"I can't have it," Troy announced. "I can't have you children up here."
"Oh, yes, Gib—oh, yes, you can. They won't—" Aunt Huldah's voice sank to a murmur, which Troy Gilbert answered with a shake of the head.
"Well, ef they do see anything, they'll keep still—my chil'en are trained to mind; and these others are all good people;" and Aunt Huldah beamed upon the palpitating, expectant, alarmed little band.
"Keep still!"—what an awful phrase for such a connection! Gilbert turned and asked them kindly, "Will you, kids? Will you keep right still, whatever you see?"
Only Gess and Tell were bold enough to put the horror into words.
"'Tain't no use fer us to promise," Gess said huskily. "We're jest bound to holler when the fireworks begins to go off, even if we had promised cross-yer-heart."
And Tell piped in, after him, as usual:
"W'y, a circus is jest hollerin'—or some hollerin' is the best part of a circus." And he added, with a suspicious tremble in his voice, "I'd rather go downstairs an' set in the kitchen, if we can't holler."
Troy burst out laughing at sight of the dejected faces.
"Oh, holler all you want to—holler as much as you can—I don't mean hollerin'. I expect to do some pretty considerable hollerin' myself, and I've got a lot of the boys promised to holler at the right time. But there's to be a little—a little extra performance up here on the roof, and if you see anything queer about it, you mustn't let on—you mustn't tell."