“I’se got it! I was goin’ to show him to my goat!”
Everybody laughed when Baby William came walking up with the toy bear which had a part in the show. The little boy, wandering around behind the curtain when no show was going on, had opened the draperies and taken out the little bear. He gave it back to the man.
“Ah, now the show can go on,” said the man, as he pulled the curtain over the stage. And when the laughter had stopped, and everything was ready, the curtain was thrust aside once more and Mr. Punch cried:
“That’s the way to do it! That’s the way I do it!”
And so the entertainment went on until the fair came to an end, and the children went home, talking about what they had seen and heard.
“It’s too bad they didn’t make all the money they wanted,” said Grandpa Martin at Cherry Farm the following day. “I wish I had lots of dollars, so I could give as much as I’d like. But with poor crops, and the farm not paying well, I can’t—that’s all,” and he shook his head sadly.
“When are you going to pick the cherries?” asked Ted. “They must be ripe now.”
“They are, and ready to pick. I never saw so many! Why, I’ll have to give them away I guess, to get rid of them. I never had such a crop. There are bushels and bushels of them!”
“What—goats?” asked a voice behind the Curlytops, and, turning, they saw the jolly lollypop man.
“What have you so much of?” he asked. He had left his red wagon and white horse in the road, and had come up to the porch on which the Curlytops were seated talking to grandpa.