"What's that man doing?" demanded Twaddles, pulling at Bobby's sleeve and pointing to a trapeze performer.

"He does things like that," answered Bobby. "You didn't go to the circus when it was here two years ago, did you, Twaddles? You and Dot were too little. But I guess maybe you can go this time."

The four little Blossoms talked of nothing but the circus after this, and Norah said she knew that Meg dreamed of lions and tigers every night. All but one of the Blossoms were going, the children with Father Blossom in the afternoon, and Norah with Sam at night. Mother Blossom had planned to spend the night with a friend in the city, and as she didn't care much about circuses anyway, she thought she wouldn't postpone her trip.

"What about school?" asked Father Blossom, coming home one evening to find Twaddles wrapped up in the fur rug and playing he was a polar bear, while Meg and Bobby, each under a chair, growled like panthers, and Dot swung from the curtain pole pretending that she was a trapeze performer. "What do you do about getting excused, Bobby? Really, Dot, you'll have that curtain pole down in a minute."

Flushed and smiling, Dot dropped to the floor, and Twaddles came out of his rug.

"School lets us out at eleven o'clock, so we can see the parade,"

announced Bobby. "Then there isn't any more after that. Some of the school committee said it was nonsense to close the school for a circus, but Mr. Carter said he wasn't going to give us a chance to play hooky. Everybody's going, Daddy."

"Dot and Twaddles want to meet the children up town to see the parade.

So you think that is safe, Ralph?" asked Mother Blossom, coming into the room to tell them that supper was ready. "There will be such a crowd."

"They mustn't go alone," said Father Blossom quickly. "Let Sam take them. They can all sit in Steve Broadwell's window. He asked me to-day if they didn't want to come. And as soon as the parade is over, come home to lunch. I'll meet you here and we'll get an early start."

The Wednesday morning, circus day, came at last. Very little work was done in school, and the teachers were as glad as the boys and girls when the dismissal bell rang, for trying to keep the minds of restless little mortals on geography and arithmetic when they are thinking only of monkeys and bears and lions is not an easy task.

"Going to see the parade?" asked Palmer Davis, as Miss Mason's cla.s.s poured down the stairway.

"Going to see the parade?" the girls asked Meg.

"Sure," Bobby answered for both. "We're going to sit in Mr. Steve Broadwell's window. You can see fine from there."

Stephen Broadwell was a druggist, and his window upstairs over his drugstore was a coveted place for parades of all kinds in Oak Hill.

Everything paraded up the main street past the drugstore.

Meg and Bobby found Sam and the twins already waiting for them when they hurried up the steep dark stairs that led to the storeroom over the drugstore.

"Been here half an hour," grinned Sam. "Dot was so afraid she'd miss the start that she wanted me to bring her in the car."

The four little Blossoms squeezed into the window and Sam looked over their shoulders.

"Music!" cried Dot. "I hear it! They're coming!"

"I see 'em!" shouted Bobby, leaning out to look. "My, see the horses, Meg!"

Sam pulled him in again, and in another minute the parade was marching by in full swing. You know how wonderful a circus parade is; that is, if you have ever seen one. And if you haven't, goodness! we couldn't begin to do it justice. Of course the very largest circuses didn't come to Oak Hill; but still this one had many things to see. There were cream-colored horses and black ones, with girls dressed in pink and blue and white fluffy dresses and gorgeous long red coats, riding them. There were cages of animals, some of them sleeping and some switching their tails angrily and showing their teeth. There was a whole wagon load of monkeys, two bands, and even an elephant and a camel.

"Wouldn't it be awful if we couldn't go to the circus?" said Bobby solemnly, as the last of the procession, the clown driving his own cunning pony and cart, went up the street. "After seeing that parade I never could be happy 'less I saw them at the circus."

"Well, we are going," Meg reminded him practically.

"Let's hurry," urged Twaddles. "Maybe all the seats will be gone."

"Daddy bought tickets," said Dot dreamily. "Wasn't the first pony pretty? And did you see the little dog riding on him? Do you suppose Philip could ride a pony, Meg?"

Meg was sure Philip could, if he had a pony to ride and some one to teach him.

As the four little Blossoms and Sam went downstairs whom should they meet but Doctor Maynard, an old friend of the whole Blossom family, and the doctor who had helped them set Philip's leg when he had broken it.

"Well, well," said the doctor, smiling, "I think I know what you have been doing upstairs--watching the circus parade. And now where to?"

"Home," replied Meg. "We have to hurry, 'cause Daddy is going to take us to the circus this afternoon."

"Do you suppose you would have time to have a soda?" asked the doctor.

The children thought they would, and Doctor Maynard lined them up before the fountain and let each one choose. Meg and Bobby, who always liked the same things, took chocolate, and Dot asked for strawberry, while Twaddles said he would have orange. Doctor Maynard and Sam had ginger-ale, which Meg privately thought unpleasant stuff, it tickled one's throat so.

"Have a good time at the circus," said the doctor, as they said good-by. "Don't tease the elephant, and don't let the monkeys tease you."

"I should think the monkeys would be cold in the winter," mused Meg, as they walked home. "Bears and lions have warm furry skins, but monkeys don't."

"Oh, the circus rests up in winter," Sam a.s.sured her. "This is about the last stop they'll make this season. When it gets too cold for folks to sit out in tents, you know, a circus goes into winter quarters. They are just as cozy then as you are. All the circus people mend their clothes and rest and plan out new tricks for the spring.

And the animals rest and sleep and get their coats into good condition, and have all they want to eat."

At home the four little Blossoms found Father Blossom, and as soon as they had finished lunch they started for the big tent. It was pitched in the same place every time the circus came to Oak Hill, a wide open s.p.a.ce just outside the town limits, and Bobby remembered it very well.

"See all the people!" cried Dot, jumping up and down with delight.

"There's Nina and Mary and Freddy, and oh, everybody!"

It did seem as if all Oak Hill had turned out to go to the circus, and Bobby wondered if there would be any left to see it that night when Sam and Norah went.

"Tickets," said the man at the gate. "All right, five of you."

They went into the big tent and found their seats down near the ring.

The clown was already driving around and around in his pony cart, and he waved to Dot quite as if he knew her.

"I guess he remembers me from this morning," she said with satisfaction.

More people kept coming in, and soon the tent was crowded. Then the matinee began, with a grand parade all around the ring, horses prancing, whips cracking, the monkeys shrieking shrilly. For three hours the four little Blossoms were enthralled by the antics of the clever beasts and the men and women performers, and they could hardly believe it when Father Blossom said they must put on their hats, for the performance was over.

"Won't there be any more?" begged Dot, putting on her hat backward in her excitement. "Just a little more, Daddy?"

"Why, we've been here three hours," said Father Blossom, smiling. "The circus has to have its supper and be ready for the evening crowd, you know. You wouldn't want them to be too tired to go through their tricks for Norah and Sam, would you?"

Of course Dot didn't want the circus to get completely tired out, so she agreed that perhaps it was time to go home.

They brought Norah such glowing accounts of the things they had seen that she was "all in a flutter," she said, and indeed she did serve the potatoes in a soup dish. But as Father Blossom said, most anything was likely to happen on circus day.

"You must all go to bed extra early to-night," he warned the children.

"If Meg and Bobby are late for school to-morrow, the circus will be blamed. Dot looks as if she couldn't keep her eyes open another minute."

Meg and Bobby went to bed when the twins' bedtime came, for they were tired, and they fell asleep at once. But suddenly the loud ringing of the telephone bell woke them.