CHAPTER I
THE LURE OF THE CIRCUS
"I say, Phil, I can do that."
"Do what, Teddy?"
"A cartwheel in the air like that fellow is doing in the pictureon the billboard there."
"Oh, pshaw! You only think you can. Besides, that's not acartwheel; that's a double somersault. It's a real stunt, let metell you. Why, I can do a cartwheel myself. But up in the airlike that--well, I don't know. I guess not. I'd be willing totry it, though, if I had something below to catch me," added thelad, critically surveying the figures on the poster before them.
"How'd you like to be a circus man, Phil?"
Phil's dark eyes glowed with a new light, his slender figurestraightening until the lad appeared fully half a head taller.
"More than anything else in the world," he breathed. "Wouldyou?"
"Going to be," nodded Teddy decisively, as if the matter werealready settled.
"Oh, you are, eh?"
"Uh-huh!"
"When?"
"I don't know. Someday--someday when I get old enough, maybe."
Phil Forrest surveyed his companion with a half critical smile onhis face.
"What are you going to do--be a trapeze performer or what?"
"Well," reflected the lad wisely, "maybe I shall be an 'Or What.'I'm not sure. Sometimes I think I should like to be the fellowwho cracks the whip with the long lash and makes the clowns hoparound on one foot--"
"You mean the ringmaster?"
"I guess that's the fellow. He makes 'em all get around lively.Then, sometimes, I think I would rather be a clown. I can skin acat on the flying rings to beat the band, now. What would yourather be, Phil?"
"Me? Oh, something up in the air--high up near the peak of thetent--something thrilling that would make the people sit up onthe board seats and gasp, when, all dressed in pink and spangles,I'd go flying through the air--"
"Just like a bird?" questioned Teddy, with a rising inflection inhis voice.
"Yes. That's what I'd like most to do, Teddy," concluded thelad, his face flushed with the thought of the triumphs that mightbe his.
Teddy Tucker uttered a soft, long-drawn whistle.
"My, you've got it bad, haven't you? Never thought you were thatset on the circus. Wouldn't it be fine, now, if we both couldget with a show?"
"Great!" agreed Phil, with an emphatic nod. "Sometimes I thinkmy uncle would be glad to have me go away--that he wouldn't carewhether I joined a circus, or what became of me."
"Ain't had much fun since your ma died, have you, Phil?"questioned Teddy sympathetically.
"Not much," answered the lad, a thin, gray mist clouding hiseyes. "No, not much. But, then, I'm not complaining."
"Your uncle's a mean old--"
"There, there, Teddy, please don't say it. He may be all youthink he is, but for all the mean things he's said and done tome, I've never given him an impudent word, Teddy. Can you guesswhy?"
"Cause he's your uncle, maybe," grumbled Teddy.
"No, 'cause he's my mother's brother--that's why."
"I don't know. Maybe I'd feel that way if I'd had a mother."
"But you did."
"Nobody ever introduced us, if I did. Guess she didn't know me.But if your uncle was my uncle do you know what I'd do with him,Phil Forrest?"
"Don't let's talk about him. Let's talk about the circus. It'smore fun," interrupted Phil, turning to the billboard again andgazing at it with great interest.
They were standing before the glowing posters of the GreatSparling Combined Shows, that was to visit Edmeston on thefollowing Thursday.
Phillip Forrest and Teddy Tucker were fast friends, though theywere as different in appearance and temperament as two boys wellcould be. Phil was just past sixteen, while Teddy was a littleless than a year younger. Phil's figure was slight and graceful,while that of his companion was short and chubby.
Both lads were orphans. Phil's parents had been dead forsomething more than five years. Since their death he had beenliving with a penurious old uncle who led a hermit-like existencein a shack on the outskirts of Edmeston.
But the lad could remember when it had been otherwise--when hehad lived in his own home, surrounded by luxury and refinement,until evil days came upon them without warning. His father'sproperty had been swept away, almost in a night. A year laterboth of his parents had died, leaving him to face the worldalone.
The boy's uncle had taken him in begrudgingly, and Phil's lifefrom that moment on had been one of self-denial and hard work.Yet he was thankful for one thing--thankful that his miserly olduncle had permitted him to continue at school.
Standing high in his class meant something in Phil's case, forthe boy was obliged to work at whatever he could find to do afterschool hours, his uncle compelling him to contribute something tothe household expenses every week. His duties done, Phil wasobliged to study far into the night, under the flickering lightof a tallow candle, because oil cost too much. Sometimes hiscandle burned far past the midnight hour, while he appliedhimself to his books that he might be prepared for the next day'sclasses.
Hard lines for a boy?
Yes. But Phil Forrest was not the lad to complain. He wentabout his studies the same as he approached any other task thatwas set for him to do--went about it with a grim, silentdetermination to conquer it. And he always did.
As for Teddy--christened Theodore, but so long ago that he hadforgotten that that was his name--he studied, not because hepossessed a burning desire for knowledge, but as a matter ofcourse, and much in the same spirit he did the chores for thepeople with whom he lived.
Teddy was quite young when his parents died leaving him without arelative in the world. A poor, but kind-hearted family inEdmeston had taken the lad in rather than see him become a publiccharge. With them he had lived and been cared for ever since. Oflate years, however, he had been able to do considerable towardlightening the burden for them by the money he managed to earnhere and there.
The two boys were on their way home from school. There remainedbut one more day before the close of the term, which was a matterof sincere regret to Phil and of keen satisfaction to hiscompanion. Just now both were too full of the subject of thecoming show to think of much else.
"Going to the show, Phil?"
"I am afraid not."
"Why not?"
"I haven't any money; that's the principal reason," smiled theboy. "Are you?"
"Sure. Don't need any money to go to a circus."
"You don't?"
"No."
"How do you manage it?"
"Crawl in under the tent when the man ain't looking," answeredTeddy promptly.
"I wouldn't want to do that," decided the older lad, with a shakeof the head. "It wouldn't be quite honest. Do you think so?"
Teddy Tucker shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
"Never thought about it. Don't let myself think about it. Isn'tsafe, for I might not go to the show if I did. What's your otherreason?"
"For not going to the circus?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't think Uncle would let me; that's a fact."
"Why not?"
"Says circuses and all that sort of thing are evil influences."
"Oh, pshaw! Wish he was my uncle," decided Teddy belligerently."How long are you going to stand for being mauled around like alittle yellow dog?"
"I'll stand most anything for the sake of getting an education.When I get that then I'm going to strike out for myself, and dosomething in the world. You'll hear from me yet, Teddy Tucker,and maybe I'll hear from you, too."
"See me, you mean--see me doing stunts on a high something-or-other in a circus. Watch me turn a somersault."
The lad stood poised on the edge of the ditch, on the other sideof which the billboard stood. This gave him the advantage of anelevated position from which to attempt his feat.
"Look out that you don't break your neck," warned Phil. "I'd tryit on a haymow,
or something like that, first."
"Don't you worry about me. See how easy that fellow in thepicture is doing it. Here goes!"
Teddy launched himself into the air, with a very good imitationof a diver making a plunge into the water, hands stretched outbefore him, legs straight behind him.
He was headed straight for the ditch.
"Turn, Teddy! Turn! You'll strike on your head."
Teddy was as powerless to turn as if he had been paralyzed fromhead to foot. Down he went, straight as an arrow. Therefollowed a splash as his head struck the water of the ditch, thelad's feet beating a tattoo in the air while his head was stuckfast in the mud at the bottom of the ditch.
"He'll drown," gasped Phil, springing down into the littlestream, regardless of the damage liable to be done to his ownclothes.
Throwing both arms about the body of his companion he gave amighty tug. Teddy stuck obstinately, and Phil was obliged totake a fresh hold before he succeeded in hauling the lad from hisperilous position. Teddy was gasping for breath. His face,plastered with mud, was unrecognizable, while his clothes werecovered from head to foot.
Phil dumped him on the grass beneath the circus billboard andbegan wiping the mud from his companion's face, while Teddyquickly sat up, blinking the mud out of his eyes and grumblingunintelligibly.
"You're a fine circus performer, you are," laughed Phil."Suppose you had been performing on a flying trapeze in a circus,what do you suppose would have happened to you?"
"I'd have had a net under me then, and I wouldn't have fallen inthe ditch," grunted Teddy sullenly.
"What do you suppose the folks will say when you go home in thatcondition?"
"Don't care what they say. Fellow has got to learn sometime, andif I don't have any worse thing happen to me than falling in aditch I ought to be pretty well satisfied. Guess I'll go backnow. Come on, go 'long with me."
Phil turned and strode along by the side of his companion untilthey reached the house where Teddy lived.
"Come on in."
"I'm sorry, Teddy, but I can't. My uncle will be expecting me,and he won't like it if I am late."
"All right; see you tomorrow if you don't come out again tonight.We'll try some more stunts then."
"I wouldn't till after the circus, were I in your place," laughedPhil.
"Why not!"
"Cause, if you break your neck, you won't be able to go to theshow."
"Huh!" grunted Teddy, hastily turning his back on his companionand starting for the house.
Phil took his way home silently and thoughtfully, carrying hisprecious bundle of books under an arm, his active mind planningas to how he might employ his time to the best advantage duringthe summer vacation that was now so close at hand.
A rheumatic, bent figure was standing in front of the shack wherethe lad lived, glaring up the street from beneath bushy eyebrows,noting Phil Forrest's leisurely gait disapprovingly.
Phil saw him a moment later.
"I'm in for a scolding," he muttered. "Wonder what it is allabout this time. I don't seem able to do a thing to please UncleAbner."
The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings; Or, Making the Start in the Sawdust Life Page 2
