Datasets:
apapiu
/
simple_text_files

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
1
text
stringlengths
0
16.8k
"Oh, into the other tent, where the music is playing and where the performance is going on. You'll soon be going in there too, and so shall I."
"What for?" asked Nero.
"To do your tricks," answered the bear. "That is why you were taught to do them, just as I was taught to dance -- so we can make fun and jolly times for the boys and girls. Wait, and you'll see."
And, surely enough, a little later Nero's cage was moved into the larger tent, next to the one where the animals were kept. And then Nero's trainer came and spoke to him.
"Well, Nero," said the man, "now we're going to see if you can do your tricks before a whole crowd, as nicely as you did them in the barn at Bridgeport. Don't grow excited. You know I'm a friend of yours. Now do your best, and the boys and girls will laugh and clap their hands."
So the keeper opened the door of the lion's cage and went inside. As soon as he did several of the boys and girls, and the big folks too, gasped, and some said:
"Oh, isn't that terrible! I wouldn't go into the cage of a real, live lion for anything!"
You see they didn't know Nero was quite tame, and that the jungle beast liked the man who fed him and was kind to him.
"Now do your tricks, Nero!" said the trainer.
And Nero did. He jumped over a stick; he stood up on his hind legs and, putting his paws on the trainer's shoulders, made believe to kiss the man, though of course he only touched the man's cheek with his cold, damp nose, just as, sometimes, your dog puts his nose against your cheek to show how much he likes you; next ...
"And now, ladies and gentlemen," said the trainer, speaking to the circus crowd, "I will do the best trick of all. I will have Nero, my pet lion, open his mouth as wide as he can, and I will put my head inside!"
And then, all of a sudden, some little boy in the crowd piped up and cried out:
"Oh, Mister, don't do that! He might bite your head off!"
Everybody laughed at that, even Nero's trainer, who said:
"Oh, I'm not afraid. Nero is a good lion and wouldn't bite me. Come on now, old fellow, for the last and best trick of all!" cried the man, and he cracked his whip, though of course he did not strike Nero with it.
The circus lion knew just what to do, for he had been trained in this trick. I didn't say anything about it before, because I was saving it as a surprise for you.
"Open your mouth!" suddenly cried the trainer, and Nero opened his jaws as wide as he could.
"Oh! Ah! Look!" cried the people, as they saw his big, red tongue and the white, sharp teeth.
"Now!" cried the trainer, and into the lion's mouth he popped his head.
Everybody in the big circus tent was quiet for a moment, and then all the crowd cried out, and clapped their hands and stamped their shoes on the wooden steps beneath their feet.
"There, you see how tame my lion is!" cried the man, as he pulled his head from Nero's mouth, and bowed to the people, who were still clapping and whistling.
"You are a good lion!" said the trainer to Nero in a low voice. "Now you shall have a nice piece of meat, a sweet bone to gnaw, and a good drink of water. You did your first tricks very well indeed."
Nero did not quite know what it was all about, but he felt that he had done well. It did not hurt him to open his mouth and let the man put in his head, but it tickled the lion's tongue a little, so that Nero wanted to sneeze. And that wouldn't have been a good thing for the trainer. However Nero didn't do it.
"What makes the people make so much noise?" asked Nero of Dido, the dancing bear, who came into the larger tent just then.
"Oh, that's because they liked your tricks," was the answer. "They always clap and stamp their feet when anything pleases them. They do that when I dance on the platform on Tum Tum's back."
And, surely enough, the circus crowds did. They liked the tricks of Dido, the dancing bear, as much as they had those of Nero.
After a while Nero's cage was wheeled back into the tent where the wagons of the other animals were kept, and Nero was given something good to eat, and fresh water to drink. Then he felt happy and fell asleep.
So Nero began his circus life, and he kept it up all that summer. He traveled about from place to place, and soon became used to doing his tricks, having the man put his head into his mouth and seeing the crowds show their surprise.
One day, when the show was being given in a large city, there was a big crowd in the animal tent. Near Nero's cage were some boys, and I am sorry to say they were not all kind boys, though perhaps they didn't know any better. One of the boys had a rotten apple in his hand and he said to another lad:
"I'm going to give this rotten apple to one of the elephants and see what a funny face he makes when he chews it!"
"That'll be lots of fun," said the second boy.
I don't, myself, call that fun. It isn't fair to fool animals when you know so much more than they do. However we'll see what happened.
Nero saw the boys standing near his cage, and he heard them talking, though he did not, of course, know what they were saying. But he could smell the rotten apple. Often, in the jungle, he had smelled bad fruit, and he knew that the monkeys would not eat it.
"If bad fruit isn't good for monkeys it isn't good for elephants," thought Nero, as he saw the boy hold out the rotten apple toward Tum Tum, the jolly elephant.
Tum Tum reached out his trunk to take what he thought was something good, but Nero roared, in animal language, of course:
"Don't take that apple, Tum Tum! It's bad!" And then Nero sprang against the bars of his cage, and, reaching out a paw, with its long, sharp claws, made a grab for the boy's arm as he held out the rotten apple.
"Look out! The lion's going to bite you!" cried a man to the boy, and the boy was so frightened that he gave a howl and dropped the rotten apple and ran through the crowd, knocking to the right and left every one in his way.
Nero roared again and dashed against the bars of his cage, and while women and children screamed and men shouted, Nero's keeper and some of the other animal men ran up to see what the matter was. There was great excitement in the circus tent.
Chapter X
Nero Runs Away
Once more Nero roared as he looked over the heads of the crowd to see what had become of the boy who had tried to give Tum Tum the rotten apple.
"Hold on there, my lion boy! What's the matter? Don't do that!" called Nero's trainer to him in a kind voice. "What happened, anyhow? Why are you roaring so, and trying to get out of your cage? Don't you like it here in the circus?"
Nero stopped roaring at once, and no longer dashed against the bars of his cage. Perhaps he thought that, as long as his kind trainer was at hand, everything would be all right.
"Did some one try to hurt my lion friend?" asked the trainer, looking at the crowd near the cage.
"No," some one answered. "But the lion, all at once, tried to reach out and claw a boy who was going to give an apple to an elephant. I saw that. I don't know what made the lion act so."
"There must have been some good reason," said the trainer. "Nero is a good lion. He wouldn't want to claw a boy just for fun."
And then one of the other boys, who was in the crowd that had been around the lad who had the rotten apple, spoke up and said:
"Mister, Jimmie was going to play a trick on the elephant. He was going to give him a bad apple just to see what a funny face the elephant would make."