Jerry Learns that o-u-t Spells Out
The first and, as it turned out, the last performance of their circus took place that afternoon. Jerry felt a thrill of expectancy as they began to don their costumes. Once he thought he almost heard again that low, cheerful strumming that had seemed to beat upon his ears when he first saw the poster of the elephant jumping the fence. He said nothing about it and soon lost all recollection of the rollicking strains in the anticipation of the circus joys that he was about to behold.
Chris and Danny got into their costumes in the woodshed while Celia Jane went into the house and put on her white dress, the one she wore on Sundays. Mrs. Mullarkey had decided that Nora didn't need any special costume to be a rope-walker and that all Jerry needed to be a trained seal was a sort of apron made out of a gunny sack to protect his clothes while he crawled about on his stomach. He did not put this on at once but watched Danny getting into the skin of the elephant, wishing with all his heart that he might be the elephant, even if its tail was big and flat instead of being small like a rope.
It might have proved a mirth-provoking elephant to others had there been others present to see it, but to Jerry's eager imagination there was nothing laughable about it. The green wrapper hung most loosely about Danny's small, slim figure, great folds almost touching the ground, while the brown trunk and the blue, beaver-like tail waggled and wiggled about until they met between the front and hind legs of the elephant.
There was something about that awkward elephant that made Jerry feel all friendly inside and struck the chord of envy in his heart. He was not at all inclined to laugh when the cap with the very floppy palm-leaf-fan-ears attached fell off, as Danny started to gallop around the woodshed on all fours to see if the costume was all right.
Celia Jane now came dancing out of the house in her white frock, her hair loose and flowing for the pony's mane, while pinned to the back of her dress, at the waist line, was her mother's switch to represent the pony's tail. The strands of gray in the black hair did not match with the brown of the pony's mane, but that presented no difficulties to the imagination of the circus performers.
"Come on!" Celia Jane called. "Let's play circus. I'm all ready."
"Wait a minute, can't you?" complained Danny. "I guess I'm the head of this circus. I've got the biggest part and I ain't quite ready. Just hold your horses."
"Whoa!" cried Celia Jane. "I'm just one pony. Get up!" She flapped her side with one hand, as though urging a horse to quicken his pace, and galloped out back of the woodshed where the circus "tent" had been set up and began prancing and dancing and preening about. Jerry was torn between desire to watch her graceful whirling and pirouetting and to keep fascinated eyes on the green elephant. He just had to stay and see if the elephant's ears fell off again. But Danny was equal to the occasion and tied the cap on with a piece of string.
"Celia Jane, you just come back here," he called. "I guess the elephant has to enter the circus ahead of the horse. Horses always get scared of el'funts unless they're behind where they can see them. How do you expect us to parade if you're there already?"
"All right," replied Celia Jane and came prancing back into the woodshed, "but hurry."
"I'll be first," said Danny, "an—"
"An' I'll be second!" cried Chris.
"I'm third!" Nora and Celia Jane exclaimed together.
Jerry said nothing. He knew where his place would be,—the very tail end of the parade.
"Boom!" sang out Danny and again, "Boom!"
"What's that for?" asked Chris.
"It's the music so that the people will know the circus is about to begin," replied Danny. "They always have music for the parade an' everything. Darn Darner said so."
"Let's sing then," suggested Nora.
"Sing what?" queried Danny crossly, seeing a threat to diminish his importance in the circus.
"We might sing 'Heigho, the cherry-o,'" said Celia Jane.
"'I Went to the Animal Fair' will be much more appropriate," Nora suggested.
"All right, sing," consented Danny, "but the crowd's gettin' restless; I can hear them stampin' and whistlin'!"
"I'll start it," said Nora. "All ready."
Thus the parade started and entered the main circus tent, which consisted of a pole in the center, with no canvas at all, to the strain of,
I went to the animal fair;
The birds and the beasts were there;
The little raccoon, by the light of the moon,
Was combing his auburn hair.
The monkey he got drunk,
Ran up the elephant's trunk,
The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees
And what became of the monkey-monkey-monk?
Jerry tried to sing, too, but he had a very hard time, for he couldn't crawl as fast as the others walked and the carpet-rag balloon wouldn't stay balanced on his nose but kept rolling off to the ground. The rest of the parade was halfway around the ring (marked by a circle of sawdust which Danny had made after sawing wood energetically for half a day to get enough sawdust) when the trained seal had just reached the main entrance.
"Run and catch up with the parade," came Danny's voice through the circus music. "We can't have the parade split in two that way."
The trained seal jumped up on his hind feet carrying the balloon under a forefoot, and ran until he caught up with Celia Jane; then he plumped down on his stomach again.
Jerry was very hot and flushed and the muscles of his back and neck ached. He tried desperately to balance the ball of carpet rags on his nose, but it kept rolling off, and Jerry had to scramble after it and the parade was soon away ahead again. In desperation, he held the balloon on his nose with one hand and tried to creep ahead with but one arm and his legs as motive power. His progress was slower than ever.
He could see Danny—or, rather, the elephant—stalking majestically ahead to the strains of "I Went to the Animal Fair," his trunk and his tail wobbling about until they met under his body, and the palm-leaf ears flopping with every step. Jerry felt hurt and out of sorts as he panted from the exertion of trying to crawl on one arm. He had suggested playing circus and he ought to have been allowed to play the part of the elephant. There was no fun in being a trained seal balancing a balloon on its nose, as there was in being a green elephant with floppy ears and wobbly tail and trunk. It would serve that greedy Danny just right if he should refuse to play in his old circus.
Jerry saw that he was again falling far in the rear and tried to scramble on faster. Then, of course, the balloon fell off and Jerry was almost in tears as he jumped after it.
Then the music of the parade came to a sudden end. The rest of the performers were at the main entrance, having marched clear around the ring while Jerry had not covered much more than half the distance.
"Can't you hurry any?" asked Danny. "You're spoilin' the circus all the time, 'way behind like that."
"I can't crawl as fast as you can walk," answered Jerry, in a voice that threatened to break into a sob.
"I guess a trained seal had orter crawl as fast as a man can walk," said Danny, "or how could they have them in circuses?"
"I'm comin' as fast as I can," returned Jerry. "I wish you'd just try bein' a trained seal for a time and see how fast you can crawl on your stummick." Jerry rose to his hands and knees, holding the ball of carpet rags in his teeth, and progressed much faster.
"Who ever heard of a trained seal carryin' a balloon in his teeth?" Danny protested. "I guess his teeth would go through the balloon and let all the air out."
"Let's not have no trained seal," pleaded Jerry. "It ain't no fun."
"We got to have a trained seal," replied Danny.
"You be it then," suggested Jerry, "an' let me be the el'funt. You said I could part of the time."
"I'm going to be the el'funt," proclaimed Danny. "The circus ain't even begun yet."
"I won't be a trained seal, so I won't," said Jerry, at last catching up with the parade. "The balloon won't stay on my nose and my neck hurts and I've cut my hand on a piece of glass or a splinter or something till it bleeds." He held up one hand with a little trickle of blood on it. "I want to be something else. I won't play if I've got to be a trained seal any more."
"All right," Danny acquiesced, after a moment's thought, "you can be the audience. We need an audience to clap their hands and holler so's we'll know the crowd likes us and we're doin' all right. This circus can get along without no trained seal."
"I don't want to be the audience," replied Jerry dismally, seeing that, as the audience, he would have nothing to do with the circus.
Nora now put in a word. "Let's count out," she said, "and the one who's counted out will be the audience."
"I guess not," replied Danny emphatically, but after Celia Jane had whispered something in his ear, he considered a moment, looked at Jerry and then whispered something to Nora.
Nora looked at Jerry and counted on her fingers rapidly. Then she counted on her fingers again, after a quick glance at Danny. She nodded to Danny, who said:
"All right, whoever's counted out will be the audience. You count out, Nora." Starting with Danny and pointing to a child in rotation with each word, Nora chanted and counted:
| "'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. |
| All good children go to heaven. |
| O-u-t spells out.'" |
Her finger was pointing at Jerry.
"Jerry's out!" cried Celia Jane, skipping about. "He's the audience!"
"I won't be no audience," said Jerry.
"You'll have to be," asserted Danny, "you was counted out."
"I won't be! I won't play!" cried Jerry. He threw down his carpet-rag balloon, took off the gunny-sack apron, tossed it on top of the balloon and ran to the house.
"Cry baby!" shouted Danny after him, but Jerry did not even wait to refute that charge, for he knew he was in danger of proving it if he remained out there a moment longer.
Jerry felt the hot tears start to come as the screen door slammed after him. He dashed them angrily out of his eyes and ran up the stairs to the room he shared with Danny and Chris. If Mother 'Larkey had been at home and not away sewing for Mrs. Moran, he would have gone to her in his bitter disappointment, sure of finding comfort in her arms as he had so many times.
It was not fair for Danny to take the part of the elephant away from him and not even let him play it for a teeny little while, as he had promised he would. For two cents he would run away as he had from the man with the—the scarred face. He looked quickly around, half-fearful, as always, that that man might have learned where he was and be lurking around the corner ready to pounce upon him. The room was empty and he took a long breath. He would run away if it weren't for Mother 'Larkey and for little Kathleen who always cried when he even said anything about running away. He heard the screen door slam shut after a time and Nora's gentle footsteps coming up the stairway. He turned his back to the door.
"Jerry," pleaded Nora's coaxing voice, "come on out and play. Danny didn't mean anything."
Jerry did not answer. He did not even look around.
"Danny wants you to play with us," continued Nora. "Won't you?"
"No," Jerry replied at length.
"Why won't you?"
"He didn't play fair."
"I'll count over again, Jerry, so's I'll be the—" The voice stopped and then continued chokily, "—the audience."
Jerry knew what it cost her to say that, but he hardened his heart. "I don't want to play no more," he said.
"Please do, Jerry. I'm sorry I didn't play fair, Jerry."
"I won't," pouted Jerry. "He said I could be the el'funt some of the time."
"Mebbe he'll let you after while, after he's tired of playin' it," suggested Nora, without any great fervor of conviction in her voice. "I'll ask him to."
With that Nora left the room. He wondered if she could persuade Danny to let him be the elephant part of the time. He might play then, if Danny coaxed him to.
He heard the screen slam after Nora and waited, listening for it to go slam-bang much louder. That would mean that Danny was coming to let him play elephant. Danny always let the door go shut slam-bang. He waited a long time and then he heard the shouting of the children. They were playing circus without him! Danny wouldn't let him be the elephant. Very well, if they didn't want him around and wouldn't let him play with them, he would run away. Danny would be sorry then. Perhaps he would be killed on a railway track or something and Danny would cry over his dead body, he'd be so sorry he didn't let him be the elephant.
That thought comforted him and he began gathering up the things he wanted to take with him. There was the fur cap that Mother 'Larkey had made for him out of an old muff of hers, the winter before. He couldn't leave that behind, nor yet the overcoat which she had made for him out of an old coat of her husband's just after Mr. Mullarkey had died. The other things he didn't care much about. Yes, after all, he would take the ragged, fuzzy cloth dog that Kathleen had insisted on giving him. The dog had lost an ear, a forepaw and one eye; still he cherished it because Kathleen had given it to him of her own free will, something that Danny nor Chris nor Celia Jane nor even Nora had ever done.
He would wear the cap and overcoat, even if it was summer; then he wouldn't get so tired carrying them. He put on the fur cap, pulling it well down over his ears, and slipped into the overcoat. Slowly he took up the woolly dog and started down the stairs. Then he remembered the red mittens which a lady had brought him at Christmas, and returned to get them. He put them on carefully, smoothing them over his hands, and then went downstairs and out by the front door, prepared for any kind of weather.
He was going to run away again, as he had from that man with the scarred face. He heard the children shouting at their play and decided he would first watch them a minute and perhaps let Danny know what he had driven him into doing. He went down the alley which led past the woodshed, behind which the circus performance was going on, and stopped to watch with his face wedged between two pickets of the fence.
Nora was walking the rope slowly. She was doing it very well as long as she kept one end of the balancing pole on the ground, but when she got halfway across the rope, the end of the pole was so far behind that she couldn't steady herself with it. She tried to drag it up even with her and in so doing lost her balance and had to jump to the ground. As she straightened up, she saw Jerry's face between the palings.
"There's Jerry!" she called to Danny.
"Thought you would play, after all," Danny remarked.
"I'm not," said Jerry.
"He's got his cap on!" laughed Celia Jane. "What've you got your cap on for, Jerry?"
"And your overcoat?" said Nora.
"And your mittens?" chimed in Chris. "You ain't cold, are you?"
"I'm running away," Jerry responded, addressing no one in particular. He tried to say it indifferently as though it were a matter of everyday occurrence, this running away, but in spite of himself a note of pride crept into his voice. None of them had ever run away.
"Running away!" gasped Celia Jane in an awed voice.
"Oh, Jerry, don't!" pleaded Nora.
Danny stared at him in open-mouthed amazement.
"I'm running away," Jerry repeated and sat down on the ground by the fence where he had an unobstructed view of the circus.
