Children -- Fiction; Families -- Fiction; Small cities -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Summer -- Fiction
At the head was a gorgeous wagon carrying a brass band. The men were
in red coats, and they blew their trombones and cornets and beat their
drums with the utmost vigor. A cavalcade followed, and then came four
or five large and gayly painted carts, containing, so the pictures and
legends indicated, the blood-sweating behemoth, the laughing hyenas,
two Nubian lions, and the man-eating tiger of Bengal. But the carts
were all closed, and the blood-sweating behemoth, if he were there,
gave no sign. Nor did the other animals. We had to be contented with
their painted likenesses on the sides of the carts.
"Do you suppose they're inside there, now?" asked Rob Currier's small
sister in a hushed voice.
"Of course they are," Ed Mason assured her scornfully; "I saw one of
the hyenas through a crack when they went by."
"Look!" said Peter Bailey. "Here comes the steam calliope!"
Sure enough, there it was. A man in overalls was energetically
shovelling coal into the boiler, and a charming lady with very pink
cheeks sat at the keys. As the thing came opposite us, she began to
play, and every ear in the vicinity was split as with ten thousand
steam whistles hooting out "Climbing Up Dem Golden Stairs." The noise
was deafening, and each boy of us resolved that if he ever became
rich, the first thing he would buy would be one of those delightful
contrivances. Then he had only to hire a man to shovel coal into
it, and he might sit all day and dispense music for miles in every
direction.
The calliope passed, as all beautiful things do, and our attention
was distracted by a herd of elephants, who slouched along, dusty and
morose. Then came some more carts of animals, and then a brilliant
zebra led by a boy in a red coat.
This boy looked up at us, grinned joyfully, and waved his hand.
"Why, it's Horace Winslow!" some one exclaimed.
It was indeed Horace. The red coat was evidently intended for a
fair-sized man, for it hung below Horace's knees and gave him the
appearance of wearing a single garment like a tunic. On his head
was rakishly perched a small red cap, similar to those affected by
the monkeys who travel with hand-organs. Horace's face was warm and
perspiring, and a good deal of dust, aroused by the elephants and the
carts, had adhered to it. But it was plainly the supreme moment of his
life, and no fussy considerations of cleanliness annoyed him in the
least. Was he not a feature in a genuine circus procession, marching
with the clown, with real elephants, and leading a proud and striped
zebra with his own hand?
He grinned again, and waved his hand to us once more. We were petrified
with amazement and envy. At that moment Mr. Vincent, cool and placid
in seersucker clothes, stepped out of the bank. He was going down the
street on some business errand, and he paused for a moment and gazed
indulgently at the procession.
"There's Horace, Mr. Vincent!" we all shouted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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