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“Turn round!” cried the men, but Uncle Hiram was paralyzed, and the reins lay supine in his hands, while he screamed a wheezy “Whoa!” Then Brad Freeman, as usual in cases outside precedent, became the good angel of Tiverton. He forced his gun on the person nearest at hand–who proved to be Nance Pete–and dashed forward. Seizing the frightened horse by the head, he cramped the wheel scientifically, and turned him round. Then he gave him a smack on the flank, and the carryall went reeling and swaying back into Tiverton, the avant-courrier of the circus. You should have heard Aunt Melissa’s account of that ride, an epic moment which she treasured, in awe, to the day of her death. According to her, it asked no odds from the wild huntsman, or the Gabriel hounds. Well, we cowards came down from the wall, assuring each other, with voices still shaking a little, that we knew it was nothing, after all, and that nobody but Aunt Melissa would make such a fuss. How she did holler! we said, with conscious pride in our own self-possession when brought into unexpectedly close relations with wild beasts; and we trudged happily along through the dust stirred by alien trampling, back to Tiverton Street, and down into Brad Freeman’s field. It would hardly be possible to describe our joy in watching the operation of tent-raising, nor our pride in Brad Freeman, when he assumed the character of host, and not only made the circus-folk free of the ground they had hired, but hurried here and there, helping with such address and muscular vigor that we felt defrauded in never having known how accomplished he really was. The strollers recognized his type, in no time; they were joking with him and clapping him on the back before the first tent had been unrolled. Now, none of us had ever seen a circus performer, save in the ring; and I think we were disappointed, for a moment, at finding we had in our midst no spangled angels in rosy tights, no athletes standing on their heads by choice, and quite preferring the landscape upside down, but a set of shabbily dressed, rather jaded men and women, who were, for all the world, just like ourselves, save that they walked more gracefully, and spoke in softer voice. But when the report went round that the cook was getting breakfast ready–out of doors, too!–we were more than compensated for the loss of such tinsel joys. Chattering and eager, we ran over to the dining-tent, and there, close beside it, found the little kitchen, its ovens smoking hot, and a man outside, aproned and capped, cutting up chops and steaks, with careless deftness, and laying them in the great iron pans, preparatory to broiling.

“By all ‘t’s good an’ bad!” swore Tom McNeil, a universal and sweeping oath he much affected, “they’ve got a whole sheep an’ a side o’ beef! Well, it’s high livin’, an’ no mistake!”

We who considered a few pies a baking, watched this wholesale cookery in bewildered fascination. A savory smell arose to heaven. I never was so hungry in my life, and I believe all Tiverton would own to the same craving. Perhaps some wild instinct sprang up in us with the scent of meat in out-door air, but at any rate, we became much exhilarated, and our attention was only turned from the beguiling chops by Mrs. Wilson’s saying, in a low tone, to her husband,–

“Lothrop, if there ain’t Lucindy, an’ that Molly McNeil with her! What’s Lucindy got? My sake alive! you might ha’ known she’d do suthin’ to make anybody wish they’d stayed to home. If you can git near her, you keep a tight holt on her, or she’ll be jumpin’ through a hoop!”

I turned, with the rest. Yes, there was Miss Lucindy, tripping happily across the level field. Molly McNeil hastened beside her, and between them they carried a large clothes-basket, overflowing with flaming orange-red; a basket heaped with sunset, not the dawn! They were very near me when I guessed what it was; so near that I could see the happy smile on Lucindy’s parted lips, and note how high the rose flush had risen in her delicate cheek, with happiness and haste.