"I've spoiled it! I've spoiled it! Oh, I can't jump through it now!" he wailed, still holding them closely. "Oh, Polly, I've spoiled--"
"Well, it's your own fault!" Polly was just going to say, knowing that she would have to make a new one, and where should she get the paper! Then her brow cleared, and she gave a sunny smile. "Never mind, Joey!" she cried. "There, p'r'aps it isn't much hurt," and she took the broken one, and began to smooth it out.
"But it's bursted," cried Joel, trying to look through the rain of tears. "Oh, Polly! I was going to make the hole when I jumped through."
"Um!--" said Polly, busily considering. Then she sat down and rested her elbows on her knees, first setting up the poor bursted ring against the bureau; and, with her chin in her hands, looked at it steadily. "I tell you, Joel, what we'll do," at last she cried; "those edges where it is torn can be pasted together, and--"
"But it'll be a hole!" shouted Joel, who had stopped crying while Polly was thinking, knowing that she would get over the trouble some way. Now he cried worse than ever. "There wasn't goin' to be any hole, till I made one. O dear me!" and he flung himself flat on the floor, to cry as if his heart would break.
"Joe, Joe," cried Polly, running over to him to shake his arm, "you must stop crying this very minute. If you don't, I shall not do anything for your circus. I won't be one of the animals, nor I won't play any music, nor anything."
Joel gave a great gasp. "I'll stop," he promised.
"Well, now, you must stop at once," said Polly, firmly, seeing the advantage she had gained. "So sit up, Joe, that's a good boy," as he very unwillingly brought himself up. "Now, then, I'll tell you what I'm going to do," and Polly seized the poor ring, and, tossing back her brown hair, began to pat and to pull the crooked edges together.
"You see, Joey, I'm going to put a little border of red paper all around it," she said, patting and pulling away, "then it'll be--"
"Oh, now that's goin' to be better than the other one," declared Joel, in huge delight, his round face wreathed in smiles. "And I'm going to break and smash the other one," and he doubled up his brown fist and dashed toward it.