“Nobody’s going to take him away!” said Mrs. Mullarkey almost fiercely.  “Just let anybody try it!”

“Why didn’t you tell us you had fifty cents?” asked Danny.  “I bet you was going to spend it all for yourself for a ticket to the circus.”

“Mr. Barton told me not to tell,” replied Jerry.  “He said you’d get it away from me if you knew I had found it and for me to go to the circus all by myself.”

“And you gave that up just for Kathleen?” queried Mrs. Mullarkey.

“I guess Kathleen’s cough is much more important than any old circus,” said Jerry.

Mother ’Larkey thereupon gathered Jerry up in her arms and kissed him.

CHAPTER III

THE WIDTH OF AN ELEPHANT’S TAIL

Jerry tried all the next day and the next to think what it was that the picture of the elephant jumping the fence almost made him remember, but it just wouldn’t come and finally he gave up trying.  After playing with Kathleen until Mother ’Larkey put her in the crib for her afternoon nap, he wandered out towards the woodshed from behind which he heard the voices of Danny and Celia Jane.

On the way an idea popped all of a sudden into his mind.  The dazzling splendor of it first brought him to a dead halt and then set him running breathlessly to join the Mullarkey children.  He found them all gathered about Danny, hungrily watching him eat a green apple.

“Couldn’t we play circus!” he exclaimed, in eager excitement at the idea that had come to him.

“We could if we wanted to,” replied Danny, in that superior, ardor-dampening way of his.

Jerry felt his enthusiasm for the idea oozing out of his bare toes.  “I—­Don’t we want to, Danny?”

“Oh, yes, let’s!” cried Nora eagerly.  “I’m tired of ante-over and run-sheep-run and pump-pump-pull-away—­”

“And hidin’-go-seek and tree-tag,” interrupted Celia Jane.  She turned to Jerry.  “How do you play circus?”

“You just—­just play it,” he answered. “’Maginary you’re an el’funt jumpin’ a fence and all.”

“I’ll be the el’funt!” cried Danny.

“I want to be the el’funt,” objected Chris.

“The el’funt’s mine,” Jerry asserted and he closed his lips tightly.  Danny didn’t have any right to that elephant.  “I saw it first,” he added.

“I said ‘I’ll be the el’funt’ first, didn’t I?” asked Danny.

“Jerry orter have first choice,” said Nora, the conciliator, “seein’ it was him thought of playin’ circus.”

“I guess I can jump the highest, can’t I?” Danny asked in a tone that said as plain as day that that settled the matter.

“It’s my el’funt!” insisted Jerry.

“You always take first choice,” Chris complained.

“You could take turns about being el’funt,” Nora suggested.

Jerry wanted with all his soul to play that sublime elephant jumping the fence and he summoned up all his courage.  “I won’t play,” cried he, with a suspicious quiver of his lips.  “I won’t!  I won’t!”