Farmer Green turned the bays into a yard near-by, where he unharnessedand fed them. Then he tied one end of a rope to Spot's collar andfastened the other end to a carriage wheel.
"There!" he said. "Now we're ready."
Old dog Spot didn't want to be left behind. He tugged at the rope andwhined.
"Be quiet!" Johnnie Green's father said to him. "You followed us to thevillage. And now you'll have to behave yourself. They wouldn't let youinto the show."
Then the Green family turned their backs on him.
"They needn't think they can keep me here," Spot growled. "I didn't runall the way from the farm to the village to be tied to a wagon wheel."
Johnnie Green and his father and mother hadn't been gone a quarter of anhour when Spot succeeded in slipping his collar over his head. Then hedashed out of the yard and ran to the circus grounds as fast as he couldgo.
Spot mingled with the crowds of people that were pouring into the bigtent. He worked his way in and out among the throng, all but trippingmany of the pleasure seekers.
Though he looked everywhere, he couldn't find the Green family. They hadalready passed through the entrance and were enjoying the sights insidethe canvas.
At last Spot met a man--a circus man--who was very friendly. It waspleasant to get a kind word from somebody, after so many people had toldhim to "get out," and had given him a shove.
This kindly person called Spot into a low tent and patted him. He gaveSpot a bit of meat and even thought to offer him a drink of water.
"This is a fine pointer," the man remarked to a friend of his who waswith him. "He hasn't any collar; so he must be anybody's dog. And hemight as well be mine."
Spot wagged his tail. He didn't quite understand what his newacquaintance was saying. But it seemed to be something nice.
And then Spot decided, suddenly, that he had stayed in that tent longenough. For the pleasant man found a piece of rope and tried to tie itabout Spot's neck.
"I've been tied up once to-day; and once is enough," Spot growled.Slipping out of the man's grasp, Spot ran out of doors.
Both men followed him. For a few minutes they chased him. One of themtripped over a guy rope and sprawled on the ground. And to escape theother Spot dodged under a canvas wall where it lifted slightly at thebottom.
He found himself in a huge tent where hundreds of people sat all aroundon tiers of seats. Men and horses were capering about in the center ofthe place. And somewhere a band was playing.
He was under the big top.
XXIII
SPOT SEES THE SHOW
Old dog Spot was bewildered. When he crawled under the canvas he had notdreamed that he was entering the main tent of the circus. He saw so manystrange sights that he didn't know whether to bark or to crawl away andhide somewhere. Yet among all those people he felt lonely. He couldn'tsee anybody he knew.
All at once the bandsmen began to play louder than ever. They seemed tobe trying to burst their horns--or themselves. And men in flowing robes,each one standing in a sort of little two-wheeled cart and driving fourhorses abreast, came tearing past the place where Spot was standing.
It was a race! And if there was one thing that Spot liked more thananother it was a race of any kind. He gave a few delighted barks and ranafter the galloping horses.
Spot followed them twice around the big tent. And just as he fell into ajog--for the race was finished--he heard a whistle that gave him a greatthrill. He stood still for an instant. Then he dashed toward the nearestseats.
A moment later he was fawning upon Johnnie Green, who sat in the lowestrow and seemed as glad to see Spot as Spot was to see him.
Lying between Johnnie's feet, Spot watched the rest of the show.
At last the circus was over. The Green family, with Spot at their heels,went back to the place where they had left the bays and the carryall.And in a few minutes more they were on their way back to Pleasant Valleyand home.
That morning everybody on the road had seemed to be in a great hurry toget to the village. And now, late in the afternoon, everybody was injust as great a hurry to get away from it. Farmer Green kept the bays ata spanking trot, only pausing to let them breathe now and then on thehills.
Spot, however, was not in such haste that he didn't stop and give a goodtrouncing to the dog that had rushed out at him earlier in the day. Spotsent the surly fellow yelping into his master's yard. Then he rusheddown the road to overtake the carryall.
But, to everybody's surprise, when they reached home old dog Spot wasmissing.
"He'll come back," Farmer Green said. "Probably he's stopped somewhereto chase a rabbit or something. He'll be along after a while."
But after the cows were milked old Spot was still absent. And after thefamily had eaten supper he had failed to appear. Bedtime came. Still noSpot!
Johnnie Green felt very sad when he went upstairs.
He felt even worse when morning came. He had hoped that Spot would be inthe yard, begging for his breakfast.
Johnnie Green was able to eat only a little of his own breakfast. And assoon as he left the table he went to the barn and harnessed his pony,Twinkleheels, to the little buggy with the red wheels.
Then Johnnie started for the village.
XXIV
HOME AGAIN
Johnnie Green drove his pony, Twinkleheels, back over the road that ledto the village. Now and then he stopped at a farmhouse to inquirewhether anybody had seen old dog Spot, who had vanished on the way homefrom the circus the evening before.
Nobody had set eyes on him. And Johnnie Green drove on and on, feelingmore and more miserable all the while.
At last, as he turned a sharp bend of the road, he heard a bark. Therewas no mistaking it. It was Spot's.
There was a joyful meeting then. Johnnie sprang out of the buggy andSpot sprang into his arms. And Johnnie hugged the old fellow tightly,right there in the middle of the road.
"What in the world has kept you here ever since yesterday?" Johnnieasked.
Spot must have understood. Anyhow, he dashed to one side of the road.And, following him, Johnnie found there a robe that belonged to hisfather. It had dropped out of the carryall the evening before, when theGreen family were on their way home from seeing the circus. Nobody inthe carriage had missed it. But old Spot, running under the carriage,had seen it fall. And he had stayed behind to guard it all through thelong night.
Of course Spot couldn't tell Johnnie Green all this. But Johnnie wasn'tslow in guessing what had happened.
He picked up the robe and put it under the seat of the little buggy.Then he and Spot both jumped in. And Johnnie turned Twinkleheels' headtoward home.
Back at the farm almost everybody said that old dog Spot was a hero.Farmer Green exclaimed that Spot was a faithful old fellow. And Mrs.Green set out such a meal for him as Spot had never seen before in allhis life.
Now, there were two or three of Spot's neighbors in the farmyard thatdidn't like the praise he was getting. Turkey Proudfoot, the gobbler,remarked that if people didn't know enough to come home to roost atnight he saw no reason for making a fuss about it. Miss Kitty Catdeclared that so far as she was concerned she would have been just aswell pleased if Spot hadn't come back to the farm at all. And HenriettaHen had more to say than anyone else. She hurried up to old dog Spothimself and insisted on talking with him.
"Huh!" she exclaimed. "You only spent one day at the circus, while lastfall I stayed a whole week at the county fair."
"Did you hear a band at the fair?" Spot asked her.
"Yes!"
"Did you see any races?"
"There were races every day; but I didn't care to watch them," HenriettaHen answered.
"Did you see any elephants at the fair?" Spot demanded.
"Elephants?" said Henrietta Hen. "What are elephants?"
Spot pointed--with his nose--to one of the posters on the barn.
"There's a picture of some elephants," he told her. "And I must say it'sa good one."
&nbs
p; "There were no elephants at the county fair," Henrietta Hen admitted asshe gazed at the circus poster on the side of the barn. "Why, every oneof them has two tails!" she cried. "I don't see how they know whetherthey're going backward or forward."
"Maybe they don't know," Spot retorted. "Maybe that's part of the fun inbeing an elephant. For I suppose there's fun of some sort in beinganybody, even a-a-a--"
"Even a _what?_" Henrietta snapped. "Were you going to say a _Hen?_"
"I was," Spot replied. "But I remembered that it wouldn't be polite."
"I should say not!" Henrietta Hen cackled. "I should say not!" And then,being very angry, she hurried off to tell the rooster what had happened.
"I'll have to be careful how I talk to these farmyard folks," Spotmuttered. "They haven't had a chance to learn some of the things that Iknow.
"For I've been to the village and seen the world--and the circus, too,"added old dog Spot.
THE END
* * * * *
Transcriber's notes:
The page numbers in the List of Illustrations do not reflect the newplacement of the illustrations, but are as in the original.
All errors from the original book were kept and are noted below.
Chapter XVII: Missing open quotation mark (And if they are, they're sure tostumble upon that terrible creature at the door. I must warn them beforeit's too late.")
Chapter VI: Additional "e" ("I was going to give you that old fishingrod of mine if you'd help carry in the wood," Farmer Greene went on.)
Chapter XIII: Additional "r" (And after the third miss old Sport turnedtail and ran away.)
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