THE FLYING CLOWN
There are many accounts of the flying clown, in books, nearly all of which refer to him as bull-bat or nighthawk, and a member of the Goatsucker or Nightjar family. But he wasn't a bull and he wasn't a bat and he wasn't a hawk and he wasn't a jar; and he flew more by day than by night, and he never, never milked a goat in all his life. So for the purposes of this story we may as well give him a name to suit ourselves, and call him Mis Nomer.
He was a poor skinny little thing, but you would not have guessed it to see him; for he always wore a loose fluffy coat, which made him look bigger and plumper than he really was. It was a gray and brown and creamy buff-and-white sort of coat, quite mottled, with a rather plain, nearly black, back. It was trimmed with white, there being a white stripe near the end of the coat-tail, a big, fine, V-shaped white place under his chin that had something the look of a necktie, and a bar of white reaching nearly across the middle of each wing.
These bars would have made you notice his long, pointed wings if he had been near you, and they were well worth noticing; for besides just flying with them,—which was wonderful enough, as he was a talented flier,—he used them in a sort of gymnastic stunt he was fond of performing in the springtime.
Perhaps he did it to show off. I do not know. Certainly he had as good a right to be proud of his accomplishments as a turkey or a peacock that spreads its tail, or a boy who walks on his hands. Maybe a better right, for they have solid earth to strut upon and run no risks, while Mis did his whole trick in the air. It was a kind of acrobatic feat, though he had no gymnasium with bars or rings or tight rope, and there was no canvas stretched to catch him if he fell. A circus, with tents, and a gate-keeper to take your ticket, would have been lucky if it could have hired Mis to show his skill for money.
But Mis couldn't be hired. Not he! He was a free, wild clown, performing only under Mother Nature's tent of wide-arched sky. If you wanted to see him, you could—ticket or no ticket. That was nothing to him; for Mis, the wild clown of the air, had no thought either of money or fame among people.
Far, far up, he flew, hither and yon, in a matter-of-fact-enough way; and then of a sudden, with wings half-closed, he dropped toward the earth. Could he stop such speed, or must he strike and kill himself in his fall? Down, down he plunged; and then, at last, he made a sound as if he groaned a loud, deep "boom."
The Flying Clown.