THE
JACK-O'-LANTERN GIRL. _Page 224._

_Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus._]

"Wasn't that great, Bunny?" cried Sue, who was watching.

"It sure was. But hurry up, or we'll be late."

The people clapped and laughed as Ted rode out of the ring after his
act. Then came more of the circus tricks. Two of the bigger boys
pretended they were an elephant. One was the hind legs and tail and the
other boy was the front legs and trunk. The boys were covered with a
suit of dark cloth, almost the color of an elephant, and when they
walked around the ring it was very funny. Then a little boy was given a
ride on the "elephant's back." He liked it very much.

Two other boys pretended they were horses, with long bunches of grass
for tails. Each one took a smaller boy on his back, and then these "boy
horses" raced around the sawdust ring.

Two of the girls were dressed up like real circus ladies, one in a pink,
and the other in a blue dress, made from mosquito netting. They sat on
sawhorses, which Bunker Blue got from the village carpenter shop. And
though the sawhorses could not run, or gallop, or even trot, the girls
pretended they could, and they had such a funny make-believe race that
everyone laughed. The girls even jumped through paper hoops, just as the
real riders do in a circus.

Then there was a wheelbarrow race between two boys, each of whom had to
push another boy around the tent. All went well until one of the clowns
put a pail of water in front of one of the wheelbarrows. Over this pail
the boy stumbled, and he and the one he was wheeling got all wet.

But it was only in fun, and no one minded. There were several boys who
did fancy tricks on the trapeze bars. They hung by their arms and legs,
and "turned themselves inside out," as Bunny called it.

Other boys did some high and broad jumping, while Bunker Blue pretended
he was the big strong giant man, who could lift heavy weights. But the
weights were only empty pasteboard boxes, painted black to look like
iron. Bunker pretended it was very hard to lift them, but of course it
was easy, for they were very light.

One boy, Tommie Lutken, did a very good trick though. He walked on a
tight rope stretched from one end of the tent to the other. This was a
real trick, and Tommie had practised nearly two weeks before he could do
it. He walked back and forth without falling. But when the people
clapped, and wanted him to do it again, Tommie did not do so wel