There were other curiosities to see in the side-shows, but the greatest interest centered about the animal cases. The boys who had helped build the cages told the other Little Citizens, and naturally it created much guessing and excitement. Would Mister Uncle Ben really have wild animals there?
Maggie was in the secret, but so well did she keep it that no one even guessed she knew the truth about the plan.
Inside the Fire-house, Uncle Ben and Ned and Jinks worked hard for several hours before circus time, then the door was shut and padlocked to keep out all curious sight-seers.
At two-thirty sharp, the Happy Hills’ Brass Band struck up a patriotic air and the visitors and friends who had assembled to witness the show given by the Little Citizens, hurried to the circus grounds.
The side-shows had to be visited first, as they would not be continued after the general performance began. The Fire-house was the first in the row so, not only visitors, but Little Citizens as well, filed in to see what Uncle Ben had prepared for them.
The side walls of the small building were covered with Navajo blankets and other barbarous-colored draperies. Spears and weapons from Aunt Selina’s cozy-corner and oriental collection were gleaming dangerously from corners. Freshly cut hay was thrown on the floor to make a carpet of green, and upon this sat a group of Hopi Indians. Don and Dot Starr were young ones while Babs was a papoose strapped in a wicker basket and stood up in a corner.
A tent was rigged up in one corner and before this a brave who strongly resembled Meredith, sat smoking a long peace pipe. But no one could see any smoke rising from the bowl or from the lips of the stolid Indian. He was in war-paint and wore all his trophies of scalps and wild beasts’ teeth or skulls, so he seemed savage indeed. Two squaws, one beading a pair of moccasins and another cooking over a camp-fire, were too industrious to look up at the curious visitors.
“The squaw-cook what’s poking at the kettle without any fire burning under it, looks a heap like Miss Lavinia,” whispered Maggie, in a stage-tone.
Everyone laughed and even the squaw had to turn away her face or ruin the effect of the whole Indian village scene. Dot and Don in streaked upper-bodies and gaudy skirts from the waist down, grinned pleasantly at their New York friends, and posed in a true twin-picture when Mr. Richards took a snap-shot of the Hopis.
From the Fire-house the crowds went to the first case: a ferocious lion! Here the visitors saw an astonishing sight! As the truth dawned upon them, the New Yorkers laughed heartily but said nothing that might keep away other curious visitors.