Sandhelo was becoming a well-known and conspicuous figure in the streets. Hitched to an old pony cart of Gladys’, with bells jingling around his neck and ribbons flying from his harness, he never failed to attract a crowd of children. He had all the vagaries of the artistic temperament, some of which caused his drivers no little inconvenience. For one thing, he would not go at all unless he heard music, and it was no small accomplishment to drive with one hand and play a mouth organ with the other if you happened to be alone in the cart. And then, if he happened to pass anything unusual in the street he had a way of sitting back on his haunches and holding up his front feet and looking at them. As he invariably sat down unexpectedly, the cart would go on and bump into him and the shock would throw the driver from her seat, besides making a great mess of the harness. Several times he had done this in the middle of a busy crossing and held up traffic in both directions, while motormen fumed and policemen threatened, and Sahwah (it usually was Sahwah, because she drove him more than the others) played her sweetest on the mouth organ in an effort to make him go on. Nothing would make him move until his curiosity was satisfied and then he would dash off like an arrow from the bow for half a block, after which he would slow down and look over his shoulder to see how his driver was getting on. There was always such a look of anxious solicitude in his eye on these occasions that it was impossible to be angry with him and he continued to exercise his temperament without reproof.
After half a dozen of these free shows Sahwah declared that such an ability to draw a crowd was worth money, and they had better give a real show and charge admissions.
The big space in front of the Open Door Lodge was an ideal place for the ring. Seating arrangements for the audience gave them some anxiety at first.
“We ought to have a grand stand,” said the Captain, who had been chosen Ringmaster.
“Well, we can’t build one,” said the Bottomless Pit. “The audience will have to stand through the performance, and that’ll be a grand stand, all right.”
“Innovation in circuses,” said Nyoda. “Have the audience stand and the circus sit down. Like the picture of the bride standing while the groom sprawls at ease in the photographer’s gilt chair.”
“I think I can get a lot of chairs from a man who rents them out,” said the Captain. “He lets people have them for nothing if it’s a charitable enterprise.”
“Do you call a circus a charitable enterprise?” asked Nyoda.
“Well, ours will be,” said the Captain. “We’re doing it to make money so we can buy the new apparatus for the gym, which will surely make Slim thin, and that surely is charity.”
Upstairs in the Lodge the six Winnebagos were all seated on the bearskin bed having a lively argument as to who should drive Slim in the Chair-iot Race. The Chair-iot Race was a grand inspiration of Sahwah’s, who was keen on features in the circus line. Once, on a rummage, through Gladys’ attic, they had found six horsehair covered chairs furnished with excellent china castors, which caused the chairs to roll with enchanting speed. Sahwah now thought of the chairs and conceived the brilliant idea of harnessing a Sandwich to each one, seat a Winnebago in the chair, and race six abreast down the long cement walk from the barn to the road. The idea was hailed with delight until the Winnebagos began comparing the merits of the prospective steeds, and nobody wanted to be the one to drive Slim and go lumbering along like an ice-wagon in the rear of the others.