"There, you just said you didn't know," Celia Jane interposed, going to her elder brother's aid, as she always did in a dispute with Jerry.

"I didn't neither," a.s.severated Jerry.

"You said you didn't know," insisted Celia Jane.

"I don't know how I know," said Jerry, "but I know el'funts have little tails--like a rope."

"Have you ever been to a circus?" asked Chris.

"Not that I remember."

"Have you ever seen a el'funt?" pursued Danny.

"N-n-no, but it kind of seems as if I almost had."

"I guess you'd know if you had seen a el'funt, wouldn't you?"

"Y-y-yes," responded Jerry doubtfully.

"Then if you ain't ever been to a circus or seen a el'funt, I guess you don't know what you are talking about."

"El'funts' tails are little, like a rope," Jerry insisted.

"Like a cow's tail?" asked Celia Jane.

Jerry nodded a.s.sent. "Only they haven't so much hair on the end," he added.

"A el'funt's a hundred times as big as a cow, I guess," interposed Danny, "an' it wouldn't have a little tail like a cow. I guess I know more about it than you do. I'm older, ain't I?"

"Yes," Jerry admitted, "but they are little."

Nora now interposed. "Why don't you go see the picture of the elephant jumpin' the fence and find out?" she asked.

"Of course," said Chris. "The picture'll show whether they're small like a rope or great big ones."

"I'll beat you there," challenged Danny, as he dropped the flat, beaver-like elephant's tail and darted at a run out of the woodshed, followed by the others. As they lined up in front of the gaudy, delectable poster, there came a simultaneous gasp of amazement from all of them.

"Why, it ain't got no tail at all!" exclaimed Celia Jane.

True enough, there was no tail in evidence, as the elephant seemed to be headed straight towards them. Jerry flushed as they all turned and looked accusingly at him.

"Yah!" exclaimed Danny. "Mr. Smarty Know-it-all didn't know so much, after all!"

"Mebbe you just can't see it, but it's there," suggested Nora.

"That's so," Danny reluctantly admitted. "A el'funt's so big that when you stand right in front of it, its tail might not show at all, no matter how big it was."

"A little tail wouldn't," Jerry said quickly.

"A big one wouldn't either," Celia Jane a.s.serted, taking sides against Jerry. "A el'funt's enough bigger to hide its tail."

"If it was very big it would show," said Jerry.

"The el'funt I play is goin' to have a tail all right," Danny informed the children collectively. "I ain't goin' to all the work of makin' a tail and then not wear it. I guess a el'funt's got some kind of a tail, anyway."

CHAPTER IV

JERRY LEARNS THAT O-U-T SPELLS OUT

The first and, as it turned out, the last performance of their circus took place that afternoon. Jerry felt a thrill of expectancy as they began to don their costumes. Once he thought he almost heard again that low, cheerful strumming that had seemed to beat upon his ears when he first saw the poster of the elephant jumping the fence. He said nothing about it and soon lost all recollection of the rollicking strains in the antic.i.p.ation of the circus joys that he was about to behold.

Chris and Danny got into their costumes in the woodshed while Celia Jane went into the house and put on her white dress, the one she wore on Sundays. Mrs. Mullarkey had decided that Nora didn't need any special costume to be a rope-walker and that all Jerry needed to be a trained seal was a sort of ap.r.o.n made out of a gunny sack to protect his clothes while he crawled about on his stomach. He did not put this on at once but watched Danny getting into the skin of the elephant, wishing with all his heart that he might be the elephant, even if its tail was big and flat instead of being small like a rope.

It might have proved a mirth-provoking elephant to others had there been others present to see it, but to Jerry's eager imagination there was nothing laughable about it. The green wrapper hung most loosely about Danny's small, slim figure, great folds almost touching the ground, while the brown trunk and the blue, beaver-like tail waggled and wiggled about until they met between the front and hind legs of the elephant.

There was something about that awkward elephant that made Jerry feel all friendly inside and struck the chord of envy in his heart. He was not at all inclined to laugh when the cap with the very floppy palm-leaf-fan-ears attached fell off, as Danny started to gallop around the woodshed on all fours to see if the costume was all right.

Celia Jane now came dancing out of the house in her white frock, her hair loose and flowing for the pony's mane, while pinned to the back of her dress, at the waist line, was her mother's switch to represent the pony's tail. The strands of gray in the black hair did not match with the brown of the pony's mane, but that presented no difficulties to the imagination of the circus performers.

"Come on!" Celia Jane called. "Let's play circus. I'm all ready."

"Wait a minute, can't you?" complained Danny. "I guess I'm the head of this circus. I've got the biggest part and I ain't quite ready. Just hold your horses."

"Whoa!" cried Celia Jane. "I'm just one pony. Get up!" She flapped her side with one hand, as though urging a horse to quicken his pace, and galloped out back of the woodshed where the circus "tent" had been set up and began prancing and dancing and preening about. Jerry was torn between desire to watch her graceful whirling and pirouetting and to keep fascinated eyes on the green elephant. He just had to stay and see if the elephant's ears fell off again. But Danny was equal to the occasion and tied the cap on with a piece of string.

"Celia Jane, you just come back here," he called. "I guess the elephant has to enter the circus ahead of the horse. Horses always get scared of el'funts unless they're behind where they can see them. How do you expect us to parade if you're there already?"

"All right," replied Celia Jane and came prancing back into the woodshed, "but hurry."

"I'll be first," said Danny, "an--"

"An' I'll be second!" cried Chris.

"I'm third!" Nora and Celia Jane exclaimed together.

Jerry said nothing. He knew where his place would be,--the very tail end of the parade.

"Boom!" sang out Danny and again, "Boom!"

"What's that for?" asked Chris.

"It's the music so that the people will know the circus is about to begin," replied Danny. "They always have music for the parade an'

everything. Darn Darner said so."

"Let's sing then," suggested Nora.