“Well,” Hazel began at last with much the same air as a veritable showman, “this little boy is named Flutters, and he did belong to the circus, but he does not belong to it any more. He has run away, and we've helped him to do it. Somehow he's quite alone in the world, and he has to s'port himself, so he joined the circus 'cause he found he could do what the other tumblers did, and'cause he heard they were coming to America. But he has not been at all happy in the circus,” and Hazel, pausing a moment, looked toward Flutters for confirmation of this sad statement, and Flutters bore witness to its truth by gravely shaking his head from side to side. Indeed all through her narration it was most amusing to watch his expression, so perfectly did it correspond with every word she spoke. Little folk and old folk have a fashion of letting each passing thought write itself legibly on the face. It is only the strong “in-between” folk who take great care that no one shall ever know what they chance to be thinking about.
By this time Starlight began to show a desire to take a share in the telling of the story, but Hazel would none of it. She thought, perhaps unjustly, that he had proved somewhat of a coward in the latter part of the transaction; at any rate, he himself had pushed her to the front, and there she meant to stay. “No, he has not been at all happy,” she continued; “indeed, the manager has often been very cruel to him; but I will tell you about that another time” (for her eyes were growing a little tearful at the mere remembrance of some things Flutters had told them); “and the way we came to know about it was this: sometimes when Flutters takes a great jump from the spring-board and turns a somersault two times in the air, he slips his knee-cap—that's what you call it, Flutters, isn't it?” (Flutters nodded yes), “and then he has to slip it back again himself, and it hurts a good deal, so that he can't jump any more for a while. Well, to-day he slipped it, and then he crawled over underneath where we sat, and we talked with him a little; then Starlight told him to creep under the benches when no one was looking, and Starlight dropped down between the seats and talked with him some more.”
“And then we arranged,” Starlight now interrupted in such an unmistakably determined manner that Hazel allowed him to continue, “how he should run away, and he didn't even go back for his clothes, because he says that the manager can almost see what a fellow's thinking about, and he didn't dare. So when we had fixed everything I climbed up to Hazel and told her what she was to do, and then I dropped down again, and Flutters put on Hazel's cloak so as to cover him up a little, and we scooted. We came near being found out once, but we got over the great fence safe at last and into Beekman's woods. There Hazel was to meet us with some of Hans Van Wyck's clothes, if she could get them.”
“And I did get them,” chimed in Hazel, for it was surely her turn once more, “and—but, oh!” stopping suddenly, “the clothes! Starlight, do hurry and get them, or some one coming along the road may run off with them.” Starlight obeyed, frightened enough at the thought of the possible loss of the borrowed articles, and quickly returning with them to the great relief of both Hazel and himself.
Then the story went on again, turn and turn about, Flutters gaining courage to join in now and then, till at last, when the twilight had given place to the sort of half darkness of a starlight night, and the fire-flies were flashing their little lanterns on every side, they had told all there was to tell, and three foot-sore little people confessed they were tired and sleepy and hungry, and glad enough to go indoors and do justice to a most inviting little supper, which Josephine had slipped away some time before to prepare.
“Bonny Kate” (as she was called more than half the time, after a certain wilful but very charming young woman in one of Shakespeare's great plays) had long ago fallen asleep, and lay just where her mother, running indoors for a moment, had stowed her away in a corner of the great hair-cloth sofa in the dining-room. One pretty hand was folded under her rosy cheek, and such a merry smile played over her sweet face! She surely must have been dreaming of a remarkable little fellow, in beautiful velvet and spangles, coming head over heels up a garden path.