Seven or eight boys and girls were sitting on the steps of the veranda. Both the Carters were there, and Harry Fletcher, Susy and Minnie Kittredge, Ed Mason's sister Florence, and one or two others. Flossie Mason, being fifteen and grown up, had not been to the afternoon performance,—she was going in the evening with her mother.
The eyes of all of them were still wide open, for in their vision mingled strange animals, galloping horses, and tumbling clowns, while the fascinating odors of trampled grass, freshly turned earth, sawdust, pop-corn, and rubber balloons lingered in their nostrils.
Susy Kittredge, of course, was talking. She was beginning, in retrospect, her tour of the tents.
"An' it rained just before we got to the circus, an' the rain went through the tent an' washed the stripes all off the zebra an' he was all pinky-streaked, an' Dan Rolfe said he wasn't nothin' underneath but just a donkey, an'—"
"Don't say 'wasn't nothin',' Susy," said Susy's older sister, Minnie.
Minnie was a prim little girl, with black hair parted in the middle, and drawn into two tight pig-tails.
"Well, he wasn't," retorted Susy; "an' there were puddles of pink paint all round his feet where the paint washed off, an' Rob Currier touched him, an' got the end of his finger all red, an' Louise Mason said it was zebra blood an' it's deadly poison an' Rob'll have fits an' die!"
Susy opened her eyes still wider, and regarded us all with the pleasant feeling that accompanies the disclosure of horrible news.
"There were a lot of real donkeys next to the zebra, an' one of 'em had on the saddle that the monkey rode on in the precession,—an' he rode him again in the race, too, an' next to them was a antelope in a cage, an' then a ger-noo—"