When You Were a Boy

by Edwin L. Sabin

But to the timid inquiries of the little girls during the morning you had replied boldly:

“There ain’t goin’ to be any parade. Of course there ain’t! Do you s’pose we’re goin’ to let everybody see what we got?”

At half-past one o’clock the public was invited to ascend. The ticket-taker was Billy’s small brother aforesaid, and never was receiving-teller of a national bank more vigilant or particular.

“You didn’t gimme only nine!” he would accuse shrilly. “You didn’t, either! You didn’t, either! You’ve got to gimme another pin or you sha’n’t come in!”

“I gave you ten! I did! I did! Didn’t I, Susie? You dropped one.”

Peace would be restored by the number being made up through the prodigality of a friend, and the ruffled damsel would pass in.

Your mother and Hen’s mother, and your hired girl, and the Schmidt hired girl arrived together, their appearance causing a flurry and contributing to the circus the importance due it. Mrs. Schmidt panted heavily after the toilsome climb,—she was a large, short-winded woman,—and, choosing a seat near the door, fanned herself vigorously.

A few boys, after poking their heads above the floor and grinningly surveying the scene, ended by trooping in with apologetic and bantering mien. But in the main the spectators were feminine.

The amphitheater, constructed of boards laid across boxes, in two lines, slowly filled. As the etiquette of the profession required that circus-performers not be seen until the time for their act, you and Hen and the other stars remained in close seclusion, huddled in the dressing-room—the far corner, veiled by a calico curtain (from the Schmidt clothes-press) tacked to convenient rafters. Meanwhile the public might enjoy the collection arrayed at one side of the loft, where was conspicuously exposed the sign, in white chalk: “Managerie.”