Then the old gentleman rabbit traveled on again, and when it came night he slept under a haystack.
"I am sure I'll find my fortune to-day," thought Uncle Wiggily as he got up and brushed the hay seed out of his ears the next morning.
It was a bright, beautiful day, and he hadn't gone very far before he heard some fine music.
"My, there must be a hand-organ around here," he said to himself. "And perhaps there is another monkey. I'll watch out."
So he stood on his hind legs, Uncle Wiggily did, and the music played louder, and all of a sudden the rabbit looked down the road, and there was a nice circus, with the white tents, all covered with flags, and bands playing, and elephants squirting water through their long noses over their backs to wash the dust off. And lions and tigers were roaring, and the horses were running, and the fat lady was drinking pink lemonade, and Oh! it was fine!
"I've got fifty cents, and I guess I'll go to the circus," thought Uncle Wiggily, and he was just entering the big tent when he happened to see a man with a lot of red and green and yellow and pink balloons. Now, you would have thought that man would have been happy, having so many balloons, but he wasn't. He looked very sad, that man did, and he was almost crying.
"Poor man!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "Perhaps he has no money to go in the circus. I'll give him mine. Here is fifty cents, Mr. Man," said the old gentleman rabbit, kindly. "Take it and go see the elephant eat peanuts."
"Oh, that is very good of you," spoke the balloon man, "but I don't want to go to the circus. I want to sell my balloons, but no one will buy them."
"Why not?" asked the rabbit.
"Oh, because there are so many other things to buy," said the man, "red peanuts and lemonade in shells—oh, I've got that wrong, it is red lemonade, isn't it? And peanuts in shells. But no matter. What I need," said the man, "is to get the people to listen to me—I need to make them look at me, and when they see what fine balloons I have they'll buy some. But there are so many other things to look at that they never look toward me at all."