Wet, sour, unfriendly minions were they,
but they sent up no lamentations; their lives may have been hard and
unpromising, but lightly in their hearts swam the blissful conviction
that they were superior to the envious yokels who gaped at them from
fence corners and barnyards since the first dreary streak of dawn
crept into the skies. A shadowy, ungainly, mysterious caravan of
secrets, cherished but unblest, it straggled through the dawn,
resolute in its promise of splendor at midday. Wild beasts were abroad
in the land, and mighty serpents, too; but they slept and were scorned
by the men who slumbered above or below them.
The country people looked on and wondered, and shuddered at the
thought of the terrific creatures at their very door-yards. Then they
hitched up their teams and flocked to town in the wake of the peril,
there to marvel and delight in the very things that had awed them in
their own province. And all through the land people locked their doors
and put away their treasures. The circus had come to town!
It was eight o'clock before David was routed from his strange bed by
the boss canvasman.
Pages:
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95