The Circus Comes to Town | Page 2

held out the apple to
Danny, then freed her mouth of its embarrassment of riches and
proceeded to bite it in two.
"Here, Chris," invited Danny, "take your bite next."
Jerry became immediately suspicious at such unaccustomed politeness
on Danny's part and he was not at all surprised when Danny, once the
remainder of the apple was again in his hands, took to his heels.
"Save me a bite!" cried Celia Jane, swallowing the morsel in her mouth
so quickly that she came near to choking, and tagged after her older
brother as fast as she could run.
"Danny!" cried Jerry. "That's no fair!"
He started to run after the vanishing apple, but was quickly passed, first
by Chris and then by Nora, who called back to him: "Maybe I can save
the core for you, Jerry."

Bitterness arose in Jerry's soul. He knew that he couldn't catch up with
Danny, but he kept on running. That old, odd feeling that he did not
belong to the Mullarkeys, though living with them, came over him
again, and he had already begun to slow down his pace when he was
brought to a full and sudden stop by a picture blazoned on a billboard.
He stared spellbound, without even winking. Of all delectable things, it
was the picture of an elephant! A purple elephant jumping over a green
fence, its trunk raised high in the air until it almost touched the full, red
moon at the top of the poster. The elephant had such a roguish and
knowing look in his small eyes and such a smirk on his funny little
mouth that Jerry began to smile without being the least bit conscious
that he was doing so.
The smile kept spreading in complete understanding of the look on the
elephant's face and he probably would have laughed aloud had not the
picture somehow made him think of something, he couldn't just
remember what. A dim idea seemed to be trying to break into his mind
but couldn't find the right door. In his effort to puzzle out what it was
the elephant made him think of, Jerry entirely forgot the large red apple
and the perfidy of Danny.
"What're you lookin' at?" called Danny, who had stopped half a block
farther on when he no longer heard Jerry's pursuing footsteps.
Jerry did not answer. Instead, he squatted down on the grassy bank
between the sidewalk and the billboard and feasted his eyes on that
delightfully extravagant elephant which seemed almost to wink at him.
Jerry half expected to see the elephant grab the moon and balance it on
the end of his trunk, or toss it up into the sky and catch it again as it
fell.
"Come on, Jerry, if you want the core," called Danny again. "That's all
that's left."
"Don't want the core," said Jerry. "It was my apple. The lady gave it to
me." He didn't even look at Danny but kept staring at the very purple
elephant and the very red moon almost on the tip-end of his trunk. He

just wouldn't let Danny Mullarkey know that it made any difference to
him whether Danny and Chris and Nora and Celia Jane liked him very
much or not.
No, and he wouldn't feel so terribly bad if Mother 'Larkey and little
Kathleen didn't like him, either.
"You ain't lost your tongue, have you?" cried Danny.
"Maybe the cat's got it," said Celia Jane, following as usual her elder
brother's lead and laughing at her own wit.
"What you starin' at so hard, Jerry?" called Chris.
Jerry disdained to reply or to let his enraptured gaze wander for a
moment from the dazzling poster. Curiosity soon got the better of Chris
and he started to walk back.
"El'funt!" shouted Chris, when he was near enough to see the poster.
His shout started the whole Mullarkey brood galloping towards the
billboard.
"The circus!" cried Danny, from the superior experience of his nine
years. "The circus is coming to town!" He threw himself on the grass
by Jerry and pressed the uneaten apple core into his hand.
"I don't want it," said Jerry.
"Aw, take it, Jerry. I didn't mean to eat so much of it, honest I didn't. I
just wanted to tease you." He closed Jerry's fingers around the core.
"It doesn't say the circus is coming," Nora observed, pointing to some
lettering in one corner of the poster. Nora was nearly eight years old
and proud of her ability to read print, if the words weren't too big,--an
ability shared by none of the others except Danny.
"It does, too!" contradicted Celia Jane, wrinkling up her nose
preparatory to crying with disappointment if the circus were not
coming. "There's some writin' on it."

"What does it say, Danny?"