Nixie Kemp, Trapeze and Tight Rope
Fat Day, Clown
Snoopie Mitchell, Everything
Admission—Ten Pins to All, including Grand Menagerie
THE CIRCUS
CIRCUS was in the air. Circus had been in the air for some time, exhaled broadcast by village billboards and fences, and the fronts and exposed sides of numerous buildings. Breathing this atmosphere, small wonder is it that you and your compatriots were circus-crazy, and cared not who knew it.
The circus came. From half-past four, in the pink of the dawn, until nightfall, it was given your unremitting aid and presence—the two in one. Your fellows were equally assiduous. Nothing that might be done outside the tent was left undone; nothing that might be inspected was overlooked. As for the inside, some of your friends penetrated, like yourself, with the escort of father, mother, uncle, brother, or neighbor; some, like Snoopie Mitchell, “snuk under”; but all were there.
The circus went. Behind it remained, as evidences of its visit, the still contagious bills; one more welt in the shape of a ring, added to the other similar but older welts upon the face of that historic pasture patch; and a burning ambition in the breast of every youth.
