The Circus Comes to Town Part 22

"He is an orphan," observed Mr. Burrows, "his brother here said so," and he pointed at Chris.

"He's not my brother," interposed Chris quickly. "Father found him before he died and brought him home."

"Then it is Gary! It is!" exclaimed the beautiful lady. "As if I wouldn't know him--his eyes, his hair and his lips! Or as if Sultana could be mistaken. What is your name, dear; do you remember that?"

"Jerry Elbow," replied Jerry.

"What is yours?" Whiteface asked Chris.

"Chris Mullarkey," he replied.

"How long has Jerry been with you?"

"Three years," put in Danny.

"He was only three and a half then," said the woman, "and probably couldn't say his name very plainly. He couldn't at the time he was stolen. Gary L. Bowe would sound very much like Jerry Elbow to any one who didn't know."

"You're right," said Whiteface. "I believe he is our boy."

Jerry looked up at the clown and such an expression of delight came over his face at the idea of the clown being his father that Whiteface's voice went all husky and he took Jerry in his arms.

"Do you remember anything about your parents?" he asked.

"Seems as though there was a man with a white face," replied Jerry.

"That would be you, Robert," said the woman named Helen.

"Are you my father?" Jerry asked, putting an arm timidly about the clown's shoulder.

"Of course he is!" cried Mr. Burrows, blowing his nose until it made a formidable sound. "Bowe, you take your wife and child into the dressing tent, so the circus can go on. Sultana is getting restless."

Whiteface took Jerry up in his arms and his new-found mother clung to his hand as they started to leave the arena, tears still in her eyes.

She stopped to call to Danny and Chris to follow them. Sultana lifted up her trunk and trumpeted. As they tramped along, the spectators craning their necks to get a better view, Jerry heard Mr. Burrows saying in a loud voice to the audience in the section where he had sat:

"Ladies and gentlemen, there is no occasion for alarm. The elephant, Sultana, recognized in the boy, Jerry Elbow, the son of our famous clown, Robert Ellison Bowe, who was stolen from the circus in a neighboring State three years ago by a disgruntled employee. The police of the country had been searching for him and Mr. Bowe had spent thousands of dollars in the effort to find him. What money and mind and trained detective intelligence failed to do, the retentive memory of the elephant, Sultana, has accomplished and, thanks to her, a grieving father and mother are reunited with their long-lost son. The performance will now continue and you will see what a great degree of intelligence is possessed by these pachyderms in the tricks which they will now perform for your gratification."

And how the people shouted and applauded at that!

"Bow to them. They are cheering for you," said Whiteface to Jerry. "They are glad you have been found."

Jerry waved his hands to them and bowed and a patter of hand-clapping ran along the audience as they pa.s.sed until they reached the entrance.

Chris suddenly cried, "Danny! Look at them el'funts! They're standin' on their heads! Lookee!"

Jerry just had to see that and he squirmed around in Whiteface's arms.

"They're funny!" he laughed. "Which one is Sult Anna?"

"She's the one at the table," replied his mother, "ringing the bell for a waiter to bring her something to eat."

"Can el'funts do that?" Jerry asked amazed.

"Much more than that, Gary," she responded.

"I guess el'funts know more'n some people," Danny remarked.

Jerry craned his neck to see the elephants.

"Are they going to jump the fence now?" he asked.

Whiteface burst into a joyous laugh.

"Helen, I told you my idea for a circus poster would fetch the children!" he said. "They don't jump a fence," he explained to Jerry.

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Jerry. "The picture shows them doing it!"

"They don't really, Gary," said his mother. "The picture was just drawn that way to fit the old nursery rhyme about the elephant's jumping up to the sky."

"Then it ain't so?" Jerry asked, terribly disappointed.

"No," replied Whiteface, "but they do other things more remarkable than that."

"What?" asked Jerry. "I want to see them."

"Of course you do," said his father. "You want to see all the circus and you shall to-night, and Mrs. Mullarkey and Celia Jane, too."

"All of it?" questioned Jerry. "The little man no bigger than a two-year-old baby and the sword-swallower and all?"

"And all," replied Whiteface. "The menagerie and the side show and the main performance."

"Will Nora and Kathleen see it all, too?"

"Who are Nora and Kathleen?" his mother asked.

"Why, they're Danny's sisters!" he replied. "Didn't you know that?"

"You hadn't mentioned them before," said Whiteface, "but they'll see it, too. Are there any more in the Mullarkey family?"

"No," answered Jerry, "just Danny and Chris and Nora and Celia Jane and Kathleen and Mother 'Larkey."

By that time they had reached a part of another tent which was all screened off into small rooms, into one of which Whiteface and the lady carried Jerry, followed by Danny and Chris, who, torn between their desire to see the elephants perform and their curiosity about Jerry's new-found father and mother and their desire to obey the beautiful lady, had kept close at their heels.

"Now," said Mrs. Bowe, seating herself on a bench and taking Jerry on her lap, addressing Danny as the oldest, "tell me all you can about Gary."

"Father found him one night along a country road, cryin' in a fence corner, and brought him home," said Danny, "an' he's lived with us ever since. That's all."

"How long ago was that?" she questioned.

"It was when I was five an' a half," replied Danny.