So Joel gave up slapping his imaginary beasts, and bounded into the middle of the group again, and the little old kitchen quieting down, Polly took up the story once more.
“Well, but you ought to have seen the big white tent that was really the home of all the animals and crawling things, when they actually got home and staid still,” exclaimed Polly, starting off. “Oh! it was quite magnificent, I can tell you. It was as big as the church-green, and it had a great flag on top that swung out in the breeze at every bit of wind, and there were rows and rows of seats all around it in a ring, and down in the middle was the place where the horses danced, and”—
“Like this?” whooped Joel, breaking away again from the bunch of Five Little Peppers on the floor. But Ben picked him by the jacket sleeve and made him sit down suddenly. “Hold on, there,” he said; “you keep still, Joe, you’re worse than a tornado. Go on, Polly, I’ll hold him,” as Polly laughed and hurried on.
“One day they were having a beautiful time; the band that always rode in the red wagon with the yellow wheels, was playing away, oh, such lovely music!” sighed Polly; “and the big tent was just crammed full of people, and the horses were dancing, and everybody was just as happy as could be, when a great big man, oh, his head was almost up to the top of the tent when he stood up straight, came up to the door and stooped down and peeked in.
“‘Go right away!’ screamed the door-man at him as cross as he could be.
[“‘Where’s the Circus-man?’ asked the great ] [big man], and he kept peeking in. ‘I sha’n’t go till I’ve seen the Circus-man.’
[“Where’s the Circus-man?” asked the great big man.]
“So somebody had to run and get the Circus-man; and they made him stop, although he was just in the midst of showing off the monkey who was having a waltz on the back of the biggest elephant; and he was pretty cross, and he marched up to the great big man, and he pretended not to know him; and he said very sharply, ‘Go right off; you’re making a perfectly dreadful noise, and you haven’t paid, and you can’t go in.’
“‘Don’t you know me, Mr. Circus-man?’ cried the great big man; and he stood up quite straight, and his eyes, that stuck out like two cannon balls, stared at him.