Jack the runaway; or, On the road with a circus

by Frank V. Webster

Then came the sharp crack of a whip, and Jack jumped, for the end of the lash had caught him on the legs, which were but thinly protected with his cotton clown suit.

“Jump lively!” cried the voice, and Jack turned to see Otto Mitz, the ringmaster, in his dress-suit and white gloves, waving his long whip. Once more the lash came curling toward Jack, but he jumped aside in time to avoid it. There was a laugh from that portion of the audience in front of which he stood. Doubtless they thought it was part of the show.

With anger in his heart at the man who had been so needlessly cruel, Jack broke into a little run. Though he had not known it, he was suffering a little bit from “stage fright.” The ringmaster had cured him of it. The boy felt a fierce desire to make the people laugh heartily—to show that he could “make good.”

He began his antics. Selecting a portion of the large outer ring where there were no other clowns, Jack did a funny dance, interspersed with snatches of songs, though the band rather interfered with this. Then seeing a board and a saw-horse near him, he put them into place, so that he might jump from the end of the plank, in his pretended flying act.

Flapping the big paper hoops, as a bird does its wings, Jack leaped from the end of the springboard. He tangled himself all up in the rings, one coming around his neck and the other encircling his legs. Then flapping his arms like the sails of an old-fashioned windmill, he trotted off amid the laughter and applause of the throng.

He had been told by Sam Kyle that all the clowns repeated their acts four times, in different parts of the ring, so that the entire audience might see them. Bearing this in mind, Jack prepared to go through the same stunt a little farther along. He succeeded even better than at first, and his funny antics earned him loud applause.

“Ha! hum! Not so bad,” murmured a voice near him, as he finished his second attempt. He looked up and saw Mr. Paine.

“Keep it up, my boy,” said the manager. “I guess you’ll do.”

Jack was grateful for the praise, and almost forgot the mean ringmaster, though his leg still smarted where the lash had struck him.

But if Jack thought he was to have such an easy time winning success, he was mistaken. He was going through his turn for the fourth and last time when, just as he “flew” from the end of the board, Ted Chester came along, doing a stunt in a miniature automobile in which he sat, propelling it with his feet. Unfortunately, Jack landed right in front of the other clown, who ran into him, upsetting himself and overturning the auto.