All was pleasant confusion and excitement at Sunnycrest, for it was circus day! A wee cloud of disappointment dimmed the horizon of Jane’s bliss when she learned that Mrs. Hartwell-Jones did not feel equal to the effort of going. She was afraid she might tire or injure her lame foot; and Jane was sorry, for she would have enjoyed sharing her impressions with the sympathetic and understanding “lady who wrote books.” Still, there would be the happiness of telling her all about it afterward.

Grandmother offered to remain at home with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. But on the other hand, she thought that she ought to go, in order to look after the children. First, they were to watch the parade from the parlor windows of the village hotel, by the invitation of the hotel proprietor, Mr. Grubbs. Afterward there was to be a picnic dinner and then—the circus! Grandmother really could not have stood the strain of remaining at home and wondering whether the children had drunk too much lemonade or fallen into a wild animal’s cage, and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones knew this when she refused to let grandmother stay with her, or to change in any way the household arrangements for her sake.

Joshua was to drive the big, three-seated wagon and Huldah went too, to superintend the luncheon. Jo Perkins, having had permission to take a day off (as indeed had all the farm-hands, for grandfather firmly believed in the old saying that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”) had vanished with the dawn. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones was left, together with many instructions from grandmother, to the care of Mary the housemaid, who said she didn’t care much for circuses anyway.

Christopher appropriated the seat of honor in front, beside Joshua, but Jane did not mind. Tucked in contentedly between grandfather and grandmother she was lost in a wonderful dream of the delights to come. Huldah and the baskets had the back seat to themselves and there was only just room for Huldah to squeeze in upon one corner of the seat after everything had been stowed away, for Huldah, as has perhaps been hinted before, was a “generous provider.”

The little town of Hammersmith presented a very different appearance from its every-day sleepiness. The narrow sidewalks for its whole mile length were packed with squirming, excited children and their no less excited if quieter elders. The reason that children are so restless is because they have not yet learned to soothe their nerves by wagging their tongues instead of their arms and legs.

Farmers had come in from all the neighboring districts with their families. A good many had given their workmen, too, a holiday, as Grandfather Baker had his. Circuses did not come to Hammersmith very often.

Grandfather, in spite of frowns and head-shakings from grandmother, bought Jane and Christopher each a bag of roasted peanuts and another of sticky pop-corn. Then he placed them side by side in an open window, with due caution not to fall out. The children were absolutely happy.

“Oh, Kit, I’m so glad I’m alive!” half whispered Jane. “I don’t think that even the sorts of things that happen in story-books could be nicer than this. Aren’t you glad we bought the apples?”

“Oh, I guess so. But we’d have got to the circus anyhow. Grandfather never would have kept us home.”

“No, I don’t believe he would,” acknowledged Jane. “He’d be too generous. But we’d have deserved it, Kit, and I’d much rather be here with things the way they are now. It’s comfortable to my insides somewhere. Do you suppose the lady in the pink tights will be in the percession?”

“She may be in the percession, but she won’t have on the pink tights. She has to save them for the tent, where it’s nice and clean. Outdoors they’d fade or get dusty, or she might fall off her horse into a puddle and spoil ’em.”

“Oh, Kit, she’d never fall off her horse! She can ride too well. Just think of the things she does in the pictures!”

“Huh! I know a boy at school that saw a lady fall off her horse—right in the circus ring, too. It hurt her awfully. Broke her back or something. Wish I’d seen it.”

“Oh, dear, I’m glad I wasn’t there,” exclaimed Jane, who had no thirst for the horrible.

“Hullo, I guess they’re comin’,” cried Christopher. “See how the people are yelling and clapping down by the post-office. I say, grandfather, they’re coming, they’re coming! Hooray!”

Christopher tried to see his grandfather, not by turning around but by looking out of his window, across the space of wall and in at the next window where grandfather and grandmother were sitting. He lost his balance, of course, and nothing but Jane’s sudden grasp at the loosest part of his trousers, and the special providence that protects small boys, saved him from tumbling down upon the crowd below. He lost both his bags in a wild clutch at the window ledge and drew himself back, sputtering and red-faced with disappointment. He looked down to watch a group of small street urchins scrambling for their contents.

“Pshaw, Jane, why didn’t you catch the bags?” he exclaimed in disgust.

Then he straddled the window sill and forgot all about his lost goodies in excitement, for the procession was really coming. It was not a very wonderful display. Indeed, the grown-ups thought it rather melancholy. There were half a dozen tired looking men on tired looking horses, half a dozen others dressed up as Indians, also on horseback, several cages of wild animals and a brassy brass band in a gilded chariot drawn by four horses. This band headed the procession and was the grandest thing in it except one other gilt chariot upon which a plump, pretty young woman in a Diana sort of costume sat enthroned. She rode just behind the wild-animal cages and Jane gazed after her enthralled until she passed out of sight.

“I am sure she is the lady who wears the pink tights and does such wonders on horseback,” she confided to Christopher. “Wasn’t she lovely?”

Then followed a long line of animal cages with closed sides. A man who rode beside the driver on the first of these called out to the people that the beasts within were too fierce and wild to stand the excitement of having their cages opened on the sides so that people could see them. The spectators had to guess as to what kind of animals were shut up in these cages; the pictures painted on the outside were no guides, as each represented a whole menagerie. An elephant followed, tired looking and dejected, led by two men, and after them appeared a young girl, dressed in a purple Roman toga, driving a pair of piebald Shetland ponies.

At sight of these ponies it was Jane’s turn almost to fall out of the window in her excitement.

“Oh, Kit, grandmother, grandfather, it is Letty! It is, it is! And she’s driving Punch and Judy. Mayn’t I call to her? Oh, mayn’t I?”

“Hush, Janey, not now,” replied Mrs. Baker, clutching the squirming, excited child firmly around the waist. “We’ll arrange about it later. Grandfather will see the manager of the circus.”

“Punch and Judy look as nice as ever,” commented Christopher with a condescending air. “And Letty drives ’em well, too, you bet. But why is she rigged up in that queer way? All that purple stuff slung over her shoulder. I should think it would be in her way.”

“That’s the way people used to dress hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Don’t you remember the picture of Ben Hur in the chariot race? Letty’s dressed like that and she’s driving a sort of chariot, too.”

“Poor kind of a thing to ride in, I think. You can’t sit down,” commented Christopher. “I like the little carriage better that she used to drive.”

The heavy, closed wagons, painted red and gold, that are used to carry the tents and luggage of a circus, now appeared in line. Upon the top of every third or fourth wagon stood comic figures, men dressed in false heads of exaggerated size, who nodded and danced and performed antics to make the crowds laugh. A painted clown in a donkey cart, and a calliope (so necessary to every circus parade) brought up the rear of the procession. The calliope was playing “Wait till the Clouds Roll by, Jennie” in a loud squawk, and the people along the street whistled the tune as they shouted and exchanged jokes with the clown. It was not at all an appropriate tune, for there was not a cloud in the sky. Indeed, the light was almost too bright, for it revealed mercilessly all the bare spots on the wagons where the scarlet paint and gilt had peeled off; and it shone pitilessly upon the shabby trappings of the horses and upon the anxious, tired faces of the performers. But the crowd was neither particular nor critical and after cheering and whistling the procession out of sight, it scattered gayly to hunt up families and lunch baskets.

“Now then,” exclaimed Jane with great satisfaction, “we shall see Letty again,” and she tucked her hand into her grandmother’s.

The circus tents were pitched in a wide field just outside the town and grandfather selected the adjoining field, under a clump of trees and beside a brook, for the picnic dinner. While Josh and Huldah were unpacking the hampers Mr. and Mrs. Baker, with the twins, crossed to where the circus people were grouped. The troupe had reached Hammersmith rather late in the morning, only just in time to form for their parade, so that the tents were just now being put up.

While grandfather went in search of the manager, grandmother and the children stood watching this ceremony of tent pitching with absorbed interest. Men ran here and there with coils of rope and long stakes which they drove into the ground and then stood in a circle around a broad sheet of canvas that lay spread on the ground. At a given word the men tugged at their ropes and slowly a mountain of dingy yellow white rose in their midst. It swelled and swayed and flapped and then took shape. More tugging of ropes, more shouting, the last securing hammer on a stake or two and lo, the circus tent was raised!

A second tent was erected over the animal wagons and vans which had been arranged in a half circle and the horses removed. Then smaller tents were put up and painted signs hung out to advertise different side-shows.

“Where do you suppose all the queer people of the side-shows were while the percession was going on? The bearded woman, the armless man and all those?” whispered Jane to her brother.

“I don’t know. Maybe they were shut up inside of some of those closed wagons.”

“Oh, I should think that would be lots of fun,” laughed Jane. “Making people think you were some kind of a wild animal when really you were something lots more wonderful.”

Presently grandfather reappeared, followed by Mr. Drake and Letty. Mrs. Drake joined them, carrying her baby, who insisted upon Letty’s taking him at once, and chuckling with delight in her arms.

“So you are the little girl who saved my precious grandchildren from the dreadful bear?” said grandmother kindly, holding out her hand to Letty. “I am very glad to see you at last, to thank you for your brave act.”

“Oh,” replied Letty, with a catch in her voice, “it seems like another life when I did that. It happened so long ago and so much else has happened since. I was very happy then,” and the tears she could not control filled her sad brown eyes.

Jane looked at her in distress.

“Don’t cry, Letty,” she whispered, drawing her aside. “You never used to cry. Aren’t they kind to you?”

“Oh, yes,” exclaimed Letty, drying her eyes quickly, as she saw Mrs. Drake approaching, “they are very kind to me. But I—I don’t like being in a circus.”

“Poor little girl,” murmured grandmother sympathetically.

Then Mrs. Drake joined them and grandfather went away with the manager to buy tickets for the performance and then to look at a group of work horses tied to stakes at the back of one of the smaller tents.

“May we see Punch and Judy?” asked Jane.

“Would I have time before dinner?” Letty inquired wistfully of Mrs. Drake.

Mrs. Drake saw how eager Letty was to go with the children and good-naturedly gave her consent, taking the heavy, unwilling baby again into her own arms. The children ran off, leaving the two women standing talking together.

“Tell me what you can about Letty, Mrs. Drake. We are very much interested,” said grandmother and she explained who she was and why she was so much interested in the little circus girl.

“I am very sorry for Letty, mem,” replied Mrs. Drake sadly. “Her mother’s death was very hard on her, poor little thing, and then when her brother was killed last year she could scarcely get over the shock.”

“Poor, poor child! But you have been very good to her, Mrs. Drake. She spoke very affectionately of you just now.”

“She has been with us ever since her mother’s death, but I don’t know what’s to become of her now,” and the good woman sighed. “I promised her brother she should be to us like our own child, and so she has, up to now.”

“And what is to happen now?” asked Mrs. Baker with sympathy.

“Oh, didn’t my husband tell you that we are giving up the circus? This will be our last appearance; the circus breaks up to-night. Mr. Drake has sold the menagerie and most of the troupe have got other positions. We shall stay here two or three days, I think, until Mr. Drake sells some of the work horses.”

“Have the Shetland ponies been sold?”

“Not yet. They’d be very nice for children to have as pets,” replied Mrs. Drake quickly, with an eye to business.

Mrs. Baker smiled understandingly.

“I was not thinking of ourselves, but of a friend of mine,” she said quietly. “But, Mrs. Drake, I want to ask you please to keep me posted about Letty’s whereabouts. Here is my card with the address on it. In the autumn I think I should like to place her in some good school where she can study and be equipped for making her way in the world. I am sure my daughter-in-law would be glad to have me do it in return for Letty’s act of heroism in saving the children’s lives. My daughter did try to find the child that same autumn after her mother’s death.”

“She was living with us, quite in the neighborhood. But I never thought of leaving an address,” exclaimed Mrs. Drake in some dismay. “I should hate to think I had stood in Letty’s way of getting settled in life. Indeed, Mrs. Baker, she would repay any kindness shown her, no matter for what reason,” she continued earnestly. “Her mother was a real lady and always hoped her little girl could be properly brought up. She’s far above such folk as us, mem,” she added humbly.

Indeed, Mrs. Baker’s idea was to begin doing something for Letty’s good before the autumn, but this plan must be considered very seriously before it could be carried out.

Letty and the twins came running back to them. Letty’s eyes were shining and there was a pink glow in her thin cheeks. She looked more like her old, bright, cheerful self than she had since her mother’s death. The children were greatly excited.

“Oh, grandmother,” exclaimed Jane, “Letty says the Shetland ponies are for sale and we thought——”

“We thought Mrs. Hartwell-Jones might want to buy ’em,” put in Christopher.

“Don’t you remember, grandmother,” went on Jane, “how Mrs. Hartwell-Jones said after she had sprained her ankle that she wished she had a Bath chair and when Kit asked what that was she said it was a big chair with wheels that they harnessed a pony to, to drive sick people about. So I thought——”

“We thought Mrs. Hartwell-Jones might like to buy Punch and Judy,” finished Christopher, taking advantage of Jane’s breathlessness to put the climax to her tale.

Mrs. Baker smiled.

“Bless your hearts, children, I had thought of the very same thing. We must talk it over with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. There is plenty of time.”

“And, grandmother, Josh came to tell us dinner is ready. Please, can’t Letty come to the picnic with us?”

“There’s apple pie,” added Christopher.

Of course Huldah had made apple pie for the picnic. She would have felt obliged to make those pies—with quantities of cinnamon—if she had had to neglect her whole week’s baking to do it!

Mrs. Drake glanced at Letty’s eager, wistful face.

“You want to go, don’t you?” she said aside to her.

“Oh, yes, I would like to go, so much—if you can spare me, Mrs. Drake,” replied Letty, trying to think of some one else before herself.

Grandmother overheard this unselfish little speech and it helped to strengthen the resolve that was forming in her mind.

The picnic was a very jolly affair, and Letty felt that she had not enjoyed herself so much since that happy summer, three long years before—which she and her mother had spent out in the country near Willow Grove. When everybody had eaten as much as he or she could possibly hold (and Christopher a wee bit more) Letty won Huldah’s heart by insisting upon helping with the tidying up.

“I always help Mrs. Drake, so please let me,” she said.

The twins asked leave to help too, and found it great fun to wash dishes in the brook. The time passed by much more rapidly than any one realized and Letty had to run off very hastily at length, in order to be ready in time to take her place in the grand march at the opening of the circus performance. It was agreed before she left that Mr. Baker should return in the morning to see about Punch and Judy and he promised the twins to bring them with him, that they might have another visit with Letty.

Soon it was time for every one who was to attend the circus to go inside the tent. Grandfather gave Joshua tickets for Huldah and himself, and then he and grandmother and the twins crossed the wide field again.

There was a great hubbub about the group of tents; men were calling out the attractions of the side-shows, a band was playing and boys moved about through the crowd with trays of peanuts and lemonade, shouting their wares in shrill, loud voices.

All boys and girls who have been to a circus know exactly how Jane and Christopher felt when they got inside that tent. It was not the first circus they had been to, by any means, but that does not make any difference; one always has that same furry creepiness in the back of one’s neck, and the same swelled-up, lost breath, wish-to-laugh-without-being-heard feeling.

They giggled at everything the clown said and did, clapped their hands wildly when the trick elephant bowed and waltzed; and shut their eyes tight—at least Jane did—when the “human fly” walked upside down on a piece of boarding suspended from the top of the tent like a ceiling.

Christopher liked the Indians attacking the stage-coach best, and wriggled rapturously at each blood-curdling war-whoop. But Jane was faithful to her love of the lady in pink tights and watched her with open eyes and open mouth, as she stood jauntily upright upon a barebacked horse and sprang gracefully through paper-covered hoops.

“I wonder if Letty knows her,” she whispered to Christopher. “I mean to ask to-morrow.”

But it was the Shetland ponies and their little trainer that held grandmother’s attention. She watched Letty long and carefully, and said something to grandfather in a voice too low for the children to hear.

That evening, after Jane and Christopher were tucked away in bed, the grown-ups, Mr. and Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, had a long, long talk together. It was all about Letty, or most of it, for the Shetland ponies came in for a little share in the discussion.

Dear little Letty, if only she could have overheard that conversation she would not have spent such a wakeful, unhappy night. She had passed three very hard, sad years, but better days were in sight again. As her mother had said, the little girl had the faculty of making friends.