SUSY

We passed the afternoon gloomily. There seemed to be no use in returning to the circus field without the once influential Horace. Except for him, we appeared to be almost the only persons who had not gone to the circus.

Horace, we presumed, would have to spend the whole afternoon in that bath-tub. We could imagine his misery.

The hours wore on, somehow, and about five o'clock the fortunate ones began to return. We saw a group of them go into the Carters' side yard, and so Ed and I strolled over there to increase our suffering by hearing them recount what they had seen.

Seven or eight boys and girls were sitting on the steps of the veranda. Both the Carters were there, and Harry Fletcher, Susy and Minnie Kittredge, Ed Mason's sister Florence, and one or two others. Flossie Mason, being fifteen and grown up, had not been to the afternoon performance,—she was going in the evening with her mother.

The eyes of all of them were still wide open, for in their vision mingled strange animals, galloping horses, and tumbling clowns, while the fascinating odors of trampled grass, freshly turned earth, sawdust, pop-corn, and rubber balloons lingered in their nostrils.

Susy Kittredge, of course, was talking. She was beginning, in retrospect, her tour of the tents.

"An' it rained just before we got to the circus, an' the rain went through the tent an' washed the stripes all off the zebra an' he was all pinky-streaked, an' Dan Rolfe said he wasn't nothin' underneath but just a donkey, an'—"

"Don't say 'wasn't nothin',' Susy," said Susy's older sister, Minnie.

Minnie was a prim little girl, with black hair parted in the middle, and drawn into two tight pig-tails.

"Well, he wasn't," retorted Susy; "an' there were puddles of pink paint all round his feet where the paint washed off, an' Rob Currier touched him, an' got the end of his finger all red, an' Louise Mason said it was zebra blood an' it's deadly poison an' Rob'll have fits an' die!"

Susy opened her eyes still wider, and regarded us all with the pleasant feeling that accompanies the disclosure of horrible news.

"There were a lot of real donkeys next to the zebra, an' one of 'em had on the saddle that the monkey rode on in the precession,—an' he rode him again in the race, too, an' next to them was a antelope in a cage, an' then a ger-noo—"

"A what?" inquired Ed Mason, in a tone of deep scorn.

"A ger-noo," said Susy; "but he was asleep—"

"That ain't ger-noo," Ed returned, "it's 'noo,'—just like that."

"It isn't! It said 'Ger-noo or Horned Horse' right on the cage. I guess I saw it, Ed Mason, and you weren't there, so what do you know 'bout it?"

"I don't care," replied Ed, doggedly, "'tain't 'ger-noo.'"

Susy puckered up her face and seemed about to cry, but Flossie Mason remarked hurriedly: "Never mind, Susy. What was in the next cage?"

"Oh, there was—" and then Susy's mind jumped ahead—"there was a countryman with a big umbreller an' just as the lady was goin' to dive into the water he came along right in front of us an' said he'd give any one three cents for a seat, but of course no one would give him a seat, 'cos they cost seventy-five cents, an' he got into a fight with another countryman who was sittin' in the front row, an' tried to pull him out of his seat, an' a great, big, fat p'liceman came runnin' an' tried to arrest 'em both, an' they grabbed him an' pulled him over to the tank, an' all three of 'em fell into the water, an' the tank was all full of 'em, swimmin' round, an' they had to stop the circus an' get 'em out!"

Susy stopped for breath, and Ed Mason found time to ejaculate:—

"Hoh! that was all made up! They were clowns, all of 'em!"

"They were not clowns. They were dressed up just like men!"

"That's all right," I put in, "they were clowns just the same. They go round with the circus doin' that. I saw 'em do somethin' like that last summer, only there wasn't but one countryman, an' they drove 'em off in a wagon with donkeys."

"They weren't clowns!" Susy stamped her foot. "Clowns have white faces, an' funny clothes, an' there were two real clowns helpin' get these men out, they stopped bein' funny an' were awful scared 'cos the p'liceman couldn't swim, an' he floated round on top of the water, an' when he got hold of the rope he was so heavy the clowns couldn't pull him out an' they fell in, too."

"That's so," said Charley Carter, with a serious countenance, as he recalled the catastrophe; "an' a man that sat in front of me said he knew the first countryman,—the one with the umbreller—he lives over in Rowley."

There was a ring of truth about this which made Ed and me subside, and as Charley Carter had attracted the attention of the assemblage, he tried to hold the floor.

"When they got the perliceman out—" But Susy had no intention to let any one else tell the story. She took it up at that point.

"—he was all drownded, an' they put him down on the ground, an' begun to roll him round, an' one of the countrymen went an' got a big pop-squirt, oh, ten times bigger than any you ever saw, an' filled it with water, an' squirted it right in the p'liceman's face, an' that made him mad, an' he jumped up an' chased the countryman round the tent with his stick, an' at last the countryman ran out through the place where the horses an' riders come in, an' I don't know whether he caught him or not."

"What did the other countryman do?" asked Flossie Mason.

"I don't know; the chariots came by then, an' I didn't see 'em after that."

Joe Carter then made his first offering to the conversation.

"Ben Spaulding drank eight glasses of lemonade,—four pink and four yellow."

The irrelevance of this bit of gossip did not make it any the less interesting to us. Instead, it gave Susy a chance to play once more her favorite rÔle of prophetess of woe.

"Pink lemonade's made of coachyneel, an' that's deadly poison. My mother knew a boy that drank pink lemonade an' died of it."

"I don't believe it," put in Harry Fletcher.

And he added, in a tremulous tone: "I drank two glasses of it."

We all turned and looked at Harry, as at one who would not long be with us.

"How do you feel?" asked the elder Carter.

"All right," replied Harry; but he had a sickly expression about the mouth. He turned a little aside, and did not seem to take any further interest in the conversation.

"I gave two bars of pop-corn to the ellerphants," announced Susy, "but I don't like 'em very well. They're all covered with dust an' they curl their trunks at you. I—"

"An elephant's trunk is called his bosphorus," said Minnie, anxious to grace the occasion by a little learning.

And she added: "My teacher told me so."

"I just threw the corn at 'em," continued Susy, "an' they picked it up out of the hay. One of 'em held up his trunk, an' his mouth was right under it, an' a man threw peanuts into his mouth, an' the ellerphant stood that way an' let the man throw peanuts at him ever so long, an' we had to go away then, 'cos the show was goin' to begin."

"You have to be careful of elephants," said Minnie. "Last year there was an elephant in the circus, an' he had whiskers on his trunk, an' Billy Mason pulled 'em, an' the elephant didn't say anything, an' didn't do anything for two or three minutes, an' then just as Billy was starting to go he swung his trunk round an' if Billy hadn't dodged quick the elephant would have killed him. An' there was a man there an' he said that if that elephant ever sees Billy again, even if it's a hundred years from now, he'll remember him, an' he'll try to hit him again with his trunk."

Cheerful Susy instantly remarked: "Billy's goin' to the circus to-night. Do you s'pose that ellerphant will be there?"

Billy's sister tried to take a hopeful view.

"Oh, this is another circus,—'tisn't the same one that was here last summer."

But nothing could discourage Susy.

"Perhaps they've swapped ellerphants," she suggested.

Harry Fletcher rose from the steps at this moment, and observed in a shaky voice, that he guessed he would go home. He walked up the garden path with rather feeble steps. We watched him,—awestruck.

"Perhaps it's the coachyneel in his insides," whispered Susy.

We pondered over this suggestion for a few moments, and it certainly seemed reasonable. When Harry disappeared down the street, walking slowly, and holding to the fence, we decided that it was only a question of a few hours with him. The incident cast a gloom over us, which was not dispelled until Joe Carter said:—

"Did you go to the side-show?"

"No," answered Susy; "my mother says side-shows are horrid."

"They ain't. This was great. There was a lady without any body,—just head and shoulders sitting in a glass plate, an' there was a man that would let you stick pins in him, an' there were some grave-robbing hyenas—"

"Poo!" said Susy, "I saw some hyenas in the animal tent, an' we stayed to the concert an'—"

"Yes, I know," persisted Joe Carter, "but those hyenas in the animal tent weren't grave-robbing ones. Now these,—" and he entered into some grewsome details about the hyenas that made Susy regretfully admit that the side-show must have had its good points.

"But there was a sea-lion," she reflected, "havin' his supper when we came out of the concert, an' he sat up on a board, an' the man tossed him fish, an' he roared lots louder than the lions, an' we saw the giraffes—"

"That's nothin'" said Joe; "so did I."

Susy paid no attention,—she was in full swing of narration.

"An' there was a Happy Fam'ly of a monkey, an' a armadillo, an' a dog, an' a kangaroo, an' a porcupine, all livin' together in one cage, an' when the monkey would try to tease the kangaroo, he'd just roll himself up in a ball an'—"

"Who would?" interrupted Ed Mason.

"The kangaroo, course—just like the picture of South America in the geography."

But the cynic voice of Mason was not stilled.

"Kangaroos don't roll themselves up in balls."

"This one did."

"No; that was the armadillo you were lookin' at."

"My mother said it was a kangaroo, an' it was a kangaroo, an' you'd better keep quiet an' leave me alone,—I guess my mother knows more'n you do about it."

Ed sulkily muttered: "'Twa'n't a kangaroo," but Susy went on with her catalogue of beasts.

"There was a bore-constrictor there that can crush eight men at once,—one of the circus men told my mother so, an' she said, 'I should think you'd be afraid he might get out,—he could squeeze through the bars, couldn't he?' And the man said he was scared for his life all the time. The bore-constrictor did get out up in Lynn."

"Did he crush eight men?" two or three of us asked at once.

"No; they lassoed him. But he may get out again any time. An' there was a hipperpottermus that you couldn't see, except one eye, 'cos he kept down in a tank of water, an' he was horrid, an,' oh! I forgot! Alice Remick had on a new dress an' she went to give an ellerphant a cookie, an' the ellerphant switched up his trunk and spattered her with mud so it spoiled her dress, an' she got both eyes stuck up with mud so she couldn't see, an' she cried so her father had to go right home without seem' any more of the circus, an'—"

"Did one of the elephants come in and ride round on a big velocipede?" demanded Ed Mason.

"No," said Susy; "but—"

"Did the seals play on drums, an' cymbals, an' sing?" he persisted.

"No; but they—"

"Oh, well," replied Ed, "they did at the circus last year. An' this circus only had ten elephants. Last year they had fourteen. An' last year they had a Black Tent of Myst'ries, too. I don't b'lieve this was much of a circus!"

With this remark we both thought we might effectively take leave. We departed together, and as we left the garden we could still hear the shrill tones of Susy:—

"—an' there was an ejjicated pig that sat up in a chair with a ruffle round his neck, an' they said he could read, but he didn't, an' one man fell out of that swing, an' we thought he was goin' to get killed, but he fell in a net an' jumped up an' kissed his hand, but my mother says they do get killed,—often, an' there was a cinnamon bear—"

As we walked by my house Ed Mason repeated his remark:—

"I don't b'lieve 'twas much of a circus."

My father looked suddenly over a hedge and said: "Then you couldn't arrange to go with me this evening?"

We both jumped. We were startled at his voice, and there was also something in what he said that seemed to make the sun burst out of the clouds.

Perhaps it was not well to judge the circus without seeing it.

"Because I am going," he continued, "and I should be glad of your company,—unless, of course, you are leaving for Omaha?"