CHAPTER XI
MORNING TALKS
“Did anybody ever know such a succession of beautiful days?” asked Helena, next morning, stepping out into a world full of bird-song and sunshine. “And without doing anything extraordinary, nothing that anybody in the world couldn’t have done, what a happy time we’re having. Why, Dolly darling, you—what’s wrong, honey? Are you in trouble? Can I help you?”
Dorothy had been sitting on the broad piazza, waiting for her guests and breakfast, a very sober, worried girl. But she now sprang up to greet her friend and tossing back her dark curls seemed to toss away anxiety also. A smile rose the more readily, too, for at that moment there came around the corner Monty Stark and Danny Smith, kindred spirits, each singing at the top of his voice:
“The elephant now goes round and round,
The band begins to play,
The little boys under the monkeys’ cage
Had better get out of the way—
Better get out of the wa-a-a-ay!”
“Mornin’ ladies! And let me assure you there’ll be peanuts and pink lemonade enough to go around; for Daniel, my friend here, has just unearthed a quarter from one of his multitudinous pockets and I’ll agree—to-lay-it-out-for-him-to-the-best-possible-advantage—Right this way, ladies and gentlemen, only ten cents to see the Double Headed Woman and to witness the astonishing feat of an Anaconda Swallowing his own Skin! Right this way, only ten——”
“Monty Stark, behave yourself! The place for you, young sir, is in the monkeys’ cage, not under it! What have you horrid boys been doing out there in the barn so early, waking tired little girls out of their beauty-sleep?” demanded Molly B., appearing on the scene and interrupting the boy’s harangue.
“Oh! Just doing a few stunts. Practising, you know, against they call on us to take part in the ‘ceremonies.’ But it’s a pity about that beauty-sleep. You needed it and I apologize! I mean I never saw you so charming! Hooray for the circus!”
“Hooray!” answered Herbert, coming through the doorway, a twin on either arm. “Say it, ’Nias! Say it, ’Phira!”
The youngsters squirmed to get away, to slide down out of the boy’s grasp, but he held them securely till, at last grown desperate, one of them began gravely and distinctly to recite the doggerel which Monty and Daniel had just sung.