THE FLIGHT

The day before the circus found me at home again. Without delay I set out to find Ed Mason, Charley Carter, and any of the others who could give me the latest information on the topic that absorbed us all.

For, since the Fourth of July, there had been nothing so important as the approach of this circus. For two weeks we had studied the posters. Whether the hippopotamus would in very truth have a mouth somewhat larger than the door of the barn to which his portrait was affixed; whether the head of the giraffe would actually soar above the clouds, as represented; and whether a beautiful lady would indeed stand on the tip of an elephant's trunk and airily juggle three baby lions and a Japanese parasol—these problems had vexed us for fourteen long days.

Charley Carter stuck out for the literal accuracy of the posters.

"'Cos if it wasn't so, they wouldn't dare to print 'em—it's against the law."

This was his argument. Truth to say, none of us were strongly inclined to oppose him. We were more than willing to accept the pictures as photographic.

This point decided without further discussion, we could devote our meditations to the circus itself. We could lay our plans and dream our dreams in all felicity.

To hear some of these plans I started toward the Carters', and fell in with Ed Mason on the way. In his garden we found Charley Carter, who told us of his own and other boys' projects.

Rob Currier would rise, it seemed, before three o'clock on the morrow, and go with his father to watch the unloading of the circus. Our desire to join in this expedition subsided when Charley related his adventures at a similar treat the year before. It was true that he had observed the dim but mountainous forms of elephants and camels outlined against the dawn, but he had also slipped on the car track and so sprained his ankle that he had to forego, not only the great street parade at 10 a.m., but the show itself in the afternoon. The possibility of any such tragic occurrence made Ed Mason and me decide to let the circus unload as best it could without our assistance.

But on this, the very day before the circus would exhibit, we were smitten by an unexpected grief. Charley Carter started the ball of trouble rolling.

"Are you fellers goin' to the side-show?" he asked.

And he added, complacently, "I am."

We had not considered the matter. We supposed we were going. The pictures representing the attractions of the side-show recurred to us, and straightway it became an imperative necessity that we find out if we were going to see these wonders.

We repaired to our respective homes, but were soon back at the place of meeting with dolorous faces. The parental mind in the House of Edwards was at one with that in the House of Mason. The street parade in the morning we should see, and we should be suitably provided with red or green balloons for the more complete enjoyment of the spectacle. To the afternoon performance we should go, pockets filled with the peanuts of Mr. Mazzoni, who sold much better peanuts than the half-baked things supplied by the circus venders. These we might share, if we felt so disposed, with the elephants. Pink lemonade we should not imbibe, as it was "miserable stuff." And the side-show we should not enter, as it was "vulgar."

Such were the terms of the ultimatum. To article one, concerning the street parade and the balloons, we signified our assent. To the second article, concerning peanuts, we also assented. Article three, which forbade pink lemonade, was accepted with the understanding that we yielded to superior force. But to the final article, prohibiting the side-show, we entered an indignant protest.

It was promptly overruled.

Can one conceive a more irrational position? What was this thing, vulgarity, which before now had stood in our path? Had the extra cost of admission to the side-show been the cause for the refusal, we could have understood, even while regretting, the parental attitude.

But vulgarity—what was it?

To us the different exhibits of the show, as portrayed upon the posters, were both curious and wonderful. Were we not men and philosophers, passengers through life, and observers of the human show? Was it not our bounden duty to see all that was strange and marvelous in this great world? Well, then, by what right did our tyrants act? We were of the human race, and held none of its members alien.

Though it might be questioned if the dog-faced boy, the genuine mermaid, the lady with a body like a serpent, and the man of india-rubber skin, came unreservedly into the category of human creatures—still such objections were mere quibbles. A golden opportunity for delight and self-improvement was being denied us, and for the flimsiest of reasons, so we straightway raised the standard of revolt and nailed it to the mast.

"Let's run away!" said Ed Mason.

Really, it seemed the only possible suggestion. When you have simply got to reduce your hard-hearted parents to contrition, milk-and-water methods are useless. A blow must be struck—sharp and decisive. Then they will recognize your value, be properly humbled, and come around to a correct view of things.

Running away from home is at once the boldest of strokes and the most subtle form of revenge. It asserts your independence at the same time that it reduces your parents to humility.

We decided upon it, and then and there fixed the hour of five that afternoon as the time of our departure from home and kindred. We would sever all the ties that bound us to civilization, and plunge into the trackless wilds.

Prompt to the hour, I met the resolute Mason on the farther side of the frog pond. He was simply yet appropriately equipped with a cap-pistol, and two bananas for provender while crossing the wilderness.

I carried a light sling-shot and a package of soda-biscuit. Game—partridges, antelopes, and other creatures—might be slain en route; while our thirst could be slaked at the brooks and streams.

We set out in silence, as became our high purpose. In a little over an hour we had penetrated the desert as far as Brown's ice-house, and there we decided to camp for the night. We had encountered no antelopes, buffaloes, nor other animals, except a herd of cows belonging to Mr. Haskell. They were being driven home by a small boy.

In a little grove of trees back of the ice-house we sat down and made our supper of bananas and soda-biscuit. The ice-pond provided water to wash down the meal. We faced the west, and received full in our eyes the rays of the sun, now rapidly approaching the earth.

For a time we beheld the spectacle of the sunset, though our minds were not upon it. We conversed upon the possibilities of adventure in the Far West, upon the circus which we were leaving behind, and, most of all, of the excitement probably now rife in our homes. Ed Mason, it appeared, had left a note behind him to inform his family of our departure, of the utter folly of any attempt at pursuit, and of the fact that our first stopping-place would be Omaha.

Why he fixed upon Omaha, except that it is remote from our home on the Atlantic coast, I am unable to explain.

By this time, we agreed, our families had begun to wish that they had treated us better in the matter of that side-show.

Some low hills rose upon the western horizon, and the sun disappeared behind them not long after we had finished supper. It cast a golden outline on a strange procession of dark gray clouds which now came out of the north and moved slowly across the place lately occupied by the ball of fire. They followed one after the other like uncouth animals—the dromedary with his hump was there, the elephant, and other figures, longer and lower, like serpents and lizards.

We watched them without speaking.

A faint breeze moved the branches of the apple tree over our heads. It was perceptibly darker now, and not easy to make out the details of the fields and meadows. Two men passed along the dusty road on the other side of the stone wall. They did not notice us, but we heard them discussing a dog after they had vanished from sight. The sky in the east and north turned rosy, and its colors were reflected in the pond. A man with a lantern moved about Mr. Brown's barnyard for a while, then disappeared indoors, and presently a light shone from one of the windows of the house.

The glow in the west; the pageant of clouds, whose fiery edges had grown dimmer; the immensity of the overarching sky, still turquoise-colored—all these, together with the disappearance of the familiar landscape, conspired to make the two outlaws under the apple tree feel rather diminutive. The swallows had ceased their flight and gone to bed. Two or three robins screamed excitedly for a while, and darted in apparent hurry from tree to tree. Finally they became quiet, except for an occasional outburst of twittering. Two bats began to flutter about, with their high, thin, squeaking cries like the opening and shutting of a new pair of scissors.

The darkness was far advanced; three or four stars were visible, and the pink tint had faded from the sky. The pond gleamed like silver, but its banks were black and mysterious.

"We ought to start awful early in the mornin'," said Ed Mason; "p'r'aps we better go to bed now."

He began this remark in a voice that sounded fearfully loud, but said the closing words in a whisper.

"P'r'aps we had," I agreed,—also in a whisper.

There was no one within hearing: it seemed strange that we should have to whisper.

In another way, however, it appeared quite proper to whisper.

I was reflecting that, aside from a night spent in a tent with two or three other boys, in Peter Bailey's garden, I had never slept outdoors. It also occurred to me that we had no bedclothes nor pillows. We had blankets that night in the tent, and made pillows out of piles of hay. The hay tickled the back of your neck somewhat, but otherwise it was all right.

"We might sleep in Brown's barn," I suggested.

"That's so," Ed replied.

Then an afterthought struck him.

"No; we couldn't do that."

"I don't see why not."

"Why, of course we couldn't. There ain't any barns on the prairies!"

I had never thought of that.

The objection was unanswerable.

"Besides," pursued Ed, with something like a shudder, "tramps sleep in these barns."

I abandoned the plan hastily.

"Could we get some hay from the barn?" I wondered; "there won't be any tramps in there now, will there?"

"I guess not. We needn't go all the way in,—we can reach some by just openin' the door."

He was on the point of rising when another objection occurred to me.

"Maybe Mr. Brown wouldn't like it."

"He hasn't any right to say anything 'bout it. In time of war they take what they want, don't they? They make a forced levi."

This subject of the forced "levi" had been discussed amongst us at some length in connection with Mr. Hawkins' cherries. Jimmy Toppan and Rob Currier had the impression that it had something to do with a clothing dealer on Main Street.

"Anyway," Ed remarked, "we can put the hay back in the morning."

This seemed to be a reasonable solution in order to keep our career as outlaws on a moral basis. So we arose and started cautiously for the barn. Before we had taken five steps in that direction, a voice spoke. It was a deep, resonant voice, charged with authority and menace. The word or phrase that it uttered was not, it seemed to us, especially relevant, but there could be no mistaking the import of its accent and tone. It came from the earth, from the sky, from nowhere in particular and from everywhere in general.

It said: "Ker-r-rum!"

Having said this, it was instantly silent. The final syllable ended suddenly, but yet with a twang as if some giant had touched the string of a great instrument.

The hush that ensued was appalling. I had sat down, as if struck to the earth, the moment I heard the awful sound, and now I tried to address Ed Mason, who was leaning faintly against a tree. But I made three efforts before my vocal apparatus responded.

"Wh-what was it?" I asked.

He turned toward me, and said something in a whisper, which I could not make out. I sat still for a moment longer, then hitched myself toward him and repeated my question.

But he could not answer me.

Neither could he say whence the sound came. That was the horrible part of it—the vague immensity of the note. We remained motionless for what we thought a long time.

Then Ed suggested that we move our camp. Immediately the problem arose: in which direction should we move? While we deliberated, in whispers, suddenly again, ominous and terrible:—

"K'r-rum!"

That sufficed. In three seconds we were over the wall and running at full speed along the highway. At the crossroads, an eighth of a mile away, we saw the lights of a buggy. It contained certain male relatives.

"Hello, boys! Going home?"

We admitted that that was our destination.