CHAPTER VI

THE CHILDREN THAT CRIED IN THE LANE

The days slipped by and none of the children played circus again. Jerry thought of it often and would have liked to be the elephant just once, but he never said anything. That made him dream all the more about the real circus which was coming and wish that he could see it. He was very careful not to put his longing into words, so he wouldn't remind Mother 'Larkey of the ends that wouldn't meet and make her feel badly. One day she came across the old green wrapper elephant skin in the woodshed.

"Why don't you children play circus any more?" she asked Danny.

"El'funts don't look like that," he a.s.serted, pointing disdainfully at the discarded costume. "Their tails are small like a rope."

"Are they now?" she asked. "And how might you be after knowing that?"

"National history says so," Danny replied in a very decisive tone.

Mrs. Mullarkey gave one of those low, fleeting laughs that always made Jerry feel so good inside and which had become so rare of late. "Yes, I guess national history would be after telling about the elephant's tail as long as it deals with elephants and eagles and donkeys and camels and all."

Jerry felt there must be something funny in what Mother 'Larkey said, because her nose went all crinkly, and he smiled in sympathy anyway, although he didn't understand.

But playing circus no longer appealed to the Mullarkey children. Darn Darner had had a blighting influence on the power of their imaginations, and Danny in the elephant costume would have been to them now only a little boy in an old green wrapper much too large for him, dragging about a stuffed blue trouser leg for a tail,--a very ridiculous spectacle. Jerry realized that there would never be a next time and that he would never play the elephant.

A few days before the circus was to come to town Jerry and the Mullarkey children were returning from the woods by the creek, where they had gone to see what the prospects were for a good yield of hazel and hickory nuts in the fall, and had just entered the edge of town when they saw Darn Darner approaching. They had not set eyes on him since the day he broke up their circus and they were doubtful as to how he would behave towards them.

"Just pretend as though nothing had never happened," Nora suggested.

"Yes, that's best," Danny agreed. "Let him speak first."

They watched Darn's nearer approach without seeming to do so. They tried to keep talking and laughing so he wouldn't think they were the least little bit afraid of him, but Jerry and Celia Jane first fell silent and then Chris and Nora, and finally Danny, so that when they met Darn they were as quiet and subdued as a funeral party.

"h.e.l.lo!" said Darn, as they were in the act of pa.s.sing. "Where you kids been?"

"Hullo, Darn," replied Danny. "We just been out in the woods."

"There's goin' to be lots of hazelnuts in the fall," Nora informed him, in a voice which she tried to make genial.

"And hickory nuts too," added Jerry, feeling that such good news would help keep Darn in his present state of good humor and from thinking about what had happened at their circus.

"That don't interest me much just now," Darn remarked. "I'm goin' to the circus. We're goin' to have reserved seats, a dollar and a half apiece.

There ain't no better to be had."

"A dollar an' a half for one seat!" exclaimed Celia Jane. "I thought it cost only fifty cents to see the circus."

"That's just to get in and set on an ole board without any back to it,"

Darn informed her. "We're goin' to have reserved seats in the boxes, with chairs to sit on."

"A fifty-cent seat would suit me all right," observed Danny.

"An' me, too," echoed Chris and Nora and Celia Jane and Jerry.

"Are you kids goin' to see the circus unload?" asked Darn.

"Will they let you get close enough to see?" questioned Danny in turn.

"Of course. They can't keep you from lookin', I guess."

"No, I guess not." Danny answered his own question as though it had been asked by Chris. "Anybody knows he could look."

"Could you see the el'funt?" Jerry asked timidly.

"You could if you had eyes," replied Darn loftily.

"Where're they goin' to unload?" Danny queried.

"On the sidetrack by Smith's house, just back of the depot, at five o'clock in the morning. I'm goin' to see them unload."

"So'm I!" cried Danny.

"An' me, too!" a.s.serted Chris.

"An' me, too!" Jerry hurried to make that statement so that Danny could not say he couldn't go because he had not chosen to go when there was a chance.

"No, you're not," Darn a.s.serted with a sudden frown.

"I am, too!" cried Jerry. Then after a moment he asked plaintively, "Why ain't I?"

"I guess you ain't got nothin' to say about whether Jerry goes or not,"

Danny interposed quickly. "He can go if he wants to."

"No, he can't," contradicted Darn.

"Why can't he?" Nora asked.

"They don't let anybody in the poor farm go to the circus," was Darn's unexpected reply.

"That's not got nothin' to do with Jerry!" cried Danny hotly. "I guess he ain't in no poor farm."

"He's goin' to be, though," pursued Darn calmly, in that restrained, superior, informative manner which sometimes can be so maddening.

"I ain't either, am I, Danny?" Jerry appealed dolefully.

"No, you ain't," Danny a.s.sured him. "Darn's jest tryin' to make you cry.

Don't you let him scare you."

"Jerry Elbow's goin' to the poor farm before the circus gets here,"

stated Darn.

"I ain't!" cried Jerry in a shaky voice. "I won't go! So there!"