CHAPTER IX

THE EARTH OPENS AND POKEY IS SWALLOWED UP

“Well, how soon can you all be ready? We must get an early start if we expect to secure the best seats in the house,” cried Mr. Lombard, as dessert was being served at dinner that night.

“Oh, we’ll be ready the very minute we’ve finished,” cried Denise, who was so eager to start that she would willingly have dispensed with dessert altogether.

“How soon can you be ready, mamma,” he asked.

“As quickly as I can stick in a hatpin to keep my hat from tumbling off when I laugh,” replied Mrs. Lombard.

“And you, mother?”

“Why, Lewis Lombard, are you crazy?” demanded grandma. “Do you suppose that I am going to a circus at my time of life?”

“To be sure you are! We’re _all_ of us going, the whole family, from you down to cook, John and his family included. I’ve ordered down a hack from the village, and away we all go. Dear me, you don’t suppose that we are going to let such a rare treat as ‘Backus’s Greatest Show on Earth’ go by unappreciated. Certainly _not_!” and Mr. Lombard leaned back in his chair to laugh in his hearty way that proved so infectious that none could resist.

And it was not long before he was assisting his family into one of the village hacks sent down, rather than use his own horses and so deprive the help of their treat, for his thoughts were always for the pleasure he could give to high or lowly. Hart was perched in front with the driver, for he had been borrowed for the occasion; grandma, still protesting that “it was utterly absurd for a woman of seventy to attend a circus,” sat with Mrs. Lombard on the back seat, while her son assured her that she “was his best girl and that no fellow ever went to a circus without his best girl.” “And you’re my ‘second best,’” he said, as he put his arm around Pokey, who sat between him and Denise on the front seat, “and I shall put you one side of me and grandma upon the other, just to keep you from getting into mischief. Grandma looks sedate enough, but you must never judge from appearances.”

“Right this way, gentlemen and ladies! Right this way to secure the finest reserved seats in the house! Fine cushioned parquet chairs. Comfortable as your own lux_ur_us sofas at home. Don’t lose a moment! They’re going fast! Seventy-five cents each for first choice!” shouted the ticket-seller, perched in a funny little tent all by himself at the entrance to the big tent.

“That’s just what we’re after! Here are six of us; now let’s see how well you are going to treat us!” said Mr. Lombard to the man.

The smile with which it was said sent a cheering ray straight down into the man’s tired heart, for, whatever it might seem to the public, circus life was not bliss unalloyed, as this ticket-seller had learned to his sorrow. “Treat you first-class, sir! Six fine seats all in line on third row. Just high enough to see the whole arena, and escape any dust! Here you are! Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir,” as Mr. Lombard laid the money upon the little shelf and gathered up the six tickets. But as he did not pass on, the man looked at him rather questioningly. “Now I want seven more somewhere else. How about your fifty-cent seats? Got plenty of those?”

If the man had beamed before, he fairly glowed now, for such customers were rare. “All you want, sir! All you want!” he cried.

Mr. Lombard made his second purchase, and then, turning to the man who had driven them up, said:

“Now get along back for your second load, and here’s a ticket for yourself when you’ve safely landed all the help at the show. Tie up your horses where they’ll be comfortable--I’ve made that all right with Mr. Andrews--and see the whole thing. Only don’t forget us when it’s over. There will be another hack along for John and the maids when needed.”

“Oh, I say, _you’re all right_, Mr. Lombard,” said the hackman, with a broad grin.

I need not tell you a single thing about the performance. You have all been to the circus, and I dare say much finer ones than this little country show, but I doubt if you ever laughed more heartily at the funny pranks of the clowns and trick ponies, or ever enthused more wildly over the beautiful horses and wonderful trapeze performances, than did this happy party. Near the end of the performance the ringmaster announced that there was to be a “new and novel feature presented this evening by an exhibition of the manner in which bareback riders were taught to ride.” Then a tremendous crane was fastened to the great center pole of the tent in such a manner that it would swing around in a circle the size of the circus-ring. A steady old horse, a very patriarch of ring horses, was brought in, and some one was selected from the audience to ride him. Now it so happened that John’s eldest hopeful, a boy about twelve years of age, was the one to volunteer, and to scramble upon the horse’s back like a young monkey. A long strap with a stout belt attached dangled from the end of the crane, and the belt was buckled securely about the boy’s waist, and the word given to start. So far so good. He sat his steed bravely, and the horse cantered around the ring in the easy rocking motion peculiar to circus horses, who learn to move like machines. “Now stand up,” ordered the ringmaster, and John, Jr., essayed to do so, to find himself a moment later dangling in midair like a big spider from its web, legs and arms flying wildly about in search of something to grasp as the old horse still plodded staidly along beneath him, although just out of reach of those wildly gesticulating arms and legs, while the audience howled with laughter. Around went the horse, and just above him moved the crane at the same speed, but land upon that beast again John, Jr., could not.

“Lewis, if you do not take me home I shall certainly die of laughter,” said poor grandma to her son, who was so convulsed at the sight before him that he was powerless to heed her, for certainly anything funnier than that struggling boy, who had mounted that beast so confident of his ability to ride him “any old way,” as he had confided to his father, it would be hard to conceive of. On Mr. Lombard’s left sat Pokey, laughing as she seldom laughed and until she ached therefrom. But now John, Jr., grew desperate, and resolved to ride bareback or die in the attempt. Ah, now he has his feet upon that broad back, and then follows a wild struggle, only to end in defeat, as John, Jr., wildly kicking, slides gracefully over his steed’s tail and lands gently upon the sawdust. But he was not to monopolize all the excitement, for Pokey had resolved to create a little on her own account, and when next Mr. Lombard turned around to see how she fared she had vanished entirely.

“My soul and body, what has become of her!” he cried, in dismay, when a voice from the bowels of the earth answered:

“I slipped through when I doubled up to laugh, and I can’t get back,” for the “fine cushioned parquet chairs” had proved to be but boards laid upon tiers and covered with turkey-red cushions, which needed but a slight push to slip them into space. Pokey, in her excitement, had given the push, and away she went, cushion and all, her exclamations being completely drowned in the shouts of laughter.

Reaching down, Mr. Lombard gave a “long pull and a strong pull,” and brought Pokey to light, none the worse for her spill.

“Look here, Miss. I’m going to tie a string to you in future,” said Mr. Lombard, while grandma administered consolation in the shape of cream peppermints, with which she seemed provided upon all occasions.

“I don’t see how I ever did it, I’m sure,” said Pokey solemnly.

“No more do I,” laughed Mrs. Lombard.

When the show came to an end Mr. Lombard said:

“Now keep all in a line close behind me, and then we will not become separated in this jam, for the whole town is turned loose I firmly believe.”

So off they started, Hart in the lead, with Mr. Lombard’s hands upon his shoulders to “steer him straight,” Grandma, Mrs. Lombard, Denise, and Pokey, as usual, at the end. They had just reached the exit, when Denise turned to speak to Pokey, when lo, and behold, Pokey had again disappeared.

“Papa, mamma, grandma!” she screamed, “Pokey’s gone again.”

They would have stopped could they have done so, but who can check the outpouring of a circus crowd? Willy-nilly they were swept out into the moonlight.

“Oh, what can have happened to her now,” wailed Denise. “How _could_ she get lost in just that little time?”

“Don’t be alarmed, dearie,” said mamma. “Papa and I will go right back the moment we can get through the crowd, and will surely find her.”

Placing grandma and the two children in the waiting hack, Mr. and Mrs. Lombard made their way back into the rapidly emptying tent, and had hardly proceeded twenty feet when they came upon Pokey, covered with dirt and sawdust.

“What under the sun has happened?” demanded Mr. Lombard.

“Oh, that old stump!” answered Pokey in tones of intense disgust. “Just look at it, and the mess I’m in!” and she gave an impatient kick at a small stump which showed about three inches above the ground close to the bottom row of seats. “I was walking right along close behind Denise, when I stubbed my toe on that hateful old thing and down I went, flat on my face, and before I could get up I guess a _hundred_ people walked right over me. I thought they’d kill me, and I couldn’t get up or stir. So I rolled over till I was in under the seats, and lay there till the people got by. And just look what a sight I am!”

“Pokey, my girl, you are altogether too much given to stretching at length upon mother earth, and after this I must beg you to keep right end up, if you wish to avoid giving the entire family nervous prostration. But considering that no bones are broken, and you are not ground to fine powder, I’ll forgive you this time,” said Mr. Lombard, as he scrubbed her off with his pocket-handkerchief.