Nero, the Circus Lion Part 11

"Open your mouth!" suddenly cried the trainer, and Nero opened his jaws as wide as he could.

"Oh! Ah! Look!" cried the people, as they saw his big, red tongue and the white, sharp teeth.

"Now!" cried the trainer, and into the lion's mouth he popped his head.

Everybody in the big circus tent was quiet for a moment, and then all the crowd cried out, and clapped their hands and stamped their shoes on the wooden steps beneath their feet.

"There, you see how tame my lion is!" cried the man, as he pulled his head from Nero's mouth, and bowed to the people, who were still clapping and whistling.

"You are a good lion!" said the trainer to Nero in a low voice. "Now you shall have a nice piece of meat, a sweet bone to gnaw, and a good drink of water. You did your first tricks very well indeed."

Nero did not quite know what it was all about, but he felt that he had done well. It did not hurt him to open his mouth and let the man put in his head, but it tickled the lion's tongue a little, so that Nero wanted to sneeze. And that wouldn't have been a good thing for the trainer.

However Nero didn't do it.

"What makes the people make so much noise?" asked Nero of Dido, the dancing bear, who came into the larger tent just then.

"Oh, that's because they liked your tricks," was the answer. "They always clap and stamp their feet when anything pleases them. They do that when I dance on the platform on Tum Tum's back."

And, surely enough, the circus crowds did. They liked the tricks of Dido, the dancing bear, as much as they had those of Nero.

After a while Nero's cage was wheeled back into the tent where the wagons of the other animals were kept, and Nero was given something good to eat, and fresh water to drink. Then he felt happy and fell asleep.

So Nero began his circus life, and he kept it up all that summer. He traveled about from place to place, and soon became used to doing his tricks, having the man put his head into his mouth and seeing the crowds show their surprise.

One day, when the show was being given in a large city, there was a big crowd in the animal tent. Near Nero's cage were some boys, and I am sorry to say they were not all kind boys, though perhaps they didn't know any better. One of the boys had a rotten apple in his hand and he said to another lad:

"I'm going to give this rotten apple to one of the elephants and see what a funny face he makes when he chews it!"

"That'll be lots of fun," said the second boy.

I don't, myself, call that fun. It isn't fair to fool animals when you know so much more than they do. However we'll see what happened.

Nero saw the boys standing near his cage, and he heard them talking, though he did not, of course, know what they were saying. But he could smell the rotten apple. Often, in the jungle, he had smelled bad fruit, and he knew that the monkeys would not eat it.

"If bad fruit isn't good for monkeys it isn't good for elephants,"

thought Nero, as he saw the boy hold out the rotten apple toward Tum Tum, the jolly elephant.

Tum Tum reached out his trunk to take what he thought was something good, but Nero roared, in animal language, of course:

"Don't take that apple, Tum Tum! It's bad!" And then Nero sprang against the bars of his cage, and, reaching out a paw, with its long, sharp claws, made a grab for the boy's arm as he held out the rotten apple.

"Look out! The lion's going to bite you!" cried a man to the boy, and the boy was so frightened that he gave a howl and dropped the rotten apple and ran through the crowd, knocking to the right and left every one in his way.

Nero roared again and dashed against the bars of his cage, and while women and children screamed and men shouted, Nero's keeper and some of the other animal men ran up to see what the matter was. There was great excitement in the circus tent.

CHAPTER X

NERO RUNS AWAY

Once more Nero roared as he looked over the heads of the crowd to see what had become of the boy who had tried to give Tum Tum the rotten apple.

"Hold on there, my lion boy! What's the matter? Don't do that!" called Nero's trainer to him in a kind voice. "What happened, anyhow? Why are you roaring so, and trying to get out of your cage? Don't you like it here in the circus?"

Nero stopped roaring at once, and no longer dashed against the bars of his cage. Perhaps he thought that, as long as his kind trainer was at hand, everything would be all right.

"Did some one try to hurt my lion friend?" asked the trainer, looking at the crowd near the cage.

"No," some one answered. "But the lion, all at once, tried to reach out and claw a boy who was going to give an apple to an elephant. I saw that. I don't know what made the lion act so."

"There must have been some good reason," said the trainer. "Nero is a good lion. He wouldn't want to claw a boy just for fun."

And then one of the other boys, who was in the crowd that had been around the lad who had the rotten apple, spoke up and said:

"Mister, Jimmie was going to play a trick on the elephant. He was going to give him a bad apple just to see what a funny face the elephant would make."

"Oh, ho! Now I understand!" said the trainer. "My lion must have smelled the rotten apple and didn't like it. He tried to scare away the boy, I guess."

"Well, the boy was scared all right," said a man. "He ran away as fast as he could go."

"He ought to!" said the trainer very sharply.

The excitement, caused by the loud roaring of Nero, was over now, though, for a time, many persons had been frightened, for Nero had sent his powerful voice rumbling through the circus tent as his father, and the other big lions, had used to make the ground tremble when they roared in the jungle.

Then, as things grew quiet and the people pa.s.sed along the row of cages, looking at the animals, Tum Tum, who heard what had happened, turned to Nero and said:

"I'm much obliged to you, my dear lion friend, for scaring the boy who wanted to give me the rotten apple. Most likely, as soon as I'd have taken it in my trunk, I'd have smelled that it was bad, and I would not have eaten it. But some one might have given me a popcorn ball in my trunk at the same time, and that might have smelled so good that I wouldn't have noticed the rotten apple until too late. So you saved me from having a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm much obliged to you."

"Oh, that's all right," replied Nero. "I'm glad I could do you a favor.

You have been kind to me, pus.h.i.+ng my cage around, and I want to be kind to you."

So the two circus animals were better friends than ever, and that day in the performers' tent Nero opened his mouth very wide indeed when his trainer wanted to put in his head.

For many weeks Nero traveled about the country with the circus, living in his iron-barred cage, from which he was never taken. Nero might be a tame lion, but the circus folk did not think it would be safe to let him out, as Dido, the dancing bear, was allowed to come out of his cage.

However, later on, something happened--

But there, I must tell about it in the right place.

So, as I said, Nero went about from town to town with the circus, living in his cage, eating and doing his tricks whenever his trainer called on him to do so. And the people who came to the circus performances seemed to like, very much, seeing Nero do his tricks. And they always clapped loudest and longest when the trainer put his head in the lion's mouth.

And Nero never bit the trainer once, nor so much as scratched him, even with the tip of one sharp tooth.

One afternoon of a long hot day, when big crowds had come to the circus, and after Nero had done his tricks, and Dido, the dancing bear, had done his, and Chunky, the happy hippo, had opened his big mouth so his keeper could toss loaves of bread into it--one afternoon Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, swaying as he chewed his hay, spoke through his trunk and said:

"Something is going to happen!"