The Circus Comes to Town

"Ask Your Mother for Fifty Cents"

The apple seemed to Jerry Elbow too big to be true.

He held it out at arm's length to get a good squint at its bigness and its redness. Then he turned to look wonderingly after the disappearing automobile with the lady who had tossed him the apple for directing her to the post office. A long trail of dust rose from the unpaved street behind the motor car.

Next he addressed himself to the business of eating the apple. He rubbed it shiny against his patched trousers, carefully hunted out the reddest spot on it, and took a big, luscious bite. Instead of chewing the morsel at once, he crushed it against his palate just to feel the mellowness of it and to get the full flavor of the first taste of juice. Then he chewed vigorously.

He started on to Mother 'Larkey's where he had made his home for nearly three years, ever since Mr. Mullarkey, dead this year now, had found him by the roadside one dark night. He had just started to take a second bite when a shout stopped him.

"Hi, Jerry! What you got?"

Instinctively Jerry hid the apple behind him, for it was Danny Mullarkey's voice that he had heard.

"Jerry's got something to eat!" Danny called over his shoulder to some one out of sight. "Come on, kids!"

Jerry hastily swallowed the piece of apple in his mouth and bit off the very largest chunk he could. He knew by long and bitter experience how little would be left for him after the Mullarkey brood had all nibbled at it.

Danny, who was past nine, reached him before Jerry could gulp down that mouthful and take another bite, as he had intended to do. Chris and Nora followed at Danny's heels, with Celia Jane, as usual, far in the rear.

"Save me a bite, Jerry!" called Celia Jane.

"Give me a bite of your apple, Jerry," coaxed Danny.

"Me, too," echoed Chris.

"It looks awful nice," observed Nora. "Where'd you get it?"

Jerry explained and handed her the apple first because she had not asked for a bite. Nora bit off a small piece and was passing it on to Celia Jane, who ran panting up to them, when Jerry stopped her by urging:

"Take a bigger bite than that, Nora. I want you to."

"Not till after you've had your turn again," replied Nora, who was nearly eight and was celebrated in the Mullarkey household for a finer sense of fair play than any of the others possessed.

Celia Jane was greedy and bit off so big a chunk that she could not cram it into her mouth, despite her heroic efforts to accomplish that feat.

"That ain't fair, Celia Jane," reproved Nora. "Mother told you never to do that again."

"That's two bites!" cried Danny. "Take it out and bite it in two."

Celia Jane's mouth was too full for utterance. She held out the apple to Danny, then freed her mouth of its embarrassment of riches and proceeded to bite it in two.

"Here, Chris," invited Danny, "take your bite next."

Jerry became immediately suspicious at such unaccustomed politeness on Danny's part and he was not at all surprised when Danny, once the remainder of the apple was again in his hands, took to his heels.

"Save me a bite!" cried Celia Jane, swallowing the morsel in her mouth so quickly that she came near to choking, and tagged after her older brother as fast as she could run.

"Danny!" cried Jerry. "That's no fair!"

He started to run after the vanishing apple, but was quickly passed, first by Chris and then by Nora, who called back to him: "Maybe I can save the core for you, Jerry."

Bitterness arose in Jerry's soul. He knew that he couldn't catch up with Danny, but he kept on running. That old, odd feeling that he did not belong to the Mullarkeys, though living with them, came over him again, and he had already begun to slow down his pace when he was brought to a full and sudden stop by a picture blazoned on a billboard.

He stared spellbound, without even winking. Of all delectable things, it was the picture of an elephant! A purple elephant jumping over a green fence, its trunk raised high in the air until it almost touched the full, red moon at the top of the poster. The elephant had such a roguish and knowing look in his small eyes and such a smirk on his funny little mouth that Jerry began to smile without being the least bit conscious that he was doing so.

The smile kept spreading in complete understanding of the look on the elephant's face and he probably would have laughed aloud had not the picture somehow made him think of something, he couldn't just remember what. A dim idea seemed to be trying to break into his mind but couldn't find the right door. In his effort to puzzle out what it was the elephant made him think of, Jerry entirely forgot the large red apple and the perfidy of Danny.

"What're you lookin' at?" called Danny, who had stopped half a block farther on when he no longer heard Jerry's pursuing footsteps.

Jerry did not answer. Instead, he squatted down on the grassy bank between the sidewalk and the billboard and feasted his eyes on that delightfully extravagant elephant which seemed almost to wink at him. Jerry half expected to see the elephant grab the moon and balance it on the end of his trunk, or toss it up into the sky and catch it again as it fell.

"Come on, Jerry, if you want the core," called Danny again. "That's all that's left."

"Don't want the core," said Jerry. "It was my apple. The lady gave it to me." He didn't even look at Danny but kept staring at the very purple elephant and the very red moon almost on the tip-end of his trunk. He just wouldn't let Danny Mullarkey know that it made any difference to him whether Danny and Chris and Nora and Celia Jane liked him very much or not.

No, and he wouldn't feel so terribly bad if Mother 'Larkey and little Kathleen didn't like him, either.

"You ain't lost your tongue, have you?" cried Danny.

"Maybe the cat's got it," said Celia Jane, following as usual her elder brother's lead and laughing at her own wit.

"What you starin' at so hard, Jerry?" called Chris.

Jerry disdained to reply or to let his enraptured gaze wander for a moment from the dazzling poster. Curiosity soon got the better of Chris and he started to walk back.

"El'funt!" shouted Chris, when he was near enough to see the poster. His shout started the whole Mullarkey brood galloping towards the billboard.

"The circus!" cried Danny, from the superior experience of his nine years. "The circus is coming to town!" He threw himself on the grass by Jerry and pressed the uneaten apple core into his hand.

"I don't want it," said Jerry.

"Aw, take it, Jerry. I didn't mean to eat so much of it, honest I didn't. I just wanted to tease you." He closed Jerry's fingers around the core.

"It doesn't say the circus is coming," Nora observed, pointing to some lettering in one corner of the poster. Nora was nearly eight years old and proud of her ability to read print, if the words weren't too big,-an ability shared by none of the others except Danny.

"It does, too!" contradicted Celia Jane, wrinkling up her nose preparatory to crying with disappointment if the circus were not coming. "There's some writin' on it."

"What does it say, Danny?" eagerly asked Jerry, going close to the billboard as though that might help him to make out what was printed on it. "Ain't it coming?"

"Read it quick, Danny! Please! I can't wait!" cried Celia Jane.

Thus besought, Danny read somewhat haltingly, for the "writin'" was in queerly formed letters, these words which are known to all children:

Ask your mother for fifty cents

To see the elephant jump the fence,

He jumped so high he hit the sky

And never came down till the Fourth of July.

"Is that all?" asked Celia Jane, very much disappointed.

"Didn't I just read it to you?" was Danny's rejoinder.

"Then the circus ain't comin', is it?" said Chris.

"It don't say so," replied Nora. "It don't say whether it's comin' or whether it ain't."

"It doesn't say it's a circus," said Danny. "It might be just an 'ad' for-for any old thing."

"For a menajeree?" asked Celia Jane.

"Or chewin' gum?" suggested Chris.

"Or something," affirmed Danny decisively.

Jerry forgot to be disappointed about the circus not coming, for he was bothered about what it was that the picture of the elephant made him almost think of. He tried and tried with all his might to think what it was, but didn't succeed. Then something almost like faint music seemed to hum in his ears and his lips unconsciously formed a word, "Oh, queen," he murmured.

"Oh, what?" said Danny sharply, turning to him.

"I didn't know I said anything," replied Jerry. "I didn't mean to."

"You did," said Celia Jane. "You said, 'Oh, queen.'"

"What does that mean, 'Oh, queen'?" asked Danny.

"I-I don't know," replied Jerry.

"What did you say it for then?"

Jerry felt that he was being treated unfairly when he wasn't conscious of having said anything and he didn't answer. He was sorry that the humming almost like music wouldn't come back,-it was so comforting.

"If you don't know what 'Oh, queen' means, what did you say 'Oh, queen' for?" persisted Danny.

"I don't know," Jerry replied, at a loss. Then he brightened, "I might have heard it, sometime."

"Maybe it was somebody's name?" suggested Nora.

"I don't know."

"It's an Irish name, if it's got an O in front of it, and you said 'O'Queen'," Celia Jane stated.

"Did you ever know an Irish man or Irish woman by the name of 'O'Queen'?" questioned Danny.

"I don't know," repeated Jerry, his lips twisting in real distress at not being able to think what could have made him say a thing like that.

"You don't know anything, do you?" asked Danny in the teasing, affronting tone he sometimes adopted with Jerry.

"I do, too," affirmed Jerry, his lips tightening.

"You don't know how old you are," said Celia Jane, following Danny's lead.

"Do you know what your name is?" asked Danny.

"Jerry Elbow," replied Jerry, hot within at this making fun of his name which always seemed to give Danny so much enjoyment.

"Jerry Elbow," said Danny, putting so much sarcasm into pronouncing the name as to make it almost unbelievable that it could be a name. "What kind of a name is that-Elbow! Might as well be Neck-or Foot."

"It's just as good as Danny Mullarkey!" declared Jerry.

"There's nothing the matter with your name, Jerry," interposed Nora. "Eat the core of your apple," she continued, pointing at it, forgotten, but still clutched tightly in his fist.

"I don't want the old core," said Jerry and threw it against the billboard.

Celia Jane ran after it, grabbed it eagerly, wiped it off on her skirt and popped it into her mouth.

"Celia Jane!" called Nora, "Don't you eat that core after it's been in the dirt."

But Celia Jane had quickly chewed and swallowed it. "It's gone," she said. "Besides, it wasn't dirty enough to amount to anything."

Jerry had returned to contemplation of the elephant jumping the fence, when a youthful voice called from across the street, "Look at it good, kid. I guess it's about all of the circus you'll see."

Jerry and the Mullarkey children turned and faced the speaker. It was "Darn" Darner, the ten-year old son of Timothy Darner, the county overseer of the poor, and a more or less important personage, especially in his own eyes. You had to be very particular how you spoke to "Darn" unless you wanted to get into a fight, and unless you were as old and as big as he was you had no desire to fight with him. He was especially touchy about his name. He had been "Jimmie" at home but once at school he had signed himself, in the full glory of his name, J. Darnton Darner, perhaps to do honor to his grandfather, after whom he had been named. Thereafter "Darn" was the only name that he was known by outside of the classroom and his own home.

He had fights innumerable trying to stop the boys calling him by that name, but it persisted until at length he came to accept it. You could call him "Darn" or shout "Oh, Darn!" and nothing would happen, but if, in your excitement, you grew too emphatic and said "Darn!" or "Oh, Darn!" you might have to run for the nearest refuge, or take a pummeling from his fists.

So now Jerry answered very politely. "It looks good," he said.

"Is the circus coming?" asked Danny.

"Of course it is. What do you suppose they've put up the posters for?"

"It don't say so here," said Nora. "All it says is-"

Darn interrupted. "Where've you kids been? That old poster has been up for a week. Two new ones were pasted up to-day-one at Jenkins' corner and the other on Jeffreys' barn. It's Burrows and Fairchild's mammoth circus and menagerie and it's coming a week from Thursday."

"Are you going, Darn?" asked Danny.

"Am I going?" repeated that youth. "I should say I am going-in a box seat."

"Is it a big circus?" asked Chris.

"It's one of the biggest there is," replied Darn, "with elephants and clowns and a bearded lady and everything. I'll tell you all about it the next day."

Without more ado, he began to whistle and continued on his way. When he was out of sight, Jerry turned back to the billboard, and the Mullarkey children lined up at his side and stood in silent contemplation of the delights forecast in the picture. They felt a new respect for that elephant.

"I don't suppose we can go," said Chris at length in a voice that invited contradiction. His remark was met by silence and they continued to stare at the elephant.

Jerry was puzzled. "What does it want you to ask your mother for fifty cents for?" he asked Danny.

"To buy a ticket for the circus, of course."

"Will she give you fifty cents?"

Danny seemed struck by some sudden thought; whether or not his question had inspired it Jerry was unable to tell. After pondering for a time, Danny set out towards home on a run without having answered the question.

"Where're you goin'?" asked Chris, with a tinge of suspicion in his voice.

"I'm goin' to ask mother and see."

"That's no fair!" cried Chris. "You can run the fastest and 'll get to ask her first."

"She can't give fifty cents to all of us," replied Danny and kept on running.

"Danny Mullarkey! You're a mean old thing!" called Nora.

Already Chris was racing after Danny; the contagion soon spread and first Nora and then Celia Jane were running with all their might after their brothers.

Jerry started to run after them, but it was a half-hearted run and he brought up a very laggard rear. He never tried to get anything for himself that the clannish Mullarkey brood had in their possession, or to which they could with any shred of justice lay claim. If he did, he knew by experience that they would all unite against him-all except Mother 'Larkey, who, trying to earn money to support them all, could not always know what was going on under her tired, kindly eyes, much less the things that took place behind her back. And baby Kathleen, who was too little to feel the claims of the Mullarkey blood and who loved everybody.

But Jerry was sure he had never seen a circus and he did want to go to this one and see the elephant jump the fence. He felt very friendly to that elephant and well acquainted with it. The roguish look in its eyes, in the picture, made it seem a very nice sort of elephant and he knew he would like it.

But he also knew that Mother 'Larkey found it very hard to make both ends meet since her husband died-he had often heard her say so-but there might be a possible chance that she would have several fifty-cent pieces, so he started again to run after the other children, keeping close enough to be in time if Mrs. Mullarkey should happen to be distributing fifty-cent pieces among her brood and there should happen to be an extra one for him. Even though she were not his mother, she might give it to him, she had already done so many things for him.