“Another ice cream cone,” said John, as
he spied a man going by with a tray.
“All right,” said Grandfather, “do
you want one too, Pussy?”
“No, I know what I want, but it isn’t
here yet,” said Mary Jane.
“Where is it?” asked Grandfather.
“At the gate,” replied Mary Jane.
“I saw it when we came in and I want to buy
it for my grandmother ’cause she couldn’t
come.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Grandfather.
“You tell me when we come to it.”
Mary Jane pointed out the stand where balloons were
sold, and with grandfather’s help picked out
a fine big red one to take to Grandmother.
Of the drive home Mary Jane remembered not a thing.
She had seen and heard so much that she just sat
and listened while Grandfather and John talked about
everything. She almost went to sleep twice—almost
but not quite, because she had to stay awake to hold
Grandmother’s balloon and keep it from blowing
out of the car.
Grandmother was watching for them when they drove
into the yard and was delighted with her balloon,
said she felt exactly as though she had been to the
circus herself.
She tied it to the big glass water pitcher so they
could see it all the while they were eating their
supper and she thanked Mary Jane many times, for thinking
to bring it to her.
“I know what I’m going to do first thing
in the morning,” said John, as he and Mary Jane
climbed upstairs to bed. “I’m going
to get out that picture and see if they did everything
it said.”
“Well, I know they did,” said Mary Jane
positively, “and they did more too, because
they did all the noise; I heard ’em!”
John stayed a whole week at Grandfather’s and
every one of the seven days, he and Mary Jane had
a beautiful time. They fed chickens for Grandmother
and gathered eggs; they visited the rabbits, carrying
with them tit-bits of lettuce so they could the easier
make friends with the little creatures; they played
with the lamb and watched Mary Jane’s ducks
and rode in the car with Grandfather and altogether
had a wonderful time. But the thing that both
Mary Jane and John liked the best—well,
anyway, almost the best of all, was playing
circus in the barn.
They pretended that the downstairs was the animal
tent and that Brindle Bess was the elephant—“she
waves her hind tail just like he did his front tail,
so that’s almost the same,” John said—and
that the hogs were lions and little pigs, tigers.
And they pretended that the loft was the performers’
tent and that they were the circus folk. Mary
Jane learned to turn a summerset in the hay and she
tried to walk a rope but that didn’t work very
well because the rope came down; evidently it wasn’t
tied tightly. John stood on his head and did
tumbling and was learning to throw three bottles at
one time. They tried to do the elephant-eating-his-dinner
act with Brindle Bess but she didn’t seem to
understand (maybe because she hadn’t been to
the circus herself) and tipped the table over and
broke two dishes so they had to give that up.
