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Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 22. Bunny's Brave Act |
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_ CHAPTER XXII. BUNNY'S BRAVE ACT "Now, ladies and gentlemen, as well as boys and girls," began Ben Hall, who was a sort of ring-master, in the play-circus, "I am about to show you that this lion does really eat bread and jam, and that he is a very kind and gentle lion indeed, though he can roar. Roar for the people!" cried Ben, shaking the horse blanket that was hung in front of the "lion's cage." The next second there came such a real "roar," that some of the smallest children screamed. "Don't be afraid!" cried Ben. "He won't hurt you. I will now raise the curtain, and you can see the lion." Slowly he pulled aside the blanket. And then everyone laughed--that is they did after a few seconds. For at first it did look like a real lion in the box. He had a real tail, and a big, shaggy mane, and his mouth was wide open, showing his red tongue and his white, sharp teeth. But when you looked a second time you saw that it was only the skin of a lion, which had been made into a rug for the parlor. And it was Tom White, one of the boys with whom Bunny played, who was pretending to be a lion, with the skin rug pulled over him, and the stuffed head over his head. Underneath the open mouth of the lion peered out Tom's smiling face, and as he looked through the wooden slats of the cage Ben put in a piece of bread and jam, which Tom ate as he knelt there on his hands and knees. "See! I told you this was a kind and gentle lion, and would eat bread and jam," announced Ben. "I will now have him roar for you again, ladies and gentlemen. Roar, lion, roar!" But instead of roaring, Tom, for a joke, went: "Meaou! Meaou! Meaou!" just like a pussy cat. Of course everyone laughed at that. The idea of a big, savage lion meaouing like a kitten! Tom had to laugh and then he couldn't pucker up his lips to meaou any more. "Ladies and gentlemen, as well as boys and girls," went on Ben. "We will now pass to the next cage. This is a real wild animal. He has sharp teeth, so do not go too close to his cage. He is the wild chicken-eater of the woods!" "Oh, I wonder what that can be?" whispered Sue. "We'll see in a minute," Bunny answered. The two children, as well as the other boys who were to take part in the show in the big tent later on, were now following the crowd around to see the animals. "Behold the wild chicken-eater of the woods!" cried Ben, as he pulled aside a blanket from another wooden box-cage. This time there was a sort of snarl and bark. It was so real that everyone knew this was a real animal, and not a boy dressed up in a skin or fur rug. Some of the little children tried to run out of the tent. "Don't be afraid!" called Ben. "He can't get loose. There he is!" He pulled the blanket aside and there everyone saw a small reddish animal, as big as a dog, with a large, bushy tail, a sharp pointed nose, and very bright eyes. "What is it?" asked Sue. "Oh! what is it?" "It's a fox," answered her brother. "I once saw one in the real circus where grandpa found his horses the Gypsies took." "Yes, it is a fox," said Ben. "And a fox just loves to eat chickens and live in the woods." "Where did you get him," Bunny asked. "Oh, one of the boys caught him in a trap, and saved him for the circus. He is going to tame him, but the fox is quite wild yet." And indeed the fox was. For he jumped about, and tried to bite and scratch his way out of the cage. But the wooden bars were too strong for him. The people who had come to the circus gotten up by the big boys, stood for some time looking at the fox, which was a real wild animal. Some of the farmers, though they had lived in the country all their lives, had never seen a fox before. "Now, if you will come down this way!" said Ben, as he started toward a place in the tent that had been curtained off, "I will show you our trained bear." "Oh, is it real?" asked Sue. "You'll see," said Ben, who seemed to know how to talk and act, just like a real ring-master in the circus. Ben stood in front of the little corner of the tent, that was curtained off, so no one could see what was behind it. "Are you all ready in there?" Ben called, loudly. "Yes, yes, all ready!" was the quick answer. And the voice did not sound like that of any of the boys from the nearby farms. "Oh, I didn't know a bear could talk," cried Sue, and everyone laughed, for the tent was very still and quiet just then, and Sue's voice was heard all over. "That wasn't the bear talking," said Ben. "It was his trainer. The man who makes the bear do tricks you know." "Oh, is it a trick bear?" Sue asked. "Yes," answered Ben. "A real truly one?" Bunny wanted to know. "You'll see in a minute," Ben told her. "All ready now, Signore Allegretti! We are going to have you do some tricks with your trained bear!" With that Ben pulled aside the curtain, and there stood a real, live, truly, big brown bear, and with him was a man wearing a red cap. The man had hold of a chain that was fastened to a leather muzzle on the bear's nose. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried the children. "Why, he's real!" gasped Sue. "Of course he's real!" laughed Ben. "He's just like the bear the man had out in front of grandpa's house last week, doing tricks," said Bunny. A man had gone past Grandpa Brown's house with a trained bear, and he had stopped to make the big, shaggy animal do some tricks. Bunny and Sue had given the man pennies, and Grandma Brown gave him something to eat. The man gave part of his bread and cake to the bear. "This is the same man," said Ben. "When I saw him, I thought he and his bear would be just the thing for our circus. So I asked him to come back to-day and give us a little show on his own account. And here he is. He came last night and stayed in the barn so no one would see him until it was time for the circus. I wanted him for a surprise." "Well, he is a surprise," said Bunny. "I didn't think it was a _real_ bear." "Let's see him do some tricks!" called a boy. "All right. He do tricks for you," promised the man with the red cap. "Come, Alonzo. Make fun for the children. Show dem how you laugh!" The bear, who was named Alonzo, opened his mouth very wide, and made some funny noises. I suppose that was as near to laughing as a bear could come. [Illustration: THERE STOOD A REAL, LIVE, TRULY, BIG BROWN BEAR _Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus. Page 211._] "Now turn a somersault!" cried the bear's trainer, and the big, shaggy creature did--a slow, easy somersault. Then he did other tricks, such as marching like a soldier, with a stick for a gun, and he pretended to kiss his master. Then the bear danced--at least his master called it dancing, though of course a big, heavy bear can not dance very fast. "Now climb a pole!" cried the bear's master. "Climb a pole for the little children, and they will give us pennies to buy buns." There was a big pole in the middle of the animal tent, and the bear trainer led the animal toward it. "I make him climb dis!" he said. "Is the pole strong enough to hold him?" asked Grandpa Brown. "The bear is pretty heavy, I think." "Oh, dat pole hold him! I make Alonzo climb very easy," the Italian bear-trainer said. "Up you go, Alonzo!" The bear stuck his long sharp claws in the pole. It was part of a tree trunk, for the regular tent pole had been broken when the tent was carried away in the flood. Up and up went the bear, until he was half way to the top. The children looked on with delight and even the old folks said it was a good trick. And then, all of a sudden, something happened. The big centre pole, half way up which was the bear, began to tip over. Some of the ropes that held it began to slip, because they were not tied tightly enough to hold the pole and the bear too. "Look out!" called Daddy Brown. "The tent is going to fall! Run out everybody!" "They haven't time!" said Grandpa Brown. "The tent will come down on our heads." Bunny Brown stood right beside one of the ropes that held up the pole. Bunny saw the rope slipping, and he knew enough about ropes and sails to be sure that if the rope could be held the pole would not fall. "I've got to hold that rope!" thought Bunny. Then, like the brave little fellow he was, he reached forward, and grasped the rope with both hands. He knew he could not hold it from slipping that way, however, so he wound the rope around his waist as he had seen his father's sailors do when pulling in a heavy boat. With the rope around his waist, brave Bunny found himself being pulled forward as the pole swayed over more and more, with the bear on it. _ |
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