"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, s.h.a.ggy 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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, s.h.a.ggy 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.

CHAPTER XXIII

BEN DOES A TRICK

"Look out!"

"Run, everybody!"

"Somebody help that little boy hold up the pole! He's doing it all alone!"

"Oh, Bunny! Bunny Brown! You'll be hurt!"

It was Bunny's mother who called this last. It was some of the farmers in the circus tent who had shouted before that, not seeming to know what to do. Daddy Brown and grandpa were hurrying from the other side of the tent to help Bunny hold the rope.

The pole was slowly falling, the tent seemed as if it would come down, and the Italian was calling to his bear. As for the bear, he seemed to think that he ought to climb higher up on the pole. He did not seem to mind the fall he was going to get.

Bunny Brown, small as he was, knew what he was doing. He had seen that the rope, which help up the pole, ran around a little wooden wheel, called a pulley. If he could stop the rope from running all the way through the pulley, the pole would not fall down, and the tent would stay up.

"And if I keep the rope tight around my waist, the end of it can't get over the pulley wheel," thought Bunny. He had often seen sailors do this with his father's boats, when they slid down the steep beach into the ocean.

And then, all of a sudden, Bunny found himself jerked from his feet. He struck against the bottom of the tent pole, and his side hurt him a little, but he still held to the rope about his waist.

"The pole has stopped falling! The pole has stopped falling!" some one cried.

"Yes, and Bunny stopped it!" said Sue. "Oh, Bunny, are you hurted?"

Bunny's breath was so nearly squeezed out of him that he could not answer for a moment. But his mother had reached him now. So had Daddy Brown, his grandpa and some other men. In another moment the rope that held up the big pole was unwound from Bunny's waist and made fast to a peg in the ground.

"Now the pole can't fall!" said Grandpa Brown. "We're safe now!"

"Is--is the tent all right?" asked Bunny, as his father picked him up in his arms.

"Yes, brave little boy. The tent is all right! You stopped it from falling on the people's heads."

"And the bear--is the bear all right?" asked Bunny. From where his father held him Bunny could not see the s.h.a.ggy creature.

"Yes, the bear is all right," answered Mr. Brown. "He is coming down the pole now."