do!" Bunny cried. "I'm glad you thought of it, Sue. We'll give the old hen a sail, and the ducks can paddle around with us." ”

“ Everyone laughed when Sue said that, and Sue herself blushed as red as the ribbon on her hair, and the sash her mother had pinned around her waist.
"Does your elephant eat peanuts?" asked Daddy Brown, smiling.
"No, I don't guess so," answered Sue. "He likes corn better."
"Now the show's going to begin!" cried Bunny Brown. "Get ready everybody. The first will be a grand trapeze act! Come on, boys! Play some music, please, Bunker!" ”

“ Sue wanted to know, while the Italian balloon peddler stood looking at the two children, as if wondering what they would do next.
"Well, the hired man said all he could do was milk a cow, and plow up the ground. He wanted to know if they were circus acts, and I said I guessed not," replied Bunny. "So maybe he'd be glad to sell lemonade and peanuts."
"I think he would," said Sue. "You needn't do anything except blow up your balloons and sell 'em," she went on to the Italian. "Never mind about the peanuts and the pink lemonade." ”

“ I'm glad you put it under me."
"So'm I glad," declared Sue. "I guess you won't want to be in a circus, will you, Bunny?"
"Sure I will. Men fall in circuses, only they fall in nets. But hay is better than a net, 'cept that it tickles you," and Bunny took from his neck some pieces of dried grass that made him wiggle, and "squiggle," as Sue called it.
"Hello! What happened here?" asked a voice, and the children looked up to see, standing in the door of the barn, Grandpa Brown. "What happened?" asked the farmer. "Did you fall, Bunny?" ”

“ Oh, how my head hurts!"
"You look just like the circus man," said Sue. For one of the men in the circus Bunny and Sue had seen a few days before had hung by his toes from a trapeze, upside down, just as Bunny was hanging, with his head pointing toward the ground, and his feet near the top of the tent. ”

“ Now turn yourself inside out, like the circus man did."
"No, Bunny can't do that yet," said Ben. "He must first do easy things on the trapeze. Turning yourself inside out is too hard. Bunny is not strong enough for those tricks."
To and fro swung Bunny, but soon his arms began to get tired.
"I—I want to get down!" he called. "Stop the swing—I mean the trapeze," for the trapeze was very much like a swing, as I have told you, only, instead of a board, it had only a stick to which the little boy was holding by his hands. "I want to get down," Bunny called. "Stop me, Bunker." ”

“ Have all the fun you like, but don't get hurt. Are you two going to be the whole circus?"
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Bunny. "We're going to have Tom White and Ned Johnson——"
"And Nellie Bruce and Sallie Smith," added Sue.
"All the children around here; eh?" asked grandpa. "Well, have a good time. I used to have a trained dog once. He would do finely for your circus."
"What could he do?" Bunny wanted to know.
"Oh, he could pretend to say his prayers, make believe he was dead, he could turn somersaults and climb a ladder."
"Oh, if we only had him for our circus!" cried Bunny. ”

“ It's a rat! It's a whole lot of mice!" said Bunny's mother.
"Yes, it's a whole lot of mice, and they're white!" said Mr. Brown with a jolly laugh. "Hurrah! We've found the lost white mice from the boys' circus! You needn't be afraid of them!"
Mrs. Brown did not scream any more. She was not afraid of white mice. Bunny and Sue ran into the room where their mother and father were. There they saw their father picking up the white mice in his hands, and petting them. The mice seemed to like it. ”

“ Oh, dear!"
"And if I was a circus man, I could climb down the rope and get her!" Bunny went on.
"Oh, don't you dare do that!" Sue fairly screamed. "If you do you'll fall in and be drowned. Don't do it, Bunny!" and she clung to him with all her might.
"I won't, Sue!" the little fellow promised. "But I can see your doll down there, Sue. She's floating on top of the water—swimming, maybe, so she isn't drowned.
"Oh, I know what let's do!" Bunny cried, after another look down the well.
"What?" Sue wanted to know.
"Let's go tell grandpa. He'll get your doll up with the long-handled rake." ”

“ There were seats all around the outer edge inside the big fair tent. It was in this one that the real "show" was to be given. Here the big boys would swing on trapezes, have foot and wheelbarrow races, ride horses and do all sorts of tricks.
"The people will sit here and watch us do our funny things," said Ben. "We're going to have clowns, and everything."
"And what's going to be in the little tent—the army one grandpa let you take?" asked Bunny.
"Oh, that's for the wild animals," said Bunker Blue.
"Are you going to have our dog Splash striped like a blue tiger again?" asked Sue. ”

“ Yes, that's it!" a voice exclaimed behind Bunny and Sue. They looked around to see their Grandpa Brown looking at them and laughing.
"The old hen doesn't know what to make of her little family going in swimming," he went on. "You see, we put ducks' eggs under a hen to hatch, Bunny and Sue. A hen can hatch any kind of eggs."
"Can a hen hatch ockstritches' eggs?" Sue wanted to know.
"Well, maybe not the eggs of an ostrich," answered Grandpa Brown. "I guess a hen could only cover one of those at a time. But a hen can hatch ducks' or turkeys' eggs as well as her own kind." ”

“ When Bunker and Ben had made the barn look as neat as it was before the little circus was held, and when the blue stripes had been washed off Splash, the two big boys sat and talked until supper was ready.
"What do you think about getting up a larger circus?" asked Bunker.
"Why, I guess we could do it," said Ben.
"Are there some big boys around here?"
"Lots of 'em. I've met some since I came here with Bunny, Sue and their family. We could get the big fellows together, and give a real show, in a tent." ”

“ Come on, Sue, I'm going to look for the white mice."
"All right," Sue said. Maybe some little girls would be afraid of mice, white, black or gray. But Sue was not. Perhaps it was because she knew Bunny was going to be with her. Then, too, Sue was very anxious to have the circus as good as it could be made, and if the mice were missing some of the people who came might not like it. So Sue and Bunny said they would help hunt for the lost white mice. ”

“ Splash went up to the strange boy, rubbed his cold, wet nose on the boy's legs, and then Splash began to wag his tail.
"See, he likes you," said Sue. "He's going to be in our show; Splash is. He's going to be half a blue-striped tiger when we have our circus."
"Circus!" cried the strange boy. "Is—is there a circus around here?" and he seemed much surprised, even frightened, Bunny thought afterward. [Pg 42]
"No, there isn't any circus," said Grandpa Brown. "It's only a make-believe one the children are getting up. But we musn't keep you standing here talking when you're half starved. ”

“ He hurried out of the tent, but soon came back again.
"Ben isn't in sight," Grandpa Brown said, "and that queer man is running across the fields."
"Is he chasing after Ben?" asked Bunny.
"Well, he may be. But if I can't see Ben, I don't see how the man can, either. I don't know what it all means."
"Maybe the man was a Gypsy," said Sue, "and he wants to catch Ben, same as the Gypsies took grandpa's horses."
"Gypsies don't take boys and girls," said Mrs. Brown. "Besides, that man didn't look like a Gypsy. There is something queer about it all." ”

“ Then he played on his mouth organ, Ben tooted on the comb and the curtain slid back on the wires by which it was stretched across the stage, or platform, in the barn.
"Welcome to our show!" cried Bunny Brown, making a bow to the audience which was seated on boxes and boards out in front. "We will now begin!" he went on. "And after the show you are all invited to stay and see the wild animals. We have a blue-striped tiger, a wild zebra and an——"
"An elephant, only he lost two legs in a accident," said Sue in a shrill whisper, fearing Bunny was going to forget about the turkey. ”

“ One of the country boys, who had a lot of white mice had promised to lend them to the circus. He had taught them to do some little tricks, and this was to be a part of the show.
"Oh, I can hardly wait!" cried Sue. "I want to see the circus."
"Well you can now, in a day or so," said Bunker. "Hi there! What have you?" he asked of a boy who came up to the tent with a box on a wheelbarrow. [Pg 193]
"This is the wild lion," was the answer.
"Oh-o-o-o-o!" exclaimed Sue, getting closer to Bunny. "A lion!"
"Oh, I've got him well trained," said the boy. "He won't hurt you at all. ”

“ He's the only animal, except the mice, that we've put in the tent yet. But how did your mice get out, Sam?" he asked the boy who owned them.
"I don't know. They were all right last night, but, when I went to feed them this morning, the cage door was open, and they were all gone."
"Will—will they bite?" asked Sue.
"No, they're very tame and gentle," answered Sam. "White mice and white rats, you know, aren't like the other kind. I guess being colored white makes them kind and nice. They run all over me, in my pockets and up my sleeves. Sometimes they go to sleep in my pockets. ”