The Dizzy Seat of Glory
"You boys wait here while Helen and I get ready," said Whiteface, "and then we'll pay our respects to Mrs. Mullarkey and Nora and Celia Jane and Kathleen."
"You won't go out of the tent, will you, Gary?" asked the elephant-lady.
"No'm," Jerry promised, and then at the look of disappointment and longing on her face, cried, "No, Mother!" He ran and gave her a good-by hug. "I'll wait right here."
When Jerry and Danny and Chris were left alone, there was an abashed silence at first, broken after a minute by Chris' remarking:
"Gee, ain't it excitin', Jerry! Findin' your father and mother an' being lifted up in a el'funt's trunk an' your father a clown in the circus and all?"
"Yes," smiled Jerry with satisfaction. "He's the greatest clown ever lived."
"I guess that's so," Danny stated judicially and also apologetically, for he wished to make up with Jerry for getting his circus ticket away from him.
"It is so!" cried Jerry emphatically.
"That's what I meant, Jerry—I mean, Gary." A silence fell and then Danny continued: "I wish I'd never of asked Celia Jane to cry and get your ticket away from you."
Jerry said nothing, as he remembered how Danny had tricked him, and Danny, after shifting about uneasily, added as though in justification of his action:
"If I hadn't of, you'd probably never of met your father. He couldn't of spoken to you if he hadn't seen you before you got into the circus."
That impressed Jerry as a point of view that might be true and somehow he didn't feel angry at Danny and Celia Jane any more. He was too happy at having a clown for his father to hold resentment.
"Mebbe not," was all he said, but Danny took those words as meaning that Jerry wasn't going to stay mad.
"How'd you get in?" he asked eagerly.
"Whiteface thought of a way that didn't cost any money," replied Jerry.
"What kind of a way was that?" Danny was all eagerness for information of that sort.
"I don't know," said Jerry. "He thought of something an' told me to keep my eyes shut an' I didn't see what he done."
"Didn't you open 'em jest once?" demanded Danny. "I would of and then mebbe we could of got into other circuses that way."
"It might of mixed our thoughts, like when I said something when he told me not to," Jerry observed.
"What d'you mean, mixin' your thoughts?"
Jerry was saved by the entrance of Mr. Burrows from trying to explain just what he did mean by that, for he hadn't understood very well himself. The circus man was smiling all over as he approached Jerry and seemed just as pleased that Jerry had found his parents as Jerry was himself.
"Well, well, well," he said, holding out a hand which Jerry accepted in the same amicable spirit in which it was offered, "so you're the son of Robert Bowe! We were good friends before you were stolen and I hope will be again when you get reacquainted with me. Maybe your father and mother will be satisfied to stay with the circus now that you have been found."
"Was they goin' to leave the circus?" asked Danny in an awed voice.
"So they said," answered Mr. Burrows, "but now I guess they'll stay."
"Go away an' not be a clown no more?" Jerry asked this new-old friend, as one man to another.
"Go away and not be a clown any more," Mr. Burrows asserted.
Just then a man and woman entered and came straight to Jerry. Why, it was Jerry's mother and a strange man!
Mrs. Bowe didn't look the same in an ordinary blue dress and without the paint on her cheeks and lips and yet Jerry had recognized her almost at once; perhaps it was her golden-brown hair, or, more likely, the joy which sparkled in her eyes and lighted up her face.
"I didn't go away once, Mother," he said.
She smiled at him and the strange man spoke.
"I knew you wouldn't," he said.
Jerry was dumfounded and so must Danny and Chris have been, for they gasped. The voice that issued from the lips of the strange man was the voice of Whiteface, the clown, the new-found father of Jerry!
Jerry's thoughts were paralyzed for a minute and he could only stare up at Robert Bowe, ordinary citizen, in stupefaction.
So that was what his father looked like when he didn't have the clown costume on, with his face all chalked and his lips rouged! Just a common, ordinary, everyday, plain man, like—like Dan Mullarkey was, or Tom Phillips or Darn Darner's father. He was not very tall and not very big, and his face was rather long and there was quite a sprinkling of gray in his hair.
Jerry was so terribly disappointed in his father that, after that long stare, he gazed away and would not look up at him again. He winked his eyes to keep the tears from coming.
"What is it, Jerry?" asked Mrs. Bowe. "Tell mother."
Jerry tried to think of something to say that wouldn't hurt his father's feelings or his mother's, but couldn't, and he stood there in misery and disappointment, his lips quivering and twisting and the tears gathering on his eyelashes.
It was Danny who voiced the emotions that Jerry was experiencing.
"You look different," he said. "Only your voice sounds the same."
"Bless my soul!" cried Mr. Burrows, and laughed heartily. "The boy's disappointed that his father's just a man and not a clown."
"Is that it, Jerry?" asked his mother, falling to her knees and gathering him close to her breast.
"He ain't Whiteface," Jerry mourned softly in her ear.
Mr. Bowe laughed at that, and it was such a good-humored, infectious chuckle of mirth that Jerry at last looked up at his very disappointing father, and the twinkle in his father's eyes and the engaging, twisty smile that played about his lips comforted Jerry. This father of his wasn't so ordinary looking, after all! But a clown is so much more interesting than just an everyday father.
"You'll see Whiteface often enough," he promised Jerry, "to satisfy even you."
"Nora won't," said Jerry, "nor Kathleen nor Celia Jane."
"The boy's right!" exclaimed Mr. Burrows. "Dress up as the clown to see the woman who's cared for Gary and I'll have Sultana got ready for you to ride on. The boy's a better press agent than the one I pay to advertise the circus. I announced that Sultana had found your stolen child and told the newspaper men all about it. You and your wife ride on Sultana through the town, and you'll be followed by all the children at the circus and those who are not here, and the circus will get such an advertising as it never had before. And it will make Gary happy, too."
"Will it, Gary?" asked his father.
"Yes!" cried Jerry, thrilled at the thought of riding through the town on an elephant, with his father and mother. "It'll be better 'n a circus."
"Robert Bowe, disappear!" commanded Robert Bowe.
That surprising father of Jerry's wagged his head solemnly with such a comical look that Jerry shrieked with delight as Mr. Bowe turned a handspring that carried him through the curtains into another part of the tent.
Mr. Burrows went out laughing, to have Sultana brought around, and Jerry waited impatiently for Whiteface to reappear. His most blissful dreams had been exceeded this wonderful day, and now the most wonderful part was still to come.
He was too excited to pay very close attention to what his mother said, and Danny and Chris seemed to have been struck dumb by this dazzling height of glory that was about to befall "Orfum" Jerry Elbow, who had suddenly been transformed into Gary L. Bowe, son of a clown and of an elephant-lady.
Suddenly there sounded the delightful clicking that Whiteface made with his mouth and Jerry's eyes almost popped out of his head in his eagerness for Whiteface to reappear. He watched the curtain where his everyday father had disappeared, without daring to wink his eyes for fear Whiteface would get in without his seeing him.
As he watched, he felt himself being lifted in a pair of strong arms and twisted his head around to see who it might be.
It was Whiteface! He had got back without Jerry's seeing him! Yet Jerry was sure he hadn't winked his eyes, not even once.
"Away we go to the Mullarkey house! Away we go to the Mullarkey house!" chanted Whiteface, whirling around and around, as he carried Jerry on his shoulder out of the tent to where Sultana and an elephant keeper were awaiting them. Jerry's mother followed close, smiling at his delight. From the corner of his eye, Jerry saw Danny and Chris walking slowly behind her.
The keeper put up a little ladder against the elephant's side and Whiteface ran lightly up it and deposited Jerry on a cushioned seat that ran around the little house on Sultana's back that he called a howdah. Then he helped Mrs. Bowe up and sat down by her. The keeper had taken the ladder away when Jerry again saw Danny and Chris looking up at him in envy. There was plenty of room in the little house for them. He turned to his father.
"Is Great Sult Anna O'Queen's back strong enough for her to carry Danny and Chris, too?"
The most surprised look spread over Whiteface's features and the beautiful lady remarked:
"Gary has your kind, thoughtful nature."
"I think Great Sult Anna O'Queen's Irish back is strong enough to carry Danny and Chris. I'll ask her. First though, we'd better find out how much they weigh?"
"How much do you weigh, Danny?" Jerry called down.
"I don't know," replied Danny.
"If you don't weigh too much, mebbe you and Chris can ride, too."
"Us ride on a el'funt!" exclaimed Danny. "Why, why, I don't weigh much, do I, Chris?"
"No," replied Chris eagerly. "You're not big enough to weigh much and I'm littler than you are."
"I think I can tell near enough," said Whiteface; "Danny weighs about sixty pounds and Chris about forty. That makes one hundred pounds and I weigh one hundred and sixty-five. Helen, how much do you weigh?"
"A hundred and twenty pounds," she answered.
"I never can remember that. That makes two hundred and sixty-five and one hundred and twenty is three hundred and eighty-five pounds and there's Gary. He must weigh thirty pounds—say four hundred and fifteen pounds altogether."
Whiteface jumped from the little house on Sultana's back to her head, sat down on top of that, leaned over and whispered something in the elephant's ear.
Jerry stood up so he could see better, and as he did so the elephant's ear, which Whiteface had lifted up, wiggled and flopped out of the clown's hand.
"She says four hundred and fifteen pounds is not too much on this occasion," Whiteface announced and directed the keeper to help Danny and Chris up to Sultana's back. But Danny and Chris didn't need any help in running up the ladder.
Then Mr. Burrows approached and tossed a bit of paper up to Mrs. Bowe.
"That's a pass for a box at the circus to-night for Mrs. Mullarkey and all her family," he said.
"Is one pass good for all of them?" asked Jerry, as Danny caught the precious bit of paper and handed it to Mrs. Bowe.
"Yes," laughed Mr. Burrows, "it is when it's got the name of Edward J. Burrows on it. Just tell her to show that to the ticket seller and he'll give her the seats."
Then Whiteface, still sitting on top of the elephant's head, told the keeper he was ready and Sultana started. It took Jerry and Danny and Chris quite a while to become accustomed to the manner in which the palanquin joggled about on Sultana's back, but they were getting used to it when the elephant reached the street close to the entrance of the main tent where the people were streaming out from the performance.
There was a shout from the small boys in the crowd who immediately swarmed about Sultana and tagged on in the rear as she ambled patiently down the street. They looked enviously at Jerry and Danny and Chris and raised such a hubbub that every child they passed and many of the grown persons, too, fell in line. The story of how the elephant had recognized the lost boy and picked him right up out of the audience passed rapidly from mouth to mouth, with the result that no one left the ever lengthening procession that followed the elephant.
Jerry took turns with Danny and Chris in directing the elephant keeper how to get to Mrs. Mullarkey's. Jerry would not have missed one joggle or sway of that ride for worlds. He saw Darn Darner in the crowd following them, and he was glad that such a stuck-up boy should see what a high place in the world Jerry Elbow had reached and be envious of him. He even waved to Darn to make sure that Darn knew that he saw him.
"Hello, Jerry!" cried Darn in a loud voice, so that everybody would know he knew Jerry, and swaggered up close to the elephant. "How does it seem to be ridin' on an el'funt?"
"Fine!" Jerry exclaimed ecstatically.
"Don't you wish you was up here?" Danny asked in a voice that was not nearly so friendly as Jerry's had been.
"Anybody would, I guess," was Darn's reply.
"Well, you ain't," said Danny. "You're down there breathing the dust we make."
"There's the house!" cried Jerry.
"Which one?" asked Whiteface from his seat on the elephant's head.
"The one with the paint all wore off," Danny explained.
"There's Nora and Celia Jane!" cried Chris.
"I see them!" Jerry exclaimed and called his mother's attention to them. They were standing by the gate, watching the strange procession approach.
"Hello, Celia Jane! I'm ridin' on a el'funt!" Jerry cried shrilly to make her hear.
Celia Jane both heard and saw and she seemed glued to the gate-post with surprise. Her mouth opened as though she were going to speak and remained open, without a word coming out. Nora turned and fled into the house crying:
"Mother! Mother! Jerry's ridin' by on a el'funt from the circus!"
A moment later the keeper halted Sultana in front of the gate, and that fact unglued Celia Jane from the gate-post and caused words at last to flow from her opened mouth.
"Mother! They're stoppin' here!" she cried, in turn running to the house. She kept her eyes turned back on the elephant and ran into Nora, who was pulling Mrs. Mullarkey, with Kathleen in her arms, out through the door.
Whiteface now commanded Sultana to help him down, and she raised her trunk, wrapped it around his body and lowered him to the ground. The crowd of boys and girls who had pushed up as close as they could made way for him, while Jerry and his mother climbed down the ladder the elephant trainer placed for them, followed by Danny and Chris.
"Mother!" called Celia Jane. "There's Danny on the el'funt and Chris too!"
"For land sakes!" cried Mrs. Mullarkey. "Nothing has happened to any of the children, has there?"
"We're all right, Mother 'Larkey!" Jerry assured her.
"Nothing at all, madam," said Whiteface approaching her, "except that Jerry Elbow has found his parents."
Mrs. Mullarkey stared at Whiteface, too astounded to speak.
"An' his name ain't Jerry Elbow," cried Danny. "It's Gary L. Bowe."
"An' the el'funt knew him in a whole crowd of people," Chris added, "an' picked him up with its trunk."
"The people thought the elephant was mad at first," said Darn Darner, who had approached as close as he could get to the clown.
"The el'funt picked him up in its trunk?" gasped Celia Jane, her eyes growing bigger and bigger.
"An' we're all goin' to the circus to-night!" Danny informed them.
"All of us!" Celia Jane got breath enough to utter.
"Me, too?" Nora asked.
"Yes, all of you!" laughed Jerry. "And Kathleen, too."
"I wanta see serka," cried the baby.
"And so you shall," said Whiteface, so close that Kathleen drew whimpering away from his white, chalky features. "It's all true, Mrs. Mullarkey."
"Don't be afraid of Whiteface, Kathleen," called Jerry. "He's father."
At last Mrs. Mullarkey found her voice, but at the queer, choking sound she made, Jerry looked up and saw tears running down her face.
"I can't tell you how glad I am that you have found your father and mother, Jerry," she said. "Mr. Darner is here now and, after all, he was going to take you away—this very day. And Celia Jane—" She couldn't finish, but put Kathleen down and covered her face with her apron, rocking her body back and forth.
Jerry looked towards the house and saw at the living-room window the face of a man,—a large, heavy face that seemed to scowl out at the crowd.
