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 well.  He slipped and fell, but he did not get hurt.

“Now, Bunny and Sue, it’s your turn!” called Ben to them, when he came out of the ring, after having done some funny clown tricks.  “Are you all ready?”

“All ready!” answered Bunny.  “Come on, Sue.”

Out of their dressing room the children came, and when the people saw them they laughed and clapped their hands.  For Bunny was dressed like a scarecrow out of a cornfield, with a suit of such ragged and patched clothes on that it is a wonder they did not fall off him.  He had a black mask, cut out of cloth, over his face, and he held his arms and legs stiff, just as the wooden and straw scarecrow does in the cornfield.

And Sue!  You’d never guess how she was dressed.

She was a Jack-o’-lantern.  She and Bunny had scooped the inside out of a big yellow pumpkin, and had made it thin and hollow.  Then they had cut a hole in the bottom, made eyes, a nose and mouth, and Sue put the pumpkin over her head.

From her shoulders to her feet Sue was covered with an old sheet, and as she walked along it looked just as if a real, Hallowe’en Jack-o’-lantern had come to life.

Out on to the wooden platform of the circus tent went Bunny, the scarecrow boy, and Sue, the Jack-o’-lantern girl.  They made little bows to each other, and then to the audience, and then they did a funny dance, while Bunker Blue played on his mouth organ.

“Say, isn’t that just fine of our children?” whispered Mother Brown.

“It certainly is,” said Daddy.

Up and down the platform danced Bunny and Sue.  They were the smallest ones in the circus, and everyone said they were just “too cute for anything.”

There were many more tricks done by the boys in the tent, and the circus was a great success.  Ben and the other clowns made lots of fun.  They threw water on one another, beat each other with cloth clubs, stuffed with sawdust, which didn’t hurt any more than a feather.

“And now I will do my great jumping trick!” called Ben, “and then the show will be over.  I am going to jump over fourteen elephants and ten camels.”