"Ta ra, ta ra, ta ra!" sang the bugle.

Crash! answered the cymbals and the ba.s.s drums. The snare drums buzzed a long, thrilling roll; then came the blare of the bra.s.s as the whole band launched into a lively tune such as only circus bands know how to play.

The parade had begun to move.

It was a thrilling moment--the moment of all moments of Phil Forrest's life.

The clowns' wagon had been placed well back in the line, so as not to interfere with the music of the band itself. But Phil did not care where he was placed. He only knew that he was in a circus parade, doing his part with the others, and that, so far as anyone knew, he was as much a circus man as any of them.

As the cavalcade drew out into the main street and straightened away, Phil was amazed to see what a long parade it was. It looked as if it might reach the whole length of the village.

The spring sun was shining brightly, lighting up the line, transforming it into a moving, flashing, brilliant ribbon of light and color.

"Splendid!" breathed the boy, removing the fish horn from his lips for a brief instant, then blowing with all his might again.

As the wagons moved along he saw many people whom he knew. As a matter of fact, Phil knew everyone in the village, but there were hundreds of people who had driven in from the farms whom he did not know. Nor did anyone appear to recognize him.

"If they only knew, wouldn't they be surprised?" chuckled the lad. "h.e.l.lo, there's Mrs. Cahill."

The widow was standing on her front door step with a dishtowel in one hand.

In the excess of his excitement, Phil stood up, waving his horn and yelling.

She heard him--as everybody else within a radius of a quarter of a mile might have--and she recognized the voice. Mrs. Cahill brandished the dishtowel excitedly.

"He's a fine boy," she glowed. "And he's having the first good time he's had in five years."

The Widow Cahill was right. For the first time in all these years, since the death of his parents, Phil Forrest was carefree and perfectly happy.

The clowns on the wagon with him were uproariously funny. When the wagon stopped now and then, one whom Phil recognized as the head clown, Mr. Miaco, would spring to the edge of the rack and make a stump speech in pantomime, accompanied by all the gestures included in the pouring and drinking of a gla.s.s of water. So humorous were the clown's antics that the spectators screamed with laughter.

Suddenly the lad espied that which caused his own laughter to die away, and for the moment he forgot to toot the fish horn. The parade was pa.s.sing his former home, and there, standing hunched forward, leaning on his stick and glaring at the procession from beneath bushy eyebrows, stood Phil's uncle, Abner Adams.

Phil's heart leaped into his throat; at least that was the sensation that he experienced.

"I--I hope he doesn't know me," muttered the lad, shrinking back a little. "But I'm a man now. I don't care. He's driven me out and he has no right to say a thing."

The lad lost some of his courage, however, when the procession halted, and he found that his wagon was directly in front of Mr.

Adams' dooryard, with his decrepit uncle not more than twenty feet away from him. The surly, angry eyes of Abner Adams seemed to be burning through Phil's makeup, and the lad instinctively shrank back ever so little.

However, at that instant the boy's attention was attracted to another part of the wagon. The head clown stepped from the wagon and, with dignified tread, approached Abner Adams. He grasped the old man by the hand, which he shook with great warmth, making a courtly bow.

At first Abner Adams was too surprised to protest. Then, uttering an angry snarl, he threw the clown off, making a vicious pa.s.s at him with his heavy stick.

The clown dodged the blow, and made a run for the wagon, which was now on the move again.

Phil breathed a sigh of relief. The people had roared at the funny sight of the clown shaking hands with the crabbed old man; but to Phil Forrest there had been nothing of humor in it. The sight of his uncle brought back too many unhappy memories.

The lad soon forgot his depression, however, in the rapid changes that followed each other in quick succession as on a moving- picture film.

Reaching the end of the village street the procession was obliged to turn and retrace its steps over the same ground until it reached the business part of the town, where it would turn off and pa.s.s through some of the side streets.

Now there were two lines, moving in opposite directions. This was of interest to Phil, enabling him, as it did, to get a good look at the other members of the troupe. Mr. Sparling was riding ahead in a carriage drawn by four splendid white horses, driven by a coachman resplendent in livery and gold lace, while the bobbing plumes on the heads of the horses added to the impressiveness of the picture.

"I'd give anything in the world to be able to ride in a carriage like that," decided Phil. "Maybe someday I shall. We'll see."

Now came the elephants, lumbering along on velvet feet. On the second one there crouched a figure that somehow seemed strangely familiar to Phil Forrest. The figure was made up to represent a huge frog.

A peculiar gesture of one of the frog's legs revealed the ident.i.ty of the figure beneath the mask.

"Teddy!" howled Phil.

"Have a frog's leg," retorted Teddy, shaking one of them vigorously at the motley collection of clowns.

"Not eating frogs legs today," jeered a clown, as Teddy went swinging past them, a strange, grotesque figure on the back of the huge, hulking beast.

The clowns' wagon was just on the point of turning when the men heard a loud uproar far down the line. At first they thought it was a part of the show, but it soon became apparent that something was wrong.

Phil instinctively let the horn fall away from his lips. He peered curiously over the swaying line to learn what, if anything, had gone wrong.

He made out the cause of the trouble almost at once. A pony with a woman on its back had broken from the line, and was plunging toward them at a terrific pace. She appeared to have lost all control of the animal, and the pony, which proved to be an ugly broncho, was bucking and squealing as it plunged madly down the street.

The others failed to see what Phil had observed almost from the first. The bit had broken in the mouth of the broncho and the reins hung loosely in the woman's helpless hands.

They were almost up with the clowns' wagon when the woman was seen to sway dizzily in her saddle, as the leather slipped beneath her. Then she plunged headlong to the ground.

Instead of falling in a heap, the circus woman, with head dragging, b.u.mping along the ground, was still fast to the pony.

"Her foot is caught in the stirrup!" yelled half a dozen men at once, but not a man of them made an effort to rescue her. Perhaps this was because none of the real hors.e.m.e.n of the show were near enough to do so.

Mr. Sparling, however, at the first alarm, had leaped from his carriage, and, thrusting a rider from his mount, sprang into the saddle and came tearing down the line in a cloud of dust. He was bearing down on the scene at express train speed.

"The woman will be killed!"

"Stop him! Stop him!"

"Stop him yourself!"

But not a man made an effort to do anything.

It had all occurred in a few seconds, but rapidly as the events succeeded each other, Phil Forrest seemed to be the one among them who retained his presence of mind.

He fairly launched himself into the air as the ugly broncho shot alongside the clowns' wagon.

CHAPTER VI