The St. Johns herald., 1896-11-21
GOING TO THE CIRCUS.

toes, when we saw man in blue uni form coming down the road. Lou was my older brother, and he didn't like to hoe potatoes any better than I did, but he could dissemble better. Twice that hot August morning in 1864 he had left me to tread the wine press alone-I re- gard that simile as heap pleasanter than Is the fact-while he pretended to fix something on the shady side of the barn. He explained each time when he came back that he much regretted the necessity of leaving this nice, easy work in the potato field for such un- pleasant tasks at the barn, and grew quite sorry for him. I offered to go next time in his place, but he was the most self-abnegating fellow you ever saw, and insisted on this systematic martyrdom.
 When the man in the blue uniform came down the road we stopped hoeing long enough to look at him and wonder who he was. We had stopped several times before, but that was not to won der who the travellers were. We knew who they were. We even knew where they were going. We knew they were neighbors going to the circus at the county seat-the circus that had been advertised with tremendous posters and intemperate print for just four weeks. We knew in a general way people did go to such places, but we thought about 1t as almost as distant as the battles with which the uniform ed man was associated. A circus was not for us. We must hoe potatoes.
 The man in blue uniform turned in at our house and sat there in the shade of the locust trees while mother rinsed the milk pals and set them in the sun.
 Presently he came out in the field and shook hands with us. We remembered him as a hired man who had formerly worked for us-an excellent fellow, as you shall see. He was something far removed from potato hoelng. He had seen big battles, and we believed we had found his portrait in a colored print of the times, which showed a col umn of even-stepping heroes rushing to conflict as to a carnival. We were a little embarrassed in his presence, and scarcely asked him about the weapons he wielded and the foemen he had slain. Ourlibrary contained some books which treated of conflict in those rarer times when men went single-handed into the ranks of an enemy and swept down swaths of weaklings-thoSe rarer times before a rifle bullet made one man as good as another.
 John asked us how the cattle were getting along, and something about the neighborhood gossips, and then march ed away very straight, as If he were under the eye of a drillmaster. Another neighbor came along and John signaled him.
 q guess I'll go to the circus, toO," he said to us, laughingly, over his shoul- der.
 Oh! soldiers could do anything. This proved 1t. Men who could suddenly think of something desirable, something wonderful, and who could instantly de- eide they wanted 1t and so have it. these were the favored among men.
 AS to the circus! Why, would have given anything-everything, discounted hope and bonded the future for the plain privilege of going to the show" You cannot know the heart hunger felt for the circus by country boy in war time. It was an expected, an illimit- able, an inexhaustible case of wonders.
 John ran to the fence, placed his hands on the top rail and vaulted over, as became a soldier home on furlough, while the people in the wagon-they were dressed in the very flower of gala attire-pushed forward to shake hands with him. Then they called across to US:
 "Ain't you going to the circus" and so went on. Fate was despot We did not question the decree, though we could very freely understand the charm that was crouched In that one phrase Going to the circus"
 We had hoed out the row when moth CT called to us, and we went to the house. It was not nearly noon, but there was luncheon of bread and but 1 ter, of milk and of warm currant pie l on the little table in the vine-shaded 1 porch. The spread astonished us. Moth CT was getting at her spinning wheel.
 Do you want to go to the circus" she asked.
 Of course that meant permission. No | mother can taunt her child. John had said he would pay for our tickets if | she would let us go. He wanted to do that much for the sake of old times, he | said. And, dressed in the best those trying war times afforded, we started | on foot for the county seat.
 My people were church members, and we knew about miracles. But no sun waiting the will of Joshua was ever more miraculous than this instant | change in our condition. But an hour ago hoeing potatoes; now going to the circus!
 I had never seen a lion nor an ele- phant nor any of the curious beasts from foreign lands. knew their pres ence in the garden of Eden and in the ark. knew that African travellers had | found them. But that was far away. At the end of these little miles, just be- yond these business buildings, already in sight, I should find "wild beasts of the field" and should drink my fill of 
 The season was right. Harvest was ever, corn needed no more blowing. There was a midsummer Hull in all ac-