Dave had been to town and came home full of circus. He sat on the ground beside the tubs while Mother and Sal were washing, and raved about the riding and the tumbling he had seen. He talked enthusiastically to Joe about it every day for three weeks. Dave rose very high in Joe’s estimation.

Raining. All of us inside. Sal on the sofa playing the concertina; Dad squatting on the edge of a flat stone at the corner of the fireplace; Dave on another opposite; both gazing into the fire, which was almost out, and listening intently to the music; the dog, dripping wet, coiled at their feet, shivering; Mother sitting dreamily at the table, her palm pressed against her cheek, also enjoying the music.

Sal played on until the concertina broke. Then there was a silence.

For a while Dave played with a piece of charcoal. At last he spoke.

“Well,” he said, looking at Dad, “what about this circus?”

Dad chuckled.

“But what d’ y’ THINK?”

“Well” (Dad paused), “yes” (chuckled again)—“very well.”

“A CIRCUS!” Sal put in —“a PRETTY circus YOUS’D have!”

Dave fired up.

“YOU go and ride the red heifer, strad-legs, same as y’ did yesterday,” he snarled, “an’ let all the country see y’.”

Sal blushed.

Then to Dad:

“I’m certain, with Paddy Maloney in it, we could do it right enough, and make it pay, too.”

“Very well, then,” said Dad, “very well. There’s th’ tarpaulin there, and plenty bales and old bags whenever you’re ready.”

Dave was delighted, and he and Dad and Joe ran out to see where the tent could be pitched, and ran in again wetter than the dog.

One day a circus-tent went up in our yard. It attracted a lot of notice. Two of the Johnsons and old Anderson and others rode in on draught-horses and inspected it. And Smith’s spring-cart horse, that used to be driven by every day, stopped in the middle of the lane and stared at it; and, when Smith stood up and belted him with the double of the reins, he bolted and upset the cart over a stump. It wasn’t a very white tent. It was made of bags and green bushes, and Dad and Dave and Paddy Maloney were two days putting it up.

We all assisted in the preparations for the circus. Dad built seats out of forked sticks and slabs, and Joe gathered jam-tins which Mother filled with fat and moleskin wicks to light up with.

Everyone in the district knew about our circus, and longed for the opening night. It came. A large fire near the slip-rails, shining across the lane and lighting up a corner of the wheat-paddock, showed the way in.

Dad stood at the door to take the money. The Andersons — eleven of them — arrived first. They didn’t walk straight in. They hung about for a while. Then Anderson sidled up to Dad and talked into his ear. “Oh! that’s all right,” Dad said, and passed them all in without taking any money.

Next came the Maloneys, and, as Paddy belonged to the circus, they also walked in without paying, and secured front seats.

Then Jim Brown and Sam Holmes, and Walter Nutt, and Steve Burton, and eight............