The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus by Jr. Horatio Alger (world of reading TXT) 📕

performance. It would make me too late home if I stayed in the evening."[Pg 72]

"Won't there be some people over from Oakford that you can ride back with?"

"I didn't think of that. Yes, John Woods told me that his father was coming, and would bring him along. I could ride home with them."

"Good! then you'd better stay."

"Perhaps I'd better go over and buy a ticket."

But to William's satisfaction he was given free admission as a friend of Kit. Not only that, but he was invited to take dinner and supper at the circus table. In fact, he was treated with distinguished consideration.

"Kit," he said, "I was in luck to meet you."

"And it was lucky for me that I met you. I shouldn't like to have met Aaron Bickford single handed."

"I wish old Bickford would come to the circus to-night. Wouldn't he be surprised to see you performing in tights?"

"I think it would rather take him by surprise," said Kit, smiling.

Kit and William occupied seats at the afternoon performance as spectators, it having been arranged that Kit's début should be made in the evening. Our hero regarded the different acts with unusual interest, and his heart beat a little quicker when he heard the applause elicited by the performances of the Vincenti brothers, for he had already begun to consider himself one of them.

When the performance was over, and the audience was dispersing, Kit felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.

He turned and his glance rested upon a man of about forty, with a grave, serious expression. He was puzzled, for it was not a face that he remembered to have ever seen before.[Pg 73]

"You don't know me?" said the stranger.

"No, sir."

"And yet you have done me a very great service."

"I didn't know it, sir."

"The greatest service that any one person can do to another—you have saved my life."

Then a light dawned upon Kit's mind, and he remembered what Achilles Henderson had said to him in the morning.

"Is your name Dupont?" he asked.

"Yes; I am Joe Dupont, the clown, whom you saved from a horrible death. I tell you, when Nero stood there in the ring with his paw on my breast I gave myself up for lost. I expected to be torn to pieces. It was an awful moment!" and the clown shuddered at the picture which his imagination conjured up. "Yes, sir; I wouldn't see such another moment for all the money Barlow is worth. I wonder my hair didn't turn white."

"Excuse me, Mr. Dupont, but I find it hard to think you are Joe Dupont, the clown," said Kit.

"Why?"

"Because you look so grave and sedate."

Joe Dupont smiled.

"I only make a fool of myself in the ring," he said. "Outside you might take me for a merchant or minister. Indeed, I am a minister's son."

"You a minister's son!" ejaculated Kit.

"Yes; you wouldn't think it, would you? I was rather a wild lad, as minister's sons often are. My poor father tried hard to give me an education, but my mind wasn't on books or school exercises, and at sixteen I cut and run."

"Did you join a circus then?"

"Not at once. I tried hard to earn my living in[Pg 74] different ways. Finally I struck a circus, and got an engagement as a razorback. When I got older I began to notice and imitate the clowns, and finally I made up my mind to become one myself."

"Do you like the business?"

"I have to like it. No; I am disgusted with myself often and often. You can judge from one thing. I have a little daughter, Katy, now eight years of age. She has never seen me in the ring and never will. I could never hold up my head in her presence if she had once seen me playing the fool before an audience."

All this surprised Kit. He had been disposed to think that what clowns were before the public they were in private life also. Now he saw his mistake.

"You contribute to the public amusement, Mr. Dupont," said Kit.

"True; but what sort of a life record is it? Suppose in after years Katy is asked, 'Who was your father?' and is obliged to answer, 'Joe Dupont, the clown.' But I ought not to grumble. But for you I should have died a terrible death, and Katy would be fatherless, so I have much to be thankful for after all."

Kit listened to the clown not without surprise. He could hardly realize that this was the comical man whose grotesque actions and sayings had convulsed the spectators only an hour before. When he came to think of it, he felt that he would rather be an acrobat than a clown.[Pg 75]

CHAPTER XV.
MR. BICKFORD GOES TO THE CIRCUS.

When Aaron Bickford, balked of his prey, was compelled to get into his wagon and start for home, he felt uncommonly cross. To begin with, he was half famished, having harnessed up and set out on what turned out to be a wild goose chase without breaking his fast. Yet he could have borne this with comparative equanimity if he had effected the purpose which he had in view—the capture of his expected apprentice.

But he had been signally defeated. Indeed he had been humiliated in presence of Kit and William Morris, by being unceremoniously picked up and tossed over the fence. As William was an Oakford boy, he foresaw that his discomfiture would soon be known to all his fellow townsmen, and that public ridicule would be his portion. There seemed no way to avoid this, unless by begging William to keep silent, and this he could not bring himself to do, even if the request was likely to be granted.

"Where's the boy?" asked his wife, as, after unharnessing his horse, he went into the house.

"I don't know where he is," answered Bickford, in a surly tone.

"Didn't you find him?"

"Yes, I found him."

"Wouldn't he come back?"

"He didn't."[Pg 76]

"I'd have made him if I were you."

"Perhaps you would, and then perhaps you wouldn't. Perhaps you couldn't."

"You don't mean to say, Aaron Bickford, that you let a whippersnapper like that defy you?"

"What could I do against a man eight feet high?"

"Goodness, Mr. Bickford, have you been drinking?" ejaculated his wife.

"No, I haven't been drinking."

"Do you mean to tell me that boy is eight feet high?"

"No, I don't mean to tell you the boy is eight feet high. But I won't answer any more foolish questions till you give me something to eat. I am fairly faint with hunger."

"Sit down, then, and I hope after you've gratified your appetite you'll be a little less mysterious."

Mrs. Bickford was privately of opinion that her husband had stopped at some drinking place—otherwise why should he prate of men eight feet tall?

Aaron Bickford ate almost ravenously, though the food set before him was not calculated to gratify the taste of an epicure. But all things are acceptable to an empty stomach.

When he seemed to be satisfied, his wife began anew.

"Who is it that is eight feet high?" she asked.

"The giant at the circus."

"What did you have to do with him?"

"Not much, but he had something to do with me," answered Bickford, grimly.

"How is that?"

"I overhauled the boy, and was dragging him back to the wagon, when this fellow hove in sight. It seems he knew the young rascal, and took his[Pg 77] part. He seized me as easily as you would take up a cat, and flung me over the fence."

"I wish I'd been there!" exclaimed Mrs. Bickford, angrily.

"What could you have done. You would have been flung over too," said her husband, contemptuously.

"I would have got a good grip of his hair, and I guess that would have made him let go."

"You'd have to stand on a ladder, then."

"So the boy got away?"

"Of course he did."

"And where did he go?"

"I expect he went to the circus along with William Morris."

"Was that boy with him?"

"Yes."

"They were pretty well matched. What can they do at the circus?"

"I don't know. Perhaps their long-legged friend will give them a ticket to the show."

"Aaron, suppose we go to the circus?"

"What for?"

"You may get hold of the boy, and bring him back. The giant won't be with him all the time."

"I'd like to get the boy back," said Bickford, in a wavering tone. "I'd give him a lesson."

"And so would I. I guess between us we could subdue him. But of course he must be got back first."

"I'll think of it, Sarah."

Later in the day Mr. Bickford told his wife he would go to the circus, but he tried to evade taking her in order to save the expense of another ticket. To this, however, she would not agree. The upshot[Pg 78] was, that after supper the old horse was harnessed up, and the amiable pair, bent on vengeance, started for Grafton.

CHAPTER XVI.
MR. BICKFORD AT THE CIRCUS.

Mr. Bickford's chief object in going to the circus was to regain possession of Kit, his runaway apprentice, as he chose to consider him. But, besides this, he really had a curiosity to see the show, and thought this would afford him a good excuse for doing so. The same remark will apply to Mrs. Bickford, whose curiosity had been excited the year previous by seeing a circus procession. The blacksmith and his wife were not prejudiced against amusements, like many others, but were too frugal to attend them. Now that they could combine business with pleasure, they threw to the winds all hesitation.

"Do you think you'll get the boy, father?" asked Mrs. Bickford, as they jolted over the road to Grafton.

"I'll make a try for it, Sarah. He's a good strong boy, and he'll make a capital blacksmith. Did you notice his broad shoulders?"

"He looks like he'd have a hearty appetite," said the careful spouse.

"We won't pamper him, Sarah," replied Bickford, smiling grimly. "He won't get no such victuals as he did at home. Plain food and plenty of it, that's the way to bring up boys."

"Perhaps he won't be at the circus," suggested Mrs. Bickford.[Pg 79]

"I'd be surprised if he wasn't. Boys have a natural hankering for the circus. I had when I was a boy."

"Did you ever go, Aaron?"

"No; I didn't have the money."

"Do you know how much they charge?"

"Fifty cents, I believe."

"It's an awful sight of money to pay for amusement. If it lasts two hours, that makes twenty-five cents an hour."

"So it does, Sarah. That's as much as I can earn by hard work in that time."

"I don't know as it's right to fling away so much money."

"I wouldn't do it if it wasn't for gettin' the boy back. He'll be worth a good deal to me if I do. He's a good deal stronger than Bill Morris."

"Of course that makes a difference. I don't care so much for the circus, though I should like to see the man stand up on a horse and jump through hoops. I wonder if the horse jumps through too."

"I don't know, but we'll soon know all that is to be known. The boy won't expect to see us, I reckon," concluded the blacksmith, with a chuckle.

At length they reached the circus grounds. All was bustle and excitement in the neighborhood of the lot.

"I declare, Aaron, it looks like Fourth of July," said Mrs. Bickford.

"So it does. It beats all—what a crowd there is."

They bought tickets and entered the inclosure.

In a small tent near the entrance were the curiosities. They were about to walk in when a young man curtly asked for tickets.

"We bought tickets at the gate. Here they are."[Pg 80]

"All right; but you need separate tickets here."

"I declare that's a swindle," said Mrs. Bickford. "I thought we could see the whole show on these."

"We only charge ten cents extra for this."

"It's a shame. Shall we go in, Aaron?"

"I guess we will. I want to see that 'ere fat woman."

"I'd like to see the dwarf and the woman with hair five feet long. A circus is dreadful expensive, but bein' as we're here we might as well see the whole thing."

Twenty cents was paid at the door, and the economical pair, grown suddenly so extravagant, walked in.

The first object on which the blacksmith's eyes rested kindled him with indignation, and recalled mortifying memories. It was Achilles Henderson, the giant, who, on his side recognized Aaron Bickford.

"Good evening, my friend," he said, with a smile. "I believe we have met before."

"Do you know him?" asked Mrs. Bickford, in surprise.

Aaron's brow contracted as he answered:

"It's