Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/143

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

"Well, there goes the last wagon. Let's beat it for the freight yard."

Freckles never forgot the lesson; not even when he was grown up, and as tall, if not so broad-shouldered, as Big Bill himself.

Sunday with the circus people is really a day of rest and recreation.

The circus does not usually move more than seventy-five or a hundred miles between stands. But if they find themselves obliged to make a run of two hundred miles before a good city is reached, this run is planned for Saturday night and Sunday. So country people will often see the long, gaudy circus trains rumbling over the rails on a Sunday morning while the circus people make the best of this extra run. They come out on the platforms of the cars, or lie in the shade of the large wagons, reading, eating their lunches, or just visiting.

But if the run is only the usual length, the dining top and just a few tents, enough