“Isn’t it jolly?” he cried, as he watched the hurried movements of the men pitching the great tent and the side tents, rolling the cages to their appointed places, picketing the elephants and the camels, and leading off the tired horses to be fed.
“Maybe it looks so, youngster, but it’s the hardest work I ever tried. I’d rather hoe corn all day,” responded a busy man.
“Dear me! I wonder if he knows,” thought Frank, and in just one moment more he meant to hurry back to his duty, but there was the immense coffee-pot boiling away on the stove, and it looked so funny, the breakfast that was being prepared under the tent, and he had never seen the wild beasts fed before; he was very curious to learn what the camels and the kangaroos had to eat, and “O, ’twas just splendid,” Frank thought—“a great deal better than going to a real circus, this getting ready for one.” Before the camels had taken in all the water they wanted, there was the call to breakfast, and there were the wild Indians, snatching off their long jute hair, throwing aside their painted faces, and coming out of beaded blankets and tinselled bands, nothing but tawny white men after all, and sitting down to breakfast in the tent. How hungry they were! “They eat like savages, anyway,” whispered Frank to Harry Cornwall, “use their knives for forks, and, dear me, they are not a bit polite.”
“They don’t know any better,” responded Harry. “I don’t believe they—some of them—ever saw a nice table like you have at home.”
“Did you?” questioned Frank.
“My mother was a lady,” said the boy, again wiping his eyes with his jacket sleeve.
“Dear me! Take my handkerchief,” said Frank, drawing one from his pocket, but instantly concealing it, for he had forgotten that he had wiped his hands with it when running from the cornfield.
Harry laughed, and thanked him, and then ran to refill the coffee-bowls about the table. By the time he had filled the last one and returned to the stove just outside the tent, the men began to leave the table.
“Now, if you want to see the circus dishes, come on,” called Harry, “and if you’ll help wipe, then we’ll have a chance to see Bengalee.”
“What’s Bengalee?” asked Frank—“another sham Indian?”