Page:The Wouldbegoods.djvu/141

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THE CIRCUS

And at first it was easy. Jam roly gives you a peaceful feeling and you do not at first care if you never play any runabout game ever any more. But after a while the torpor begins to pass away. Oswald was the first to recover from his.

He had been lying on his front part in the orchard, but now he turned over on his back and kicked his legs up, and said:

"I say, look here; let's do something."[1]

Daisy looked thoughtful. She was chewing the soft yellow parts of grass, but I could see she was still thinking about that animal race. So I explained to her that it would be very poor fun without a tortoise and a peacock, and she saw this, though not willingly.

It was H. O. who said:

"Doing anything with animals is prime! if they only will. Let's have a circus!"

At the word the last thought of the pudding faded from Oswald's memory, and he stretched himself, sat up, and said:

"Bully for H. O. Let's!"

The others also threw off the heavy weight of memory, and sat up and said "Let's!" too.

Never, never in all our lives had we had such a gay galaxy of animals at our command. The rabbits and the guinea-pigs, and even all the bright, glass-eyed, stuffed denizens of our late-lamented Jungle, paled into insignificance before the number of live things on the farm.

  1. See page 137 for short story.

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