CHAPTER VI
IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY
Teddy had squared off, and was landing sledge-hammer blows on theempty air.
Phil, too, had squared himself prepared to give battle, but hishands fell sharply to his sides.
"Wha--what--" he gasped.
"Come on!" bellowed Teddy.
They were in a large room, brilliantly lighted, and about them,in a semi-circle, was a line of laughing faces. From them theeyes of the astonished Circus Boys wandered to a long table onwhich were flowers and plenty of good things to eat.
"Why, it's our old recitation room in the high school, Teddy,"breathed Phil.
"I don't care what it is. I can lick the whole outfit!" shoutedTeddy Tucker advancing belligerently.
"It's the boys, Teddy, don't you understand?" laughed Phil."Well, of all the ways of inviting a fellow to dinner, this beatsanything I ever saw before."
"How does it feel to be kidnaped?" grinned President Billy,extending his hand.
"So you are the young gentleman who put up this job on us,are you?" demanded Phil.
"I guess I am one of them. But I wasn't unlucky enough to get ablack eye, like Walter over there. You gave that to him, Teddy.My, what a punch you have!" laughed Billy.
"That isn't a circumstance to what's coming to you. I'll waittill I get back to school, next fall, and then I'll take it outof you. You'll have something coming to you all summer. Did Ipaint Walt's eye that way?"
"You did. It's up to you to apologize to him now."
"Apologize?"
"Yes; that's what I said."
"I like that! I have a good notion to apologize by painting theother eye the same color," growled Teddy.
"But, what does all this mean?" urged Phil, looking about him,still a bit dazed.
"It means that we fellows wanted to give you and Teddy alittle supper. It isn't much, but there are sandwiches andcookies and pie and lots of other stuff that you'll like."
"Cookies?" interrupted Teddy, his face relaxing into ahalf smile.
"Yes."
"We knew you wouldn't come, so we planned to kidnap you bothand bring you over here by main force. After we eat supperwe'll have a little entertainment among ourselves. Walter isgoing to sing--"
"What's that? Walt going to sing?" demanded Teddy, halting onhis way to inspect the table.
"Yes."
"Then I'm going, right now!" answered the lad, turning sharplyand heading for the door.
"Why, why--"
"I've heard him sing before. Good night!"
"Come back here," laughed Phil, grabbing his companionby the shoulder. "We can stand even Walter's singing ifhe can. But really, fellows, we can't stay more thanfifteen or twenty minutes."
"Why not?"
"Because we must get to the train. Were we to be left we mightcome in for a fine. Mr. Sparling is very strict. He expectseverybody to live up to the rules. I'm sorry, but--"
"It's all fixed, Phil. No need to worry," President Billyinformed him.
"Fixed? What do you mean?"
"With Mr. Sparling."
"You--you told him?"
"Yes."
"See here, Billy Ford," interrupted Teddy.
"What is it, Teddy?"
"Did you say Boss Sparling was in on this little kidnaping game--did he know you were going to raise roughhouse with--with us?"
"I--I guess he did," admitted President Billy.
"I'll settle with him tomorrow," nodded Teddy, swelling outhis chest.
"Did you tell him you were going to have a supper up here?"asked Phil.
"He knows all about it. You need not worry about the train goingaway without you. Mr. Sparling said you had a short run tonight,and that the last section would not pull out until three o'clockin the morning. That's honest Injun, Phil."
"Well, if that is the case, then we'll stay."
"Hurrah for the Circus Boys!" shouted the class, making a rushfor seats at the table.
"Ready for the coffee," announced the President.
Who should come in at that moment, with a steaming coffeepot, butthe Widow Cahill.
"Are you in this, too?" Teddy demanded.
"I am afraid I am," laughed Mrs. Cahill. "The boys needed somegrown-ups to help them out."
"You're no friend of mine, then. I'll--"
"But you are going to have some of those molasses cookies that Itold you I baked for you--"
"Cookies? Where?" exclaimed Teddy, forgetting hisanger instantly.
"Help yourself. There they are."
"It isn't much of a spread," apologized the president. "We havea little of everything and not much of anything--"
"And a good deal of nothing," added Teddy humorously.
"Everybody eat!" ordered Mrs. Cahill.
They did. Thirty boys with boys' appetites made the home-cookedspread disappear with marvelous quickness. Each had broughtsomething from home, and Mrs. Cahill, whom they had taken intotheir confidence two days before the Sparling Shows reachedtown, had furnished the rest. Everything was cold except thecoffee, but the feasters gave no thought to that. It was food,and good wholesome food at that, and the lads were doing fulljustice to it.
"Say, Phil, that was a wonderful act of yours," noddedPresident Billy, while the admiring gaze of the class wasfixed on Phil Forrest.
"I wish I might learn to do that," said Walter.
"You? You couldn't ride a wooden rocking horse without fallingoff and getting a black eye," jeered Teddy, at which there was ashout of laughter.
"Can you?" cut in Phil.
"I can ride anything from a giraffe to a kangaroo--that is, untilI fall off," Teddy added in a lower voice. "I rode a greased pigat a country fair once. Anybody who can do that, can sit on agiraffe's neck without slipping off."
"Where was that?" questioned a voice. "I never heard of yourriding a greased pig around these parts."
"I guess that must have been before you were born," retortedTeddy witheringly.
"Say, Phil," persisted Walter, this time in a confidential tone.
"Yes?"
"Do you suppose you could get me a job in the circus?"
"I don't know about that, Walt. What do you think you could do?"
"Well, I can do a cartwheel and--"
"Oh, fudge!" interrupted Teddy.
"That's more than Tucker could do when he joined the show.Do you know what he did, first of all?" said Phil.
"No; what did he do?" chorused the boys.
"He poured coffee in the cook tent for the thirsty roustabouts.That's the way he began his circus career."
"I didn't do it more than a day or two," Tucker explained,rather lamely.
"But you did it!" jeered Walter.
"Then his next achievement was riding the educated mule. I guessyou boys never saw him do that."
"Not until tonight."
"This is different. The other was a bucking mule, and Teddy madea hit from the first time he entered the ring on Jumbo. He hitpretty much everything in the show, including the owner himself."Phil leaned back and laughed heartily at the memory of hiscompanion's exhibition at this, his first appearance in a circusring as a performer.
"No, Walt, I wouldn't advise you to join. Some people arecut out for the circus life. They never would succeed atanything else. Teddy and myself for instance. Besides, yourpeople never would consent to it. You will be a lawyer, orsomething great, some of these days, while we shall be cuttingup capers in the circus ring at so much per caper. It's awonderful life but you keep out of it," was Phil Forrest'ssomewhat illogical advice.
"How far are you going this year?" asked one of the boys.
"I can't say. I understand we are going south--to Dixie Land forthe last half of the season. I think we are headed for Canada,just now, swinging around the circuit as it were. Isn't it abouttime we were getting back to the train, Teddy?"
"No, I guess not. I haven't eaten up all the cookies yet.Please pass the cookies
, you fellow up there at the head ofthe table."
"We shall have our little entertainment before you fellows go toyour sleeper. We reckon Phil Forrest and Teddy Tucker ought todo some stunts for us. Isn't that so?" asked President Billy.
"Yes," shouted the boys.
"What, after a meal like that? I couldn't think of it,"laughed Phil. "Never perform on a full stomach unless you wantto take chances. It might do you up for good."
"Well, it won't hurt Teddy to be funny. Do somethingfunny, Teddy."
Teddy looked up soulfully as he munched a cookie.
"Costs money to see me act funny," he said.
"Go on; go on!" urged the boys. "You never showed us any of yourtricks except what you did in the ring this evening."
"Do you know, it's a funny thing, but I never can be funnyunless there is a crop of new-mown sawdust under my feet,"remarked Teddy.
"Nothing very funny about that!" growled a voice at the furtherend of the table.
Teddy fixed him with a reproving eye.
"Very well, but you'll be sorry. I will now present to you thegiddiest, gladdest, gayest, grandest, gyrating, glamorous andglittering galaxy--as the press agent says--that ever happened."
Teddy, who sat at the extreme end of the table, placed both handscarelessly on the table, then drew his body up by slow degrees,until a moment later as his body seemed to unfold, he was doinga hand stand right on the end of the supper table.
The boys shouted with delight and Teddy kicked his feet inthe air.
"Go on! Don't stop," urged the lads.
"You'll be wishing I had stopped before I began," retorted thelad, starting to walk on his hands right down the center ofthe table.
There were dishes in the way, but this did not disturb Tucker inthe least. He merely pushed them aside, some rolling off on thefloor and breaking, others falling into the laps of the boys.
"Here, here, what are you doing?" called Phil.
"This is what I call the topsy-turvy walk."
Teddy paused when halfway down the table, to let his mouth downto the table, where he had espied another cookie. When he pulledhimself up, the cookie was between his lips, and the boys roaredat the ludicrous sight.
Then, the lad who was walking on his hands, continued right on.He was nearing the foot of the table when something occurred thatchanged the current of their thoughts, sending the heart of everyboy pounding in his throat.
Crash!
It seemed as if the roof had been suddenly hurled down upontheir heads.
Teddy instantly fell off the table, tumbling into the laps of twoof the boys, the three going down to the floor in a heap, finallyrolling under the table. The other boys sprang to their feet insudden alarm.
"It's a band," cried Phil. "Don't be afraid."
Then the circus band, that had been waiting in the hall justoutside the dining place, marched in with horns blaring, drumsbeating, and took up their position at the far end of the room.
"It's the circus band," cried the lads, now recovering fromtheir fright. "How did they get here?"
By this time Teddy, his face red and resentful, was poking hishead from beneath the table.
"Hey, Rube!" he shouted, then ducked back again.
Phil understood instantly that this was one ofMr. Sparling's surprises. But there were still other surprisesto come. No sooner had the band taken up its position than therewas again a commotion out in the hall. The lads opened theireyes wide when a troop of painted clowns came trotting in,followed by half a dozen acrobats, all in ring costume. A matwas quickly spread by some attendants that Mr. Sparling had sent.
Then began the merriest hodge-podge of acrobatic nonsense thatthe high school boys ever had seen. The clowns, entering intothe spirit of the moment, grew wonderfully funny. They sangsongs and told stories, while the acrobats hurled themselves intoa mad whirl of somersaults, cartwheels and Wild Dervish throws.
Thus far the boys were too amazed to speak.
All at once some of the performers began to form a pyramid, onestanding on the other's shoulders.
"Here, I'm going to be the top-mounter!" cried Teddy, takinga running start and beginning to clamber up the human column.He was assisted up and up until he was standing at the top,his head almost touching the high ceiling in the room.
"Speech!" howled the delighted high school boys.
"Fellow citizens," began Teddy.
Just then the human pyramid toppled over and Teddy had to leap tosave himself, striking the mat, doing a rolling tumble and comingup on his feet.
When all the fun making in the hall was over one surprise provedyet to be in the reserve. The high school boys of Edmestonturned out with lighted torches. Forming in column of fours theyescorted Phil and Teddy to their car on the circus train. It wasnot many minutes later that the boys, tired out but happy,tumbled into their berths, where they were asleep immediately,carrying on, even in their dreams, the joyous scenes throughwhich they had just passed.
The Circus Boys in Dixie Land; Or, Winning the Plaudits of the Sunny South Page 8