[CHAPTER V—THE CIRCUS]
All was pleasant confusion and excitement at Sunnycrest, for it was circus day! A wee cloud of disappointment dimmed the horizon of Jane’s bliss when she learned that Mrs. Hartwell-Jones did not feel equal to the effort of going. She was afraid she might tire or injure her lame foot; and Jane was sorry, for she would have enjoyed sharing her impressions with the sympathetic and understanding “lady who wrote books.” Still, there would be the happiness of telling her all about it afterward.
Grandmother offered to remain at home with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. But on the other hand, she thought that she ought to go, in order to look after the children. First, they were to watch the parade from the parlor windows of the village hotel, by the invitation of the hotel proprietor, Mr. Grubbs. Afterward there was to be a picnic dinner and then—the circus! Grandmother really could not have stood the strain of remaining at home and wondering whether the children had drunk too much lemonade or fallen into a wild animal’s cage, and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones knew this when she refused to let grandmother stay with her, or to change in any way the household arrangements for her sake.
Joshua was to drive the big, three-seated wagon and Huldah went too, to superintend the luncheon. Jo Perkins, having had permission to take a day off (as indeed had all the farm-hands, for grandfather firmly believed in the old saying that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”) had vanished with the dawn. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones was left, together with many instructions from grandmother, to the care of Mary the housemaid, who said she didn’t care much for circuses anyway.
Christopher appropriated the seat of honor in front, beside Joshua, but Jane did not mind. Tucked in contentedly between grandfather and grandmother she was lost in a wonderful dream of the delights to come. Huldah and the baskets had the back seat to themselves and there was only just room for Huldah to squeeze in upon one corner of the seat after everything had been stowed away, for Huldah, as has perhaps been hinted before, was a “generous provider.”
The little town of Hammersmith presented a very different appearance from its every-day sleepiness. The narrow sidewalks for its whole mile length were packed with squirming, excited children and their no less excited if quieter elders. The reason that children are so restless is because they have not yet learned to soothe their nerves by wagging their tongues instead of their arms and legs.
Farmers had come in from all the neighboring districts with their families. A good many had given their workmen, too, a holiday, as Grandfather Baker had his. Circuses did not come to Hammersmith very often.
Grandfather, in spite of frowns and head-shakings from grandmother, bought Jane and Christopher each a bag of roasted peanuts and another of sticky pop-corn. Then he placed them side by side in an open window, with due caution not to fall out. The children were absolutely happy.
“Oh, Kit, I’m so glad I’m alive!” half whispered Jane. “I don’t think that even the sorts of things that happen in story-books could be nicer than this. Aren’t you glad we bought the apples?”
“Oh, I guess so. But we’d have got to the circus anyhow. Grandfather never would have kept us home.”