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Dido, the Dancing Bear: His Many Adventures

<h2>CHAPTER XI DIDO IN THE CIRCUS</h2> “What in the world is the matter with that man?” thought Dido, as the dancing bear kept on climbing up the pole. “He acts so funny, just as if he did not want me to come near him. My master does not act so. For, though I know I used to be cross and growl at my master, and though I was afraid of all men, I am not that way any more. I like men. He looks like a nice man, up on the pole, and I want to see him. I never before saw a man who could climb a telegraph pole as well as I can.” So Dido kept on climbing up, and the man continued to yell and shout. He went as far up the pole as he could get, and sat down on a stick of wood that stuck out crossways. There were wires made fast to glass knobs on the ends of these pieces of wood. “He certainly is a queer man,” thought Dido. “He acts just as if he didn’t like me. Well, I’ll soon show him that I won’t hurt him. I wonder if he has a bun in his pocket?” [101] Then, all of a sudden, Dido saw the man throw something down. “Ah! Perhaps that is a bun,” thought Dido. But Dido felt the thing the man had thrown down hit him hard on his nose, and it hurt so that the dancing bear gave a growl and a howl. It was a hard screwdriver that had hit Dido on the nose. The telephone lineman had thrown his screwdriver at the bear. “Ouch!” said Dido to himself. “That was not nice! I wonder if he did that on purpose?” Dido stopped climbing for a moment, and looked up at the man. Then the dancing bear rubbed his nose with his paw. A bear’s nose is very soft and tender, and when he is hit there it hurts him very much. Then, as Dido was rubbing his sore nose, all of a sudden, Bang! something else was thrown by the man. It was a pair of pliers, for cutting wire, and they hit Dido on the paw he was holding up. “Ha!” thought the dancing bear. “It is a good thing I had my paw over my nose, or I would be hurt worse than ever. I wonder why that man is throwing things at me, and shouting so?” Just then Tom and George, the keepers of the bear, came running out of the field where they had been asleep under the haystack. They had[102] awakened, missed Dido, and had come to search for him. “Why, look at our bear!” cried George. “He is up the pole.” “So he is!” exclaimed Tom, in surprise. Then the telephone lineman on the pole saw the other two men. “Hi, there!” he called to them. “Is this your bear?” “Surely that is our bear,” answered George. “Well, then, I wish you’d call him down!” went on the lineman. “He chased up here after me to bite and scratch me. Call him down.” “Ha! No!” laughed George. “Dido would never climb up to bite or scratch you. He is too good a bear for that. He is just climbing the pole, as that is one of his tricks.” “What! Is this a trick bear? Is he tame?” asked the man high up on the pole. “Of course he is tame,” said George. “And he won’t hurt me?” “Not a bit. He just wants to be friends with you.” “Oh, then I am very sorry,” said the lineman quickly. “Sorry for what?” asked Tom, curiously. “That I threw my screwdriver and my pliers at your bear,” answered the man on the telegraph pole. “I hit him on the nose. I thought he was[103] a wild bear after me, or I never would have done it. I did not see any men with him.” “Well, I guess Dido will forgive you for hitting him,” spoke George. “Come on down, Dido, if the man is afraid of you.” “Oh, I am not afraid any more,” the telephone man said, laughing. Dido came down, and had his breakfast with George and Tom. Afterward the telephone man climbed down, and gave Dido a piece of pie from his dinner pail. “That is to pay you because I hit you on the nose,” said the man. “I am very sorry, and so I give you this little treat.” And I think Dido understood, and forgave the man. For the dancing bear ate the pie, and then, when George told him to, Dido let the lineman pat him on the head. “Now we will travel on again,” said George after a bit, and away he and Tom went with Dido, blowing nice tooting tunes on the brass horn, and giving a dancing-bear show wherever they could find a crowd of persons with money to toss into the hat. All through the long summer days Dido traveled about with his masters, and then one day there came a change. One night, after he had danced many times that day, Dido and his masters stopped at a hotel. Dido was allowed to[104] sleep out in the stable where there were no horses to be frightened, while Tom and George went in the hotel to eat. The next morning Dido saw a strange man with his masters when they came out to the stable to feed him. “There is our dancing bear,” said George to the new man. “Do you think you would like to buy him?” “If he can do all the tricks you say he can I may,” answered the other man. “I will show you what tricks he can do,” spoke George. “Come, Dido, here is a sweet cracker for you. Now do your tricks.” So out in front of the stable Dido danced, marched like a soldier and turned somersaults. “Those are good tricks,” said the strange man. “I will buy your bear and take him to a circus. There I will have him do tricks in the ring. Do you think he will?” “Oh, yes,” answered George. “He was in a circus once before, but for only a little while. Perhaps he may remember about it.” The three men went back to the hotel, leaving some buns for Dido to eat. And the dancing bear wondered what was going to happen to him. Pretty soon George came out to where Dido was chained in the stable. George gave Dido a piece of berry pie, and said: [105] “Good-by, Dido. Tom and I are going to sell you to this circus man. But he will be good and kind to you, and teach you new tricks. So go with him and be a good bear. Tom and I are going back to the mountains of our own country, and perhaps we will catch more bears. Good-by, Dido.” Tom came out, and blew a sad little tune on the brass horn. Then he too said good-by to Dido, and the two men who had traveled around with Dido so many months went away. Dido ran after them as far as his chain would let him, and then he lay down and put his head between his paws. Animals don’t cry, of course, but they can feel sad when their kind masters or mistresses go away, and I am sure Dido felt sad. Dogs sometimes feel so badly at being parted from their masters that they will not eat. But Dido was not that way. A little later, when the circus man came out to the stable with a nice piece of fish for the dancing bear, Dido ate it and was very glad to get it. “Now, Dido,” said the man, “you are my bear, and I will be good to you. We are not going about the country any more, to let you go dancing in the streets and fields. You are going to perform in a circus ring, under a tent, something like you did before, and I think you will like it.” [106] Then came a not very happy time for Dido. He was put in a big box, something like the trap in which he had been caught. But this box was larger, as Dido was a big bear now, and the box had water in it, and nice things to eat. Then the box, with Dido in, was put on a wagon and taken to the railroad station, where it was lifted on a train. Dido slept as much as he could, for he did not like to travel that way. He would much rather have tramped through the woods and over the fields. But soon his journey was at an end. Still in his box he was taken from the train, and when the box was opened Dido found himself in what he thought at first was a big white house. In it were many other animals, in cages, as Dido could see, and he could smell other animals whom he could not see. Dido walked out and rolled over in a pile of straw. It felt so good to be out of that cage, that he wanted to laugh—and that is the way all animals laugh. Then the dancing bear heard a voice saying close to his ear: “Well, I do believe it’s my old friend Dido, whom I met in Madison Square Garden, New York City! Aren’t you Dido, the dancing bear?” “That’s who I am,” answered Dido, standing up, “and you are—” [107] “Tum Tum, the jolly elephant,” was the answer. “I’m glad to see you again.” Dido looked around, and there, surely enough, was Tum Tum, holding out his long nose, or trunk. Dido rubbed noses with him. “How did you get here?” asked Tum Tum. “Oh, my masters sold me to another man, and he said he was going to put me in a circus. I guess this is it.” “Yes, this is the circus,” answered Tum Tum. “Only it is traveling around now, instead of staying for weeks at a time in New York. We go to a new city every day, and we have a big tent instead of Madison Square Garden to act in. This white house you see over us is a tent.” “Oh, a tent, eh?” said Dido. “Well, it is quite nice.” “Yes, it is nice except in cold weather,” said the elephant, who not having fur, could not stand cold as bears can. “In the winter there is no circus in a tent,” said Tum Tum. “What do you do in winter?” asked Dido. “Oh, when it is time for the snow and ice the circus goes, I have been told, up to a place where we stay in big, warm barns until summer comes again.” Tum Tum told Dido many things about the circus, for which I have not space in this book. And Dido also learned many new things. He[108] learned to sleep in a cage on wheels, in which he was drawn about the country, or put on big, flat railroad cars to be pulled from place to place. This was when the circus traveled, which was, nearly always, at night. And Dido’s new master taught him many new tricks which the dancing bear did in the circus ring, besides doing the ones George had taught him. Dido learned to ride on a bicycle, he learned to walk across a long pole, that was resting on two barrels. He learned to roll over and over inside a barrel, and he learned to let a dog sit on his back and be given a ride. Dido liked it very much in the circus, and he made many friends, not only among the animals but among the circus folk, for Dido was a gentle bear. But best of all Dido liked Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. “I met a friend of yours while I was out traveling,” said Dido to the circus elephant one day. “Who was it?” asked Tum Tum. “Don, the runaway dog.” “Oh, do tell me about him,” begged Tum Tum, as he ate a bag of peanuts a little girl held out to him. So Dido told about meeting Don. <hr class="chap" /> [109] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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