News of the circus had spread from one end of Meadow Brook to the other. Every boy and girl in the place expected to get in to see the sights, and even some grown folks had made up their minds, from what they heard, there would be something interesting for them to see, and so they decided to go too.
Mrs. Bobbsey, Aunt Sarah, Dinah, and Martha had bought tickets for reserved seats (these cost ten cents each). Then Mildred Manners was going to bring her mother and her big sister, and Mabel Herold expected to have her mother with her also. Mr. Bobbsey was coming up from Lakeport purposely to see the circus, and Uncle Daniel had helped the boys put up the seats and fix things generally. A big tent had been borrowed from the Herolds; they were only out at Meadow Brook for the summer, and this tent was erected in the open field between the Bobbsey and the Mason farms, alongside the track where Tom had tried Sable.
The tent had large flaps that opened up the entire front, so that all the exhibits could be shown nicely to the people on the seats out side.
The seats were made of boards set on most anything that would hold them, with a few garden benches for reserved seats at the front.
Everything was ready, and the circus day came at last.
"Lucky it isn't raining," the boys declared as they rushed around putting the final touches to everything.
August Stout was appointed to collect the tickets, and Ned Prentice was to show the people to their seats.
Two o'clock!
Only one hour more!
Lots of children came early to get good seats. Roy Mason sat right in the front row alongside of Freddie. Nettie Prentice was on the very first bench back of the reserved seats. The Herolds came next, and had Aunt Sarah's front garden bench, the red one. Mildred Manners' folks paid ten cents each too, and they had the big green bench from the side porch.