“Yes. You straddle, and you keep on straddlin’, and see how near you can come to sittin’; and you’ve got to get up again without usin’ your hands. There was a man and woman and little girl and boy no bigger ’n me in the circus that could go clear down till they touched. I can ’most do it.”
“John!” exclaimed mother, in horror. Then she noted something else. “And your waist, too!”
You condescended to explain farther.
“Yes; I tumbled off the trapeze when I was swingin’. Look here!” Pulling up your sleeve you proudly exhibited an elbow. It was an elbow that earned you distinction among your comrades, although Nixie had a knee which he boasted was “skinned” much worse.
The date of the circus was set for Wednesday afternoon, and that morning a show-bill, tacked upon the Schmidt front gate-post, announced it to all the world.
All the little girls of the neighborhood were by turns flippant and wheedling, and boys, your rivals, were positively libelous in their derision.
Schmidt’s barn-loft had long been empty of hay and tenanted chiefly by spiders and rats and mice. It was a splendid place for the circus, a commodious tent being lacking.
Throughout the morning you and Hen, assisted by your associate performers, labored like fury, a profound secrecy enveloping your operations. No one except Billy’s small brother (he having sacredly been sworn “not to tell,” an investiture of confidence that gave him a decided strut) was admitted to gaze upon the advance proceedings; but the noise of hammering and other preparations was carried afar, together with a cloud of dust out of the open loft door.
“Where was your parade?” asked father at noon, when, hot and excited and somewhat grimy, you feverishly attacked your well-heaped plate.
“Didn’t have any,” you mumbled. “Fat wouldn’t let us take his rats out on the street, ’cause he said they’d get away; and, besides, we didn’t have wagons enough for all the cages.”