"No, it ain't a circus, but it's every bit as nice."
"Is it freaks, Sally? oh, tell me if it's freaks? It isn't? Are you sure I shall like it very much? It's nothing to eat, and it's nothing I can have to keep, and it's not a circus. What color is it? You'll answer straight, won't you?"
"Oh, it's every color in the world, and striped and polka-dotted and crinkled and smooth. There's a hundred of it."
The child would have stopped short on the sidewalk the better to centre her mind on guessing, but Sally dragged her briskly along. At the top of the street they came to a standstill.
"What is it?" asked the child.
"We're going to take the car," said Sally, grandly.
"O—h!" breathed the child.
"I guess you never stepped on to one of these before. This, Tibbie, is nothing but the beginning. Hi! Hi!"
The swiftly gliding, fiery, formidable car stopped, and the hoarse buzz died out in a grinding of brakes; the light was dimmed a minute, then flared out again, as if the monster had winked. Sally and Tibbie climbed on; it moved, banging and whirring on its farther way. They had to stand, of course, but what of that? Tibbie looked all about with her shining, intelligent brown eyes, and felt a flush of gratified pride to see Sally, when the conductor had squeezed himself near, pay like the others; it had seemed impossible that some compromise should not have to be made with him. She slipped her hand in Sally's, and was too occupied with the people and the colored advertisements to talk.
"Did you get anything for Christmas yet, Tibbie?"