Part 7 (1/2)

Grandmother offered to remain at home with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. But on the other hand, she thought that she ought to go, in order to look after the children. First, they were to watch the parade from the parlor windows of the village hotel, by the invitation of the hotel proprietor, Mr. Grubbs. Afterward there was to be a picnic dinner and then-the circus! Grandmother really could not have stood the strain of remaining at home and wondering whether the children had drunk too much lemonade or fallen into a wild animal's cage, and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones knew this when she refused to let grandmother stay with her, or to change in any way the household arrangements for her sake.

Joshua was to drive the big, three-seated wagon and Huldah went too, to superintend the luncheon. Jo Perkins, having had permission to take a day off (as indeed had all the farm-hands, for grandfather firmly believed in the old saying that ”all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”) had vanished with the dawn. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones was left, together with many instructions from grandmother, to the care of Mary the housemaid, who said she didn't care much for circuses anyway.

Christopher appropriated the seat of honor in front, beside Joshua, but Jane did not mind. Tucked in contentedly between grandfather and grandmother she was lost in a wonderful dream of the delights to come.

Huldah and the baskets had the back seat to themselves and there was only just room for Huldah to squeeze in upon one corner of the seat after everything had been stowed away, for Huldah, as has perhaps been hinted before, was a ”generous provider.”

The little town of Hammersmith presented a very different appearance from its every-day sleepiness. The narrow sidewalks for its whole mile length were packed with squirming, excited children and their no less excited if quieter elders. The reason that children are so restless is because they have not yet learned to soothe their nerves by wagging their tongues instead of their arms and legs.

Farmers had come in from all the neighboring districts with their families. A good many had given their workmen, too, a holiday, as Grandfather Baker had his. Circuses did not come to Hammersmith very often.

Grandfather, in spite of frowns and head-shakings from grandmother, bought Jane and Christopher each a bag of roasted peanuts and another of sticky pop-corn. Then he placed them side by side in an open window, with due caution not to fall out. The children were absolutely happy.

”Oh, Kit, I'm so glad I'm alive!” half whispered Jane. ”I don't think that even the sorts of things that happen in story-books could be nicer than this. Aren't you glad we bought the apples?”

”Oh, I guess so. But we'd have got to the circus anyhow. Grandfather never would have kept us home.”

”No, I don't believe he would,” acknowledged Jane. ”He'd be too generous. But we'd have deserved it, Kit, and I'd much rather be here with things the way they are now. It's comfortable to my insides somewhere. Do you suppose the lady in the pink tights will be in the percession?”

”She may be in the percession, but she won't have on the pink tights.

She has to save them for the tent, where it's nice and clean. Outdoors they'd fade or get dusty, or she might fall off her horse into a puddle and spoil 'em.”

”Oh, Kit, she'd never fall off her horse! She can ride too well. Just think of the things she does in the pictures!”

”Huh! I know a boy at school that saw a lady fall off her horse-right in the circus ring, too. It hurt her awfully. Broke her back or something.

Wish I'd seen it.”

”Oh, dear, I'm glad I wasn't there,” exclaimed Jane, who had no thirst for the horrible.

”Hullo, I guess they're comin',” cried Christopher. ”See how the people are yelling and clapping down by the post-office. I say, grandfather, they're coming, they're coming! Hooray!”

Christopher tried to see his grandfather, not by turning around but by looking out of his window, across the s.p.a.ce of wall and in at the next window where grandfather and grandmother were sitting. He lost his balance, of course, and nothing but Jane's sudden grasp at the loosest part of his trousers, and the special providence that protects small boys, saved him from tumbling down upon the crowd below. He lost both his bags in a wild clutch at the window ledge and drew himself back, sputtering and red-faced with disappointment. He looked down to watch a group of small street urchins scrambling for their contents.

”Pshaw, Jane, why didn't you catch the bags?” he exclaimed in disgust.

Then he straddled the window sill and forgot all about his lost goodies in excitement, for the procession was really coming. It was not a very wonderful display. Indeed, the grown-ups thought it rather melancholy.

There were half a dozen tired looking men on tired looking horses, half a dozen others dressed up as Indians, also on horseback, several cages of wild animals and a bra.s.sy bra.s.s band in a gilded chariot drawn by four horses. This band headed the procession and was the grandest thing in it except one other gilt chariot upon which a plump, pretty young woman in a Diana sort of costume sat enthroned. She rode just behind the wild-animal cages and Jane gazed after her enthralled until she pa.s.sed out of sight.

”I am sure she is the lady who wears the pink tights and does such wonders on horseback,” she confided to Christopher. ”Wasn't she lovely?”

Then followed a long line of animal cages with closed sides. A man who rode beside the driver on the first of these called out to the people that the beasts within were too fierce and wild to stand the excitement of having their cages opened on the sides so that people could see them.

The spectators had to guess as to what kind of animals were shut up in these cages; the pictures painted on the outside were no guides, as each represented a whole menagerie. An elephant followed, tired looking and dejected, led by two men, and after them appeared a young girl, dressed in a purple Roman toga, driving a pair of piebald Shetland ponies.

At sight of these ponies it was Jane's turn almost to fall out of the window in her excitement.

”Oh, Kit, grandmother, grandfather, it is Letty! It is, it is! And she's driving Punch and Judy. Mayn't I call to her? Oh, mayn't I?”

”Hush, Janey, not now,” replied Mrs. Baker, clutching the squirming, excited child firmly around the waist. ”We'll arrange about it later.

Grandfather will see the manager of the circus.”

”Punch and Judy look as nice as ever,” commented Christopher with a condescending air. ”And Letty drives 'em well, too, you bet. But why is she rigged up in that queer way? All that purple stuff slung over her shoulder. I should think it would be in her way.”