0034
“No, of course I won't, dearie, and you come straight back and give me a kiss, and know that no one wishes you quite such a jolly time as your own sister Josephine.”
And thus speeded on their way, the children's figures grew smaller and smaller in the maple-shaded distance of the roadside path, and with a little sigh Josephine turned back to her duties within-doors. There was a foreboding of coming evil in her heart, and in Hazel's and Starlight's, too, for that matter. Children though they were, they were still old enough to know, that, now that the war had ended in the defeat of the English, those who had sided with them, as Captain Boniface had done, would have to suffer for it; but for to-day every worry was utterly forgotten. Hazel had no thought for the coming interview with Colonel Hamilton—which, it must be confessed, she rather dreaded—nor Starlight for the soldiers in the old homestead.
Right before them lay all the delights of a wonderful English circus, and with the lightest of hearts they set forth upon their happy expedition. Having strolled along in leisurely fashion, the old town clock struck eleven as they pressed in through the clumsy turnstile which barred the circus entrance, and the regular performance was not to commence until one. But two hours were none too much for the inspection of the wonderful sideshows, and wide-eyed they passed from one to the other, instinctively turning quickly away from two or three human monstrosities in a close, unsavory tent, to spend an hour of intense merriment over the antics of a family of monkeys in a cage in the open air. Indeed, they doled out most of their luncheon to the mischievous little youngsters, actually forgetting that there was any likelihood of their ever being hungry themselves and repenting of such liberality.
A great deal of fuss over a circus, you may be thinking, my little friend, having yourself been so many times to see “The Greatest Show on Earth” but if you had lived in the days of Hazel and Starlight, and never seen a circus in your life, nor a show of any kind—either great or small—then, perhaps, you would have been not a little excited too.
Long before it was at all necessary, and after much consultation and numerous experiments at different angles, the children seated themselves at the precise point which they had concluded, on the whole, offered greatest advantages, and then they impatiently watched the uncomfortable benches become gradually filled, and certain significant preparations going forward on the part of the gayly-liveried lackeys.
At last the orchestra of three ill-tuned instruments struck up a preliminary march, the low, red-topped gates of the ring swung open, and the gorgeous company pranced in, dazzling and brilliant indeed, in the eyes of the children. What did it matter if tinsel were tarnished, and satins and velvets travel-stained and bedraggled. They saw it not. It was all glitter and shimmer to them, and, oh, those beautiful, long-tailed horses with their showy trappings! Hazel silently made up her mind on the spot, that she would be a circus-rider herself as soon as she was old enough,ifher father would let her. She changed her mind later in the day, however, owing to certain unexpected experiences, and was thankful enough that she had not openly expressed her resolution of a few hours before.
Midway in the performance, as the clown had announced, for they did not have printed programmes in those days, there was to be some lofty tumbling by the Strauss brothers, and at the proper moment in they came leaping and jumping. They were all attired in the regulation long hose, short trousers, and sleeveless jackets of the professional tumbler, but it was easy enough for any child to detect at a glance that it was quite impossible that they should belong to the same family. They were of all ages and sizes, but the youngest performer did not appear to be more than twelve; he was a handsome little fellow, with a fine dark complexion, and from the first both Hazel's and Starlight's attention centred upon him. He proved himself the most agile of all the brothers, eagerly watching for his turn every time, and apparently enjoying the performance almost as keenly as the audience. But it happened after a while, that when he had just accomplished the feat of turning a double somersault from the top of a spring-board, he did not attempt to rejoin the other leapers and tumblers, but crept from the place where he had landed in the sawdust to the edge of the ring, seated himself, with his little slippered feet straight out before him, and leaned comfortably back against its rail. The spot he had chosen was directly underneath where Hazel and Starlight were sitting, and being in the first row they naturally leaned over to investigate matters. He sat there so comfortably, and his older brothers seemed so indifferent to the fact that he had dropped from their number, that the children came to the conclusion that he was simply taking a little permitted rest.
At last Starlight made so bold as to ask, “Say, Straussie, you didn't hurt yourself any way, did you?”
At the sound of Starlight's voice the little fellow looked up surprised. “Yes, I did,” he replied, “I often slip my knee-cap, or something like that when I take that double 'sault.”
“Does it hurt you now,” asked Hazel, with real solicitude.
“Yes, a little. I can't jump any more to-day. The men know what's the matter with me. I'll be all right in a little while.”
“Do you like being in a circus?” continued Starlight, for it was even more interesting to converse with a member of the troupe than to watch the performance of the troupe itself.
“I like the jumping and tumbling; that's all the part I like,” ending with a sigh.
But it was not easy to carry on a conversation at the distance they were from each other, particularly as the tumblers, as if to add to the excitement, kept up an almost ceaseless hallooing and shouting. Now it happened that the ring, with the exception of the gates of entrance, was formed by a short canvas curtain suspended from a circular iron rail. Observing this, a happy thought occurred to Starlight.
“Look here, Straussie,” he said, in a penetrating whisper, “I'd like to talk with you. Couldn't you creep under the curtain there, and I'll drop down between the seats.”
“Yes, I could,” answered the little tumbler, grasping the situation at once, and suiting the action to the word.
“I wish I could drop too,” urged Hazel, longingly.
“No, you stay where you are. It wouldn't do, Hazel; folks might notice,” and Hazel was sensible enough to see the wisdom of the remark. As it was, every one was by far too much absorbed to take account of the fact that a little fellow inside the ring and a little fellow outside of it had disappeared at one and the same moment. And so it happened that all unsuspected a very important conversation was carried on, and a remarkable scheme planned under the crowded benches of that day's performance. Meanwhile Hazel “sat on pins and needles.” Even “the most educated elephant in the world” failed to rouse much interest in a little maiden who knew an absorbing conversation to be going on almost within earshot and in which she longed to have a hand.
“What is your name?” asked Starlight, as soon as he had dropped safely to the dry grass, and had stretched himself beside the little tumbler, who sat with his knees gathered close to him and his hands clasped round them.
“Flutters,” answered the boy.
“That's not your real name?”
“That's what they call me.”
“You mean the circus people?”
Flutters simply nodded “yes.” Somehow he did not seem at first inclined to be quite as communicative as Starlight would have wished.
“It must be fun to wear clothes like those,” he said, after a pause, eyeing his new friend from head to foot with evident admiration.
“Oh, it's kind of fun for a while, but there isn't much real fun. Everything's only kind of fun, and there isn't any fun at all about most things.”
Starlight couldn't quite agree with these sage remarks, although he had himself of late been seeing a great deal of the darker side of life.
“I guess you're not very well, Flutters,” he said, seriously; “or perhaps you're tired.”
“Oh, I'm well enough, but I'm not over-happy,” answered the boy, who, from little association with children and much with older people, had formed rather a mature way of speaking.
“What makes you feel like that?” asked Starlight.
“Oh, lots of things. There's no one who cares for me 'cept to make money out of me. That's kind of hard on a fellow.
“Don't you get some of the money yourself?”
“Not a penny. You see, I'm 'prenticed to the manager till I'm eighteen.”
“Who apprenticed you?” said Starlight, taking care to speak correctly.
“The manager, I suppose; but I did not know anybody had to 'prentice you. I thought you just 'prenticed yourself by promising to work for your board.”
“Not a bit of it. You oughtn't to have made such a promise. If you were worth anything to the manager you were worth part of the money you earned. Besides, I don't think anybody can apprentice a boy except his parents or his guardian, or some one who has charge of him.”
“Well, nobody's had charge of me this long while.”
“Is that big man with the great black moustache the manager?” asked Starlight.
“Yes, he is, and he's a tough one,” and Flutters pressed his lips tightly together and shook his head by way of emphasis.
“He doesn't look kind.”
“Folks doesn't look things what they never are.”
“Why don't you cut the circus, Flutters?”
“Would you, really?”
“You mean run away?”
Starlight nodded yes.
“Where to?” was Flutters's pointed question.
“Oh, anywhere,” somewhat vaguely.
“That's all very well; but board, you know, and a blanket to roll yourself in at night is a little better than nothing at all.”
“That's so,” said Starlight, and then sat silent a few moments, drawing his fingers, rake fashion, through the dry grass in front of him, and evidently thinking hard.
“Flutters,” he said at last, “if you ran away I believe you'd find a home and somebody to care for you—we'd look out for you ourselves, Aunt Frances and I, till something turned up.”
0039
“Would you, really?” and Flutters leaned very close to Starlight in his eagerness.
“Yes, I'm sure we would. Will you do it?”
“Yes, sir, I'll do it now,” and Flutters got straightway on to “all fours,” as if he deemed that the most silent and effective mode of escape, although the benches were hardly so low as to render it necessary for a boy of his size.
“But you'll be caught in a minute in those—fixings.” Starlight did not think there was enough of them to deserve the respectable name of clothes.
Flutters sat down in despair. “Then there's no use; I may as well give it up if I have to go back for anything.” Flutters stood in such fear of the manager that he felt sure he could read his very thoughts. He honestly meant that he would abandon the whole scheme rather than face Mr. Bradshaw with such a design in mind, and he looked down at his spangled slippers and bedraggled tights in most woe-begone fashion.
“I have it,” said Starlight, after a moment's serious cogitation; “wait here a minute,” and taking hold of a board directly under the seat where he had sat, he pulled himself up to his place beside Hazel. She was ready with a host of eager questions, but Starlight, in the most imperative of whispers, gave her quickly to understand that there was no time for anything of that sort. “Just do as I tell you, Hazel,” some one overheard him say, but more than that they fortunately did not hear.
A moment later Starlight disappeared, and a little red cloak, which Josephine had made Hazel carry with her, had disappeared too.
Not long afterward, but it seemed a very long while to Hazel, the entertainment came to a close with a wild sort of farce, which everybody seemed to think pretty funny, but Hazel did not so much as smile. She had neither seen nor heard what was going on; she had an important little piece of business ahead of her, and could hardly wait to be off and about it. If her seat had not been quite in the middle of the row, so that she would have been obliged to crowd past a long line of people, she simply could not have waited; and now that the performance was actually over, she energetically pushed her way through one group after another, lingering about as if loath to desert the charms of the circus, and was clear of the great tent in almost less time than it takes to tell it. Off she darted down the road—down Broadway one would say today—for the gateway to the circus enclosure was exactly on the spot where Niblo's Theatre has for so many years set forth its varied amusements.
There was only one farm-house in the immediate neighborhood, and thither Hazel flew, bringing up at the threshold of its old Dutch kitchen in a state of breathless excitement. “Mrs. V an Wyck,” she cried with what little breath she had left, as she peered over the half door that barred her entrance.
“In a moment, Hazel,” came a voice from the depths. “I am putting some curd in the cheese press; I'll be up in a minute.”
The minute afforded Hazel a much-needed breathing space, and when a rosy-cheeked Dutch Frau emerged from the horizontal doorway of the cool, clean-smelling cellar, Hazel was able to make known her request in quite coherent fashion.
“Oh Mrs. Van Wyck,willyou let me have a pair ol Hanss trousers,' and some shoes and a coat, and please, please don't ask me what I want them for!” for she saw the question shaping itself on Frau Van Wyck's lips; “I'll bring them home safe to-morrow, and tell you all about it.”
The little woman looked decidedly astonished, but the child was so urgent, and withal such a little favorite of hers, that she could but accede to her request, and in a trice Hazel was off again with the coveted articles, in a snug bundle, swinging from one hand as she ran.
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T may seem at first somewhat improbable that Flutters should have been able.. to make his escape from the circus grounds without being noticed, but escape he did under Starlight's cautious guidance. Every one was still intent on the performance itself; outside were only a few straggling employees of the company, and they were too much preoccupied with the special duties assigned to them to pay any heed to the fact that a couple of boys were making their way through the grounds. Indeed, it was decidedly too common an occurrence to excite any suspicion. To be sure, Hazel's cloak concealed neither the head nor feet of little Flutters; but velvet cap and satin slippers were tucked safely away, and the absence of hat and shoes was by no means unusual among the boyish rabble that found their way into the circus. The most dangerous, because the most conspicuous move in their plan of escape, would be the scaling of the high board fence, so they naturally made their way to its most remote corner. It needed but a moment for Flutters to scramble to its top and drop on the other side. Starlight made more clumsy work of it. It was not an easy thing to keep one's hold on the slippery inside posts of the fence, and when he was near the top he heard some one calling at his back, which did not tend to help matters. Astride the fence at last, however, he glanced down and saw a forlorn old man close at his heels, one of the drudges of the circus, whose duty it was to keep things cleared up about the grounds.
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Look you there, cried, in a cracked Flutters and Starlight were safe out of sight now, and smiled at each other with supreme satisfaction.
“That's Robbin's voice,” chuckled Flutters, as they walked off through the woods that grew close up to the circus; “he could get over a mountain as easily as over that fence; he has the rheumatics awful bad, and he's very old besides, He's the only one I mind about leaving.” Poor old Bobbin stood gazing up at the fence, and seemed wisely to come to the conclusion that there was no harm in a boy's leaving the circus in that manner if he chose. The harm would be if he attempted to come in that way; and so hobbled off to his dreary, back-breaking task of gathering up the papers and stray bits of rubbish constantly accumulating on every side. It is possible, too, that even if he had recognized Flutters, and guessed his motive, he would not have tried to detain him. He had once been a tumbler himself, and knew enough of the trials of circus life to be willing, perhaps, that a promising little fellow should escape them.
The grove in which the boys found themselves was the only piece of old forest land that remained in the near vicinity of the town, and was fitted up with rude tables and benches for the use of picnic parties.
Starlight led the way to one of these tables, sat down, and comfortably rested his folded arms upon it, as though they had reached their point of destination. Here was where Hazel was to meet them and, while they waited, the boys entertained each other with little scraps of their life histories; but Starlight did not for a moment forget to keep eye and ear on guard for any one approaching. There was a hollow tree just at Flutters's back, into which he could tumble in a flash and be securely hid should it become necessary. But the sound of their own low voices and the occasional fall of a pine cone or crackling of a branch was all that broke the stillness. At last they heard a footfall in the distance, but Starlight knew that quick, short little step, and there was no need for Flutters to take refuge in the tree. Hazel had come with the precious bundle, that was all, and Flutters was straightway arrayed in Hans Van Wyck's clothes, his dark little face not at all agreeing with the Dutch-looking coat and trousers; but they answered the purpose of complete disguise, and what more could be wished for? So the children set out for home at a brisk pace, not by the way they had come, but, so far as possible, by cross cuts and quiet lanes, to avoid observation. That their little tongues moved even faster than their feet was not at all strange, for, of course, they wanted to know all about each other.
“Are you an Italian, Flutters?” asked Hazel, in the course of the cross-questioning.
Flutters smiled, and shook his head in the negative.
“Then I guess you're Spanish,” remarked Starlight.
“No, not Spanish.”
Hazel and Starlight looked mystified. He was certainly neither American nor English with that dark skin of his.
0045
“What kind of people does that sort of hair grow on?” Flutters asked, running his hand through his tight-curling hair.
“On—on darkeys,” answered Hazel, ruefully. “But it does not curl so tight as—as some darkeys,” hoping there might be a mistake somewhere.
“So much the better for me,” Flutters answered, cheerily.
“Are—you—a regular—darkey—really?” questioned Starlight, with a little pause between each word.
“Well, I'm what they call a mulatto; that's not quite so bad as an out-and-out darkey, perhaps.”
“Oh, Flutters, don't you mind?” asked Hazel, who was disappointed enough that the hero of this thrilling adventure should prove to be only a kind of negro. Hazel had an idea as, sadly enough, many far older and wiser than she had in those days—and, indeed, for long years afterward—that negroes were little better than cattle, and that it was quite right to buy and sell them in the same fashion.
“What would be the use of minding?” said Flutters, in response to her sympathetic question; “minding would not make things any different, Miss Hazel.”
It was the first time he had called her by name, and Hazel, born little aristocrat that she was, was glad to discover that “he knew his place,” as the phrase goes—so far, at least, as to put the Miss before her name.
After this the children trudged along for a while in silence, each busy with their own thoughts. Starlight was beginning to have some misgivings as to the course he had taken. It might, after all, become a serious question what to do with Flutters. He began to wonder how Aunt Frances would look when he should go back to the farm-house next day with his little protégé in tow. She would be pretty sure to say, “What are you thinking of, Job dear? It is not at all as though we were in our own home, you know. We cannot allow the Van Vleets to take this strange little boy into their home for our sakes; though no doubt they would be willing to do it.”
Yes, the more he thought of it, the more he felt sure that would be just what she would say; strange that all this had not occurred to him before, and a little sickening sensation—half presentiment, half regret—swept over him. So it was that Starlight trudged along in silence, for, of course, such thoughts as those could not be spoken with Flutters there to hear them.
As for Hazel, she was turning over a fine little scheme of her own in her mind. She was a hopeful little body, and it did not take long for her to recover from the despair into which the discovery of Flutters's nationality had thrown her. “Why, look here,” she thought to herself, “I believe I'm glad he's a darkey after all. It was awful cute to hear him say 'Miss Hazel;' how nice it would be to have him for a sort of body-servant, just as so many officers have body-servants! He could brush my clothes, and groom the pony, and tend to my flower garden, and just stand 'round, ready to do whatever I should wish,” and so it was that Hazel trudged along in silence, for she thought it wiser not to announce, as yet, the exact nature of her thoughtful meditation.
And Flutters—well, it would have been hard to tell about what he was thinking. He was a most sensitive little fellow, and strong and intense were the emotions that often played through his lithe frame, so strong and intense at times as to find no other expression than in a perceptible little tremble from head to foot; it was this peculiarity that had won for him the expressive name of “Flutters” among the circus people. Now, of course, his state of mind was joyous and satisfied. Kind friends and a home in this new land! What more could be desired, and the happiest look played over his handsome face, for Flutters was handsome, and the dark olive complexion was most to be thanked for it; but the light went out of his face when, after a while, he glanced toward Starlight and saw his troubled look.
Instantly he divined its cause. “Are you sorry you took me?” he asked, coming to an abrupt standstill in the brier-hedged lane.
“No, not exactly;” Starlight was betrayed into a partial confession of the truth by the suddenness of the question.
Oh, how that hurt poor little Flutters, with his sensitive temperament!
“It is not too late,” he said, turning and looking in the direction they had come; “I think I can find my way back. They'd never know I'd regular runned away;” but there was a mistiness in the bright little darkey eyes, and an actual ache in the poor little heart.
“Flutters,Iam not sorry then,” said Hazel, warmly; and laying a firm hand on each shoulder, she turned him right about face again in the direction of her own home. “Just you trust to me, Flutters, and you'll never be sorry you ran away from that miserable old circus—never.”
And now, so completely was all gloom dispelled by these kind words, that back in a flash came the glad look into Flutters's face, and from that moment he was Hazel's sworn servant. Starlight looked rather ashamed of himself, but, after all, his fears had some foundation, and he was thankful enough thus to have Hazel take matters into her own hands, and more than share the responsibility. The sun was already down as the children neared the house, standing in clear-cut outline against the September sky. There were no clouds, only a marvellous gradation of color, shading imperceptibly from the dark, dark blue of the river and the hills beyond, up into the red glow of the sunset, and then again by some subtle transformation into a wonderful pale turquoise high overhead.
It was indeed a beautiful fall evening, and Captain and Mrs. Boniface and Josephine, seated on the wide, pillared porch, were waiting for the coming of the children, and the exciting narrative that was sure to follow. “Kate, the bonny-face baby,” as they used to call her, was there too, a sunny, winsome little daughter, almost three years old, and Harry Avery besides, Job Starlight's cousin, a good-looking young fellow, and who lately had managed to spend a good deal of time at the Bonifaces. He had sailed over that morning from Paulus Hook (which, by the way, was the old name for Jersey City) with a fine little plan in mind for the day—a plan which he had already promised Hazel should some time be carried out; but the absence of the children had made it necessary to postpone it for at least twenty-four hours. This Harry Avery was the oldest of a varied assortment of little brothers, and his home was in New London, Connecticut. But two years before he had enlisted as a volunteer on board a brig named “The Fair American,” and not one of the little brothers had ever had a sight of the big brother since. He had had a sorry enough time of it, too, for eighteen months of the twenty-four since he left home had been passed in the prison-ship “Jersey,” and he had only been released within the last few weeks, when the success of the American armies compelled the English to discharge all their prisoners of war. The old ship where so many brave men had lost their lives by privation and disease now lay a great deserted hulk in the waters of Wallabout Bay, and what Harry had come over to propose was a sail over to have a look at her. He knew it would interest the children immensely, and he had proposed to Mrs. Boniface that Josephine should go with them, and Josephine, only too glad to fall in with any plan that involved being out on the water, had that morning concocted some very delicious little iced cakes with a view to the luncheon they would take with them on the morrow. Meanwhile, the children were almost at the gate. “Why, there's Cousin Harry!” exclaimed Starlight, whose eyes were good at a long range.
“So it is,” said Hazel, excitedly; and when they had passed a few steps farther on, she added, “Now, Flutters, this is the best place for you to stop, and remember, when you hear me call, come quick as anything.” Flutters smiled assent, and stepped into the deeper shadow of one of the maples that edged the road.
“Well, here you are at last,” called Captain Boniface a few moments later from where he sat smoking in a great easy-chair on the porch.
“Yes, here we are,” answered Starlight, and they marched up the path and took their seats on the porch, Hazel having first kissed the family all round, not at all reluctantly including “Cousin Harry,” for his prison experience made him a wonderful hero in her eyes.
Of course they right away began to give an account, interrupted by a good many questions, of all they had seen and done. Mrs. Boniface thought, and thought rightly, that she detected a little sense of disappointment in their description, but did not know that that was easily accounted for by the insight they had had into the inner workings of a circus. They had indeed been greatly impressed with the velvet and spangles, but only until they had learned through Flutters what heavy hearts velvet and spangles could cover.
Finally, at the close of quite a vivid description on Hazel's part of the grand entrance march, which had proved to both the children the most impressive feature, Harry Avery remarked, just by way of taking some part in the conversation, “that they ought to have brought a bit of the circus home with them for the benefit of people who had not been so fortunate as to see it.” Could there have been a better opportunity for the introduction of Flutters?
“We did bring a bit of it home,” cried Hazel; and then, stepping to the edge of the porch, she called, “Flutters, Flutters,” at the top of her strong little lungs. Of course the Bonifaces looked on astonished at this performance, while Starlight, from suppressed excitement, bit his lip till he almost made the blood come; but in a second, head over heels in a series of somersaults up the path, bounded a remarkable little creature in satin slippers, velvet cap and all, as real a bit of a circus as Cousin Harry or any one else could have desired. The little tumbler was, of course, acting under orders, and brought up at the step of the porch with the most beaming smile imaginable, and a most gracious little bow.
0050
“Come right up, Flutters,” was Hazel's reassuring invitation, and nothing abashed, but still beaming and smiling, so great was his confidence in Hazel, Flutters mounted the steps, swung himself into the hammock that was strung across the porch, and drew the netted meshes close about him, as though conscious of the scarcity of his apparel.
There was a pause for a moment—that is, no word was spoken, but the four pairs of eyes belonging to Captain and Mrs. Boniface and Josephine and Harry were riveted upon Hazel, asking as plainly as words, “What does this mean?” while Starlight's eyes were urging her in an imploring fashion to tell about it all right away. As for Flutters, the complacent, trustful gaze with which he regarded his little benefactress implied that he was sure she would proceed to explain matters to the entire satisfaction of everybody. Meantime little Kate looked on in admiring wonder, but fortunately her pretty head did not need to trouble itself with “explanations of things.” She only knew that that little fellow in the hammock was “awfully funny.” and extended her pretty hands toward him as though she would very much like to touch him.
“Well,” Hazel began at last with much the same air as a veritable showman, “this little boy is named Flutters, and he did belong to the circus, but he does not belong to it any more. He has run away, and we've helped him to do it. Somehow he's quite alone in the world, and he has to s'port himself, so he joined the circus 'cause he found he could do what the other tumblers did, and'cause he heard they were coming to America. But he has not been at all happy in the circus,” and Hazel, pausing a moment, looked toward Flutters for confirmation of this sad statement, and Flutters bore witness to its truth by gravely shaking his head from side to side. Indeed all through her narration it was most amusing to watch his expression, so perfectly did it correspond with every word she spoke. Little folk and old folk have a fashion of letting each passing thought write itself legibly on the face. It is only the strong “in-between” folk who take great care that no one shall ever know what they chance to be thinking about.
By this time Starlight began to show a desire to take a share in the telling of the story, but Hazel would none of it. She thought, perhaps unjustly, that he had proved somewhat of a coward in the latter part of the transaction; at any rate, he himself had pushed her to the front, and there she meant to stay. “No, he has not been at all happy,” she continued; “indeed, the manager has often been very cruel to him; but I will tell you about that another time” (for her eyes were growing a little tearful at the mere remembrance of some things Flutters had told them); “and the way we came to know about it was this: sometimes when Flutters takes a great jump from the spring-board and turns a somersault two times in the air, he slips his knee-cap—that's what you call it, Flutters, isn't it?” (Flutters nodded yes), “and then he has to slip it back again himself, and it hurts a good deal, so that he can't jump any more for a while. Well, to-day he slipped it, and then he crawled over underneath where we sat, and we talked with him a little; then Starlight told him to creep under the benches when no one was looking, and Starlight dropped down between the seats and talked with him some more.”
“And then we arranged,” Starlight now interrupted in such an unmistakably determined manner that Hazel allowed him to continue, “how he should run away, and he didn't even go back for his clothes, because he says that the manager can almost see what a fellow's thinking about, and he didn't dare. So when we had fixed everything I climbed up to Hazel and told her what she was to do, and then I dropped down again, and Flutters put on Hazel's cloak so as to cover him up a little, and we scooted. We came near being found out once, but we got over the great fence safe at last and into Beekman's woods. There Hazel was to meet us with some of Hans Van Wyck's clothes, if she could get them.”
“And I did get them,” chimed in Hazel, for it was surely her turn once more, “and—but, oh!” stopping suddenly, “the clothes! Starlight, do hurry and get them, or some one coming along the road may run off with them.” Starlight obeyed, frightened enough at the thought of the possible loss of the borrowed articles, and quickly returning with them to the great relief of both Hazel and himself.
Then the story went on again, turn and turn about, Flutters gaining courage to join in now and then, till at last, when the twilight had given place to the sort of half darkness of a starlight night, and the fire-flies were flashing their little lanterns on every side, they had told all there was to tell, and three foot-sore little people confessed they were tired and sleepy and hungry, and glad enough to go indoors and do justice to a most inviting little supper, which Josephine had slipped away some time before to prepare.
“Bonny Kate” (as she was called more than half the time, after a certain wilful but very charming young woman in one of Shakespeare's great plays) had long ago fallen asleep, and lay just where her mother, running indoors for a moment, had stowed her away in a corner of the great hair-cloth sofa in the dining-room. One pretty hand was folded under her rosy cheek, and such a merry smile played over her sweet face! She surely must have been dreaming of a remarkable little fellow, in beautiful velvet and spangles, coming head over heels up a garden path.
9054
T is one thing to help a much-abused and unhappy little member of a circus troupe to run away from his unhappy surroundings; it is quite another thing to provide for all his future, particularly if, like Flutters, he has not a penny to his name nor a stitch to his back, none more serviceable, that is, than the ring costume of a high and lofty tumbler. And so it was that Mrs. Boniface and Josephine and Harry sat up well into the night, laughing heartily now and then over the funny side of the children's adventure, but talking gravely enough most of the time of its more serious side.
“As far as I can make out,” said Harry, “Starlight rather expected to bring Flutters over to the farm to-morrow and ask Aunt Frances to care for him, at least till he found somebody else who would. I imagine his heart rather failed him later, as it ought to. Aunt Frances has enough to bother her at present.”
“But you don't blame the children for helping the poor little fellow, do you?” said Josephine, warmly; “I think almost anyone would have done the same thing under the same circumstances.”
“Very likely, Miss Josephine, but that doesn't dispose of the troublesome question, What is now to be done with him?
“Unfortunately, there are questions to be met more troublesome than that,” said Captain Boniface, joining for the first time in the conversation, and he had only too good reason for speaking as he did. Early in the evening a letter had been brought him, to which no one had paid any attention. It was a daily occurrence for a messenger to turn in at the gate with a note for the Captain, since he had been for the last eight years the principal furnisher of supplies to the English soldiers stationed in the city, and had need both to write and receive many letters. Indeed, so loyal had he been to King George that, at the very commencement of the Revolution, he had joined the English army, but had had the misfortune to be very seriously wounded in the first battle that was fought. When at last, after weeks of constant suffering, he was able to be moved, General Gage, under whom he served, had contrived to send him home by easy stages along the Boston post-road, under protection of an English escort; and Captain Boniface always declared, and no doubt he was right about it, that nothing short of his wife's careful nursing would ever have brought him through. But after that it was out of the question for him to rejoin the army, so he must needs stay quietly at home and aid the King's cause as best he could by helping to feed the King's soldiers. All this, of course, had made enemies of most of the Captain's old friends. Harry Avery was almost the only exception; and now that the Colonies had been successful, matters were looking pretty serious for him and for every American who had sided with the King. The note that had just been brought to him proved a very threatening one. It as much as ordered him to leave the country, saying “that there was but one safe course for him and his, and that was to be gone instantly; that New York had no further use for him; that the sooner her streets and coffee-houses were rid of him the better, and that he would simply be taking his life in his hands if he stayed.” It was truly a terribly alarming letter, but Captain Boniface, knowing that sooner or later his wife and Josephine would have to know about it, now broke in upon the conversation and read it to them.
“Who has dared to write you that?” asked Mrs. Boniface.
“Four old friends, Mary; that is the saddest part of it.”
Mrs. Boniface sat pale and silent, looking straight before her, and not hearing another word that was said. She knew her husband well enough to feel assured that no such letter would move him a step from his home. Not he! He would remain and live the bitter persecution down. But would he be allowed to live it down? There were cruel words in that letter. “By remaining you simply take your life in your hands,” it said, and the terrible threat sent all sorts of dread possibilities thronging through her mind.
With anxious faces, and quick-beating hearts, Josephine and her mother listened, as Harry Avery and the Captain talked late into the night. It was a great comfort to realize that although Harry was a Whig, and a strong one, too, he did not harbor any bitter feeling against them. “Perhaps,” thought Josephine gladly, “there are others like him.”
It seemed as though Harry must have seen the gratitude in her expressive eyes, as he continued again and again to reassure the Captain of his full sympathy, and his determination to be of assistance to him in every possible way.
“Well, what will you do about it, father? Josephine asked, as just at midnight, she leaned over his chair to say good-night.
“Do about it, child?” he said, taking her hands in both of his,
“Why, stay just where I am!”
Mrs. Boniface shook her head gravely, as she and Josephine left the room together. She had known so well beforehand that he would say exactly that.