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Nero was fast becoming a regular circus lion.
Chapter VIII
Nero Meets Don
One day when Nero awoke in his circus cage, which stood in the big winter barn, the lion saw that something very different was going on from what had happened since he had been brought there from the jungle. Men were running to and fro, and the first thing Nero noticed was that Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, and all the ...
"Why, where is Tum Tum?" asked Nero of Leo, his lion friend.
"Oh, he's out with the other elephants, pushing wagon cages about the lot," said Leo.
"Pushing cages?" repeated Nero. "Is that a circus trick?"
"No, that is part of the circus work," answered Leo. "The elephants are so big and strong that they are used instead of horses, sometimes, to push the circus cages."
"But why is Tum Tum helping push the circus cages?" asked Nero. "Has anything happened?"
"Well, something is going to happen," said Leo. "The circus is going to start out on the road -- we are going to travel from town to town. We are going to travel on the railroad and live in a tent instead of this barn. We shall see lots of people -- boys and girls -- who come to watch us eat, and do tricks, and we shal...
"I'm glad of that," said Nero. "I like to be jolly. But will Tum Tum come back?" he asked, for he liked the big, jolly elephant, as, indeed, all the circus animals did.
"Oh, yes, Tum Tum will come back," answered Dido, the dancing bear. "The circus couldn't get along without him. And I couldn't do some of my best tricks if Tum Tum didn't walk around the ring with the wooden platform on his back for me to dance on. Oh, we couldn't get along without Tum Tum!"
Nero was glad to hear this. Though he liked Leo, his lion friend, and the other animals, even the queer-looking camels, Nero felt more friendly toward Tum Tum than toward any one else in the circus except his trainer. For, by this time, Nero had grown to like very much the man who fed him, and who came into the cage ev...
But Nero had learned many more tricks than this first, easy one. He did not learn the other tricks as quickly, for they were harder, but the lion could sit up on a big wooden stool, he could stand up on his hind paws, and he would open his mouth very wide when his trainer told him to. In a way Nero had learned somethin...
The trainer would call:
"Jump over the stick, Nero!"
The lion knew what that meant, and he knew it was different from the words used when the trainer said:
"Sit on your stool!"
So, though of course Nero could not understand what the circus men said when they talked to one another, the lion had learned some words. So he could talk and understand animal language, and he could also understand some words of man-talk. And that is pretty good, I think, for a lion who had not been out of the jungle ...
"Shall we have to push any of the cages?" asked Nero of his friend Leo, as they both watched the circus men hurrying to and fro in the big barn.
"Oh, no," answered the older lion. "They never let us out of the cages."
"And a good reason, too," declared a humpy camel, near by. "If they let you lions and tigers out of the cages, you'd run away. We wouldn't do that. We camels are well-behaved, like the horses and the elephants."
Leo, the old lion, shook his head until his mane dangled in his eyes.
"No," he said, "if they opened my cage, I wouldn't run away. I wouldn't even go out, unless it was to get something to eat and come right back again."
"I would!" growled Nero. "I'd go out in a minute, if they opened my cage door wide enough. I'd go out and run back to the jungle."
"Yes, that's what I used to think, at first," growled Leo. "But after you've been in the circus awhile you get used to it. It's home to you.
"Why, I remember, Nero, we once had in this circus a lion just about like you. He always said he'd run away if he got the chance. Well, one day his cage was left open by accident, and he ran away."
"What happened?" asked Nero.
"Well, he ran back again, the next day, and a more sorry or sick-looking lion you never saw! He was bedraggled and lame and hungry and thirsty! He said he was glad to get back to his cage, and he never left it again."
"What had happened to him?" asked the camel. "I guess that was before my time."
"Oh, no sooner was he loose in the streets," said Leo, "than he was chased by men and boys, who threw rocks and sticks at him. They were afraid of him, and tried to drive him away. But the circus men tried to catch the runaway lion, and, between both, poor Tarsus, which was his name, had a bad time. He had enough of ru...
"He should have gone back to the jungle," said Nero. "That's what I'd do if I could get loose."
"Oh, you think you would!" growled Leo. "But the jungle is far away from here. You could never reach it. No, you had much better stay here in the circus, Nero. Here you are in a cage, it is true, but you are warm, you have a good place to sleep, you have plenty to eat and drink, and boys can not throw stones at you."
But Nero only switched his tail to and fro, thought of the jungle where he had played with Boo and Chet, and said to himself:
"That's all right. But, even though my trainer is kind to me, if ever I get the chance I'll run away!"
And so the circus got ready to go out on the road. Tum Tum and the other elephants pushed the animal cages about, and one day Nero saw the big elephant come close up to the lion's cage.
"What are you going to do, Tum Tum?" asked Nero.
"It is time for your cage to be moved," said the elephant. "I am going to push you out on the lot, and there horses will be hitched to your cage and you will be given a ride."
"Well, I hope the ride will be nice," said the lion.
"You'll like it," said Tum Tum, trumpeting through his trunk.
Pretty soon Nero found himself, in his cage, out in the bright sunshine. It was a warm day, and the lion stretched, opened his mouth as wide as he could, and then lay down in his cage where the sun could warm his back.
"It feels just as good as the jungle," thought Nero. "But of course there aren't as many trees, and there are no pools of water, and I haven't Switchie or Chet or Boo to play with. A circus may be nice, but I'll run away the first chance I get."
Tum Tum pushed Nero's cage about until some horses could be hitched to it to draw it to the railroad station. For the circus was to travel on a train of cars to the city where it was first to give a show.
Nero's cage, as well as other cages, were put on a big flat car, and when the engine started puffing and pulling away, and when Nero felt the motion of the train, he called to Leo, who was on the same car:
"I remember riding like this once before."
"Yes," said Leo, "I suppose so. It was when you were brought here from the big city where the ship landed. The same thing happened to me. But I am used to riding on railroads now. I don't mind it any more. I like it."
"I guess I'll like it, too," said Nero.
For the rest of that day and all the night the circus train traveled onward, and it was nearly morning when it stopped. Peeping out between the cracks of the wooden cover of his cage, Nero could see the sun just coming up. It reminded him of the sunrise in the jungle, and he began to feel lonesome and homesick again, e...