The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks; Or, The House of the Open Door, Page 4

  CHAPTER IV A SANDEBAGO CIRCUS

  Just how it started nobody ever knew--it may have been Sandhelo's turningout to be a trick mule, or it may have been because Slim was fat andwould make such a beautiful clown, besides being fine for a sideshow--butbefore they knew it the Winnebagos and the Sandwich Club were hard atwork getting up a circus. The Sandwiches had taken possession of theirhalf of the Open Door Lodge and had converted it into a gymnasium. Theyhad built it on purpose to reduce Slim, they carefully explained to theirfriends, and regularly put him through a course of exercises strenuousenough to reduce a hippopotamus to an antelope in three weeks, but at theend of that time he had gained just five pounds, so the Sandwichesdeclared their efforts to be love's labor lost and left him in peace.

  Sandhelo was becoming a well-known and conspicuous figure in the streets.Hitched to an old pony cart of Gladys', with bells jingling around hisneck and ribbons flying from his harness, he never failed to attract acrowd of children. He had all the vagaries of the artistic temperament,some of which caused his drivers no little inconvenience. For one thing,he would not go at all unless he heard music, and it was no smallaccomplishment to drive with one hand and play a mouth organ with theother if you happened to be alone in the cart. And then, if he happenedto pass anything unusual in the street he had a way of sitting back onhis haunches and holding up his front feet and looking at them. As heinvariably sat down unexpectedly, the cart would go on and bump into himand the shock would throw the driver from her seat, besides making agreat mess of the harness. Several times he had done this in the middleof a busy crossing and held up traffic in both directions, while motormenfumed and policemen threatened, and Sahwah (it usually was Sahwah,because she drove him more than the others) played her sweetest on themouth organ in an effort to make him go on. Nothing would make him moveuntil his curiosity was satisfied and then he would dash off like anarrow from the bow for half a block, after which he would slow down andlook over his shoulder to see how his driver was getting on. There wasalways such a look of anxious solicitude in his eye on these occasionsthat it was impossible to be angry with him and he continued to exercisehis temperament without reproof.

  After half a dozen of these free shows Sahwah declared that such anability to draw a crowd was worth money, and they had better give a realshow and charge admissions.

  The big space in front of the Open Door Lodge was an ideal place for thering. Seating arrangements for the audience gave them some anxiety atfirst.

  "We ought to have a grand stand," said the Captain, who had been chosenRingmaster.

  "Well, we can't build one," said the Bottomless Pit. "The audience willhave to stand through the performance, and that'll be a grand stand, allright."

  "Innovation in circuses," said Nyoda. "Have the audience stand and thecircus sit down. Like the picture of the bride standing while the groomsprawls at ease in the photographer's gilt chair."

  "I think I can get a lot of chairs from a man who rents them out," saidthe Captain. "He lets people have them for nothing if it's a charitableenterprise."

  "Do you call a circus a charitable enterprise?" asked Nyoda.

  "Well, ours will be," said the Captain. "We're doing it to make money sowe can buy the new apparatus for the gym, which will surely make Slimthin, and that surely is charity."

  Upstairs in the Lodge the six Winnebagos were all seated on the bearskinbed having a lively argument as to who should drive Slim in the Chair-iotRace. The Chair-iot Race was a grand inspiration of Sahwah's, who waskeen on features in the circus line. Once, on a rummage, through Gladys'attic, they had found six horsehair covered chairs furnished withexcellent china castors, which caused the chairs to roll with enchantingspeed. Sahwah now thought of the chairs and conceived the brilliant ideaof harnessing a Sandwich to each one, seat a Winnebago in the chair, andrace six abreast down the long cement walk from the barn to the road. Theidea was hailed with delight until the Winnebagos began comparing themerits of the prospective steeds, and nobody wanted to be the one todrive Slim and go lumbering along like an ice-wagon in the rear of theothers.

  "It's too bad the Captain had to be Ringmaster and can't take part in theshow," sighed Hinpoha. "Then there'd be enough without Slim."

  "We wouldn't dare leave him out, anyway," said Gladys. "It would hurt hisfeelings. So we'll just have to draw lots for him, and whoever gets himwill have to make the best of it, that's all." So they drew slips ofpaper from a hat and Hinpoha drew Slim, just as she had feared rightalong. Sahwah drew the Monkey, which suited her down to the ground, forhe was a famous sprinter, and she lost no time getting the girls to askthe boys whose names they had drawn in that secret ballot upstairs to betheir steeds in the race. Slim's face lighted up with such a delightedsmile when Hinpoha apparently chose him for her own that her heart smoteher when she thought how this choice had been thrust upon her. Slim wasalready beginning to learn the bitter truth that nobody loves a fat man.Nyoda and the Captain plotted the circus parade and it was a triumph ofingenuity. The advance bills which they scattered broadcast among theirfriends announced that the parade would embrace "Five ferocious animalsfrom the Other Side of Nowhere, these animals being respectively TheCamelk, The Crabbit, The Alligatortoise, The Kangarooster, and TheSalmonkey.

  Other numbers on the program were as follows:

  Ivan Awfulitch, world's greatest magician; royal entertainer to the King of Spain. Was banished to Siberia; escaped and swam to America; has now opened up a complete line of magic. One day only.

  Mr. Skygack, from Mars, in a special song feature entitled the Mars-y-lays.

  La Zingara, the bareback rider.

  Sandhelo, the famous trick mule. As intelligent as two men and a school teacher.

  Mr. Avoirdupois Slim, fattest man on earth. Will sit on a toothpick.

  Mr. E. Lastic, Inja rubber man.

  Archibald Dimples the better baby.

  Chair-iot Race. Feat never attemped before on any stage.

  Monkey, the Aerial Gymnast, in the sensational dupe-the-dupes.

  Twenty Other Great Features

  ALL CHILDREN WILL GET A FREE RIDE ON SANDELHO, THE FAMOUS TRICK MULE, AFTER THE PERFORMANCE

  Bottomless Pitt owned a little hand-printing press and printed wonderfultickets to be sold at five cents apiece, which Gladys declared were worththe money as souvenirs, with the circus thrown in extra.

  "What are you making, a circus tent?" asked Gladys, dropping into theLodge, where Nyoda sat stitching together great lengths of red and whitestriped material.

  "No; only a clown suit for Slim," laughed Nyoda. "Gracious, how much itdoes take!"

  "It reminds me of the riddle: 'If it takes thirty yards of cloth to makea shirtwaist for an elephant, etc.,'" said Gladys. "Poor Slim! You wouldhave died to see him practice his clown stunt with Sandhelo. You know theboys built him a tiny red cart with two big wheels, and when he sat downin it, it tilted way over backward and the shafts stuck up in the air andpulled poor little Sandhelo right up off his feet, and there he dangled,pawing for dear life. But, whatever are you making, Hinpoha?" shefinished, examining the thing which Hinpoha was working on and whichresembled nothing in the universe.

  "This is Peter's costume," answered Hinpoha; "he's the hind leg of theKangarooster, you know. By the way, Nyoda, has a Kangarooster one hump ortwo?"

  "None at all," answered Nyoda hastily. "The humps are on the 'Cam' partof the Camelk. That reminds me, have we something to stuff the humpswith?"

  "Take excelsior," advised Gladys. "Dear me, who's screeching like thatdownstairs?"

  They all crowded down the ladder at the sound of a lusty yell from belowand found Sahwah hanging head downward from a heavy hook in the wall. Shehad improved a moment's leisure to climb up to the top of the window witha spray of bittersweet to see how it would look, and in descending hadcaught her skirt on the hook and
lost her footing. The skirt tore throughuntil the stout serge hem was reached and that offered successfulresistance, and Sahwah hung, as Nyoda remarked, like a lamb on the spit.

  "I got an idea hanging upside down," were the first words she gasped asthey restored her to the perpendicular and revived her with peanuts.

  "It's the only way you ever would get an idea," said Hinpoha.

  "Is that so?" returned Sahwah, with spirit "Who thought up the Chair-iotRace, I'd like to know?"

  "Stop bickering and tell us your idea," said Nyoda.

  "Why, it's this," said Sahwah. "Sell hot cocoa with marshmallows in itafter the show. Everybody'll be cold sitting around. We can make almostas much money that way as with the circus."

  "A lake of hot cocoa with an island of marshmallows in it is my dream ofheaven," said Hinpoha, clasping her hands in ecstasy. "Sahwah, you're agenius. I yield the palm to you without a struggle. You have a 'head inyour mind,' as absent-minded old Fuzzytop used to say. There's nothing inthe whole world that'll separate a nickel from its owner like a cup ofhot cocoa with a marshmallow floating in it on a cold day."

  "Another innovation," said Nyoda. "We'll have that instead of circuslemonade. See to getting the supplies, will you, Sahwah dear? I have somany details to look after now that I simply cannot be responsible foranother thing, or my head will burst and out will come everything that'ssafely packed in now. Come in, Captain. What's on your mind?"

  "Slim," said the Captain, with a look of comical despair, as he sat downamong the girls. "I'm afraid he won't do for a Better Baby. He's smashedthree perambulators and a high chair and we can't get any more. And thebiggest size white dress we could buy in the store won't go half-wayaround him."

  Nyoda knitted her brows. "We simply have to have a Better Baby," sheaffirmed. "It's one of the best features. We'll drape cheesecloth aroundhim for a dress and he can play on a quilt on the floor--I mean theground--instead of being taken for a ride by his nurse in aperambulator."

  "Poor Slim!" said Hinpoha. "How many more things are going to be wishedon him? I'm afraid his 'gall will be divided into three parts,' too!"

  "That would have been a very clever thing for you to say," remarked theCaptain, "if it had been original, but it wasn't. They spring that overat our school, too. Slim isn't doing any more than the rest of us atthat. Only he's so conspicuous that everything he does seems like a lotmore than it really is."

  "How are the tickets going?" asked Sahwah.

  "We've sold over a hundred," announced the Captain with pride. "We'refamous people, we are."

  "Speak for yourself," said Sahwah. "It isn't we who are the attraction,though--it's Sandhelo. I rode him through the streets and sold nearlyfifty tickets to the children that followed us. They're all attracted bythe promise of a free ride after the show."

  "It'll probably take all evening to give them the ride, and we'll neverget to that jubilation spread we're going to have after the show, but wehave to make our word good," said Nyoda.

  "Put them on four at once and we'll get done somehow," said Sahwah.

  Hinpoha laid down her sewing and stretched her arms above her head. "Inever knew circuses were such a pile of work," she sighed.

  "'Wohelo means work,' So dig like a Turk,"

  chanted Sahwah.

  "I move we all go to the 'movies' tonight and see 'If I Were King,'"continued Hinpoha.

  "Can't," said Nyoda briefly, checking up on her fingers the things shestill had to do. "I still have to evolve a tail for the Salmonkey and afrontispiece for the Camelk, make four banners, rehearse the livingstatuary, make a bonnet for the Better Baby, teach the Crabbit how to hopand crawl at the same time and make a costume for the bareback rider."

  "I'd come and help you," said Sahwah, "but we're going to have a test inLatin tomorrow and I have to cram tonight. I'll just have time topractice with the band."

  "A test in time saves nine," murmured Hinpoha. "What are the Sandwichesdoing now?"

  "Erecting the flying trapeze," answered Sahwah, looking out of thewindow. "Captain is hanging by his eyebrow to the top of a pole andBottomless Pitt is standing below, waiting to catch him when he falls."

  The Captain caught her eye, as she leaned over the sill and shouted:

  "All right below, O Wohelo, Now _please_ go mix some pancake dough!"

  "All right," called Sahwah cheerily. "You'll soon smell somethingdoughing!"

  Nyoda and Gladys went home on an errand, and Hinpoha, worn out with herarduous labors with the needle, stretched out on the bearskin bed andfell sound asleep in the warmth of the fire. Sahwah puttered aboutcollecting the ingredients for flapjacks to make a treat for the boys,who had worked like Trojans ever since school was out. The wood in thefireplace had burned down to lovely glowing embers, and she laid thetoaster on top of them to act as a rest for the frying-pan. The Captain,tying ropes into the branches of the big tree just outside of the window,looked in and admired the scene. Hinpoha, with her marvellous red curlsfalling around her face in the light of the fire, looked like a sleepingprincess in a fairy tale, and Sahwah, holding her dish of batter in onehand and skilfully putting grease into the pan with the other, was acheery little housewife indeed. Through the half-open window he couldhear her singing "A Warrior Bold."

  A moment he looked in, filled with whole-souled admiration for thesemany-sided girls who were his new friends, and then without warningsomething happened inside. The panful of sizzling fat suddenly burst intoa sheet of flame that left the confines of the fireplace and seemed toleap all around Sahwah. A burning spark shot out and fell into a pile ofcheesecloth lying on the floor at the far side of the room, and it blazedup instantly, the flames enveloping the sleeping Hinpoha. It took lessthan a moment for the Captain to spring down from the tree, run into thebarn and up the ladder. But it was too late for him to do anything. Inthe twinkling of an eye Sahwah had seized the burning cheesecloth andflung it into the fireplace, thrown a bearskin rug over Hinpoha and nowstood calmly pouring sand from a bucket on top of the burning fat in thepan. And all the while she was doing it she had never stopped singing!The Captain stood still in his amazement and listened idly to the words:

  "So what care I, though death be nigh? I'll live for love or die----"

  A hoarse sound made her turn around and she saw the Captain standingbeside her with face pale as ashes. The dreadful sight he had seen fromthe tree when the room seemed filled with flame was still in his mind.

  "How did you manage to keep so cool and do everything so quickly?" heasked in amazement.

  Sahwah laughed at his expression of astonishment. "That's not the firstfire I've put out," she said calmly. "We always keep both water and sandon hand whenever we have an open fire, to prevent serious accidents.Having the cheesecloth go up at the same time rather complicated matters,but I got it into the fireplace without any trouble. I don't know whatmade the fat in the pan take fire; it's never done that before up here.But don't worry; I'll get your flapjacks made, all right."

  The Captain looked at her with more admiration than ever. "Most girlswould have been in a faint by that time, and have had to be doused withsmelling salts," he told the Sandwiches later, "instead of coollypromising you your flapjacks anyway and apologizing for the delay!"

  "Your hands are burned!" he exclaimed in concern, as he saw Sahwahlooking ruefully at her blackened fingers. "Let me do something forthem."

  "Nothing serious," said Sahwah, turning them down so he could not see theblistered palms.

  "They are, too!" persisted the Captain. "Have you any oil handy?"

  "In the First Aid box over there," said Sahwah. "It's in that bottlelabeled A Burned Child Dreads the Fire."

  The Captain returned with cotton and gauze and the oil and proceeded tobandage the scorched hands that had been so quick to avert disaster.

  "Won't Hinpoha be furious when she wakes up and finds her costume thatshe worked so hard on all burned up?" she said, as he wound the bandagesunder her direction. "I hated to throw it into t
he fire, but it had to bedone."

  "She'd better not be furious," returned the Captain. "She's got you tothank that she didn't burn up herself. She had a close call that time,and if you hadn't snatched that burning rag off her and covered her witha rug I'd hate to think what would have happened. I tell you it's greatto be able to do the right thing at the right time. A lot of people talkabout what they would do in an emergency, but very few of them ever doit."

  "Well," returned Sahwah coolly, holding up her hands and inspecting thebandages with a critical eye, "there is an emergency before us right now.Suppose you stop talking and get busy and fry those pancakes for theboys. They're dying of starvation outside."

  The Captain started, blushed and looked at her keenly to see if she weremaking fun of him, and then fell to work without a word finishingSahwah's interrupted labor.