s left."

"Don't want the core," said Jerry. "It was my apple. The lady gave it to
me." He didn't even look at Danny but kept staring at the very purple
elephant and the very red moon almost on the tip-end of his trunk. He
just wouldn't let Danny Mullarkey know that it made any difference to
him whether Danny and Chris and Nora and Celia Jane liked him very much
or not.

No, and he wouldn't feel so terribly bad if Mother 'Larkey and little
Kathleen didn't like him, either.

"You ain't lost your tongue, have you?" cried Danny.

"Maybe the cat's got it," said Celia Jane, following as usual her elder
brother's lead and laughing at her own wit.

"What you starin' at so hard, Jerry?" called Chris.

Jerry disdained to reply or to let his enraptured gaze wander for a
moment from the dazzling poster. Curiosity soon got the better of Chris
and he started to walk back.

"El'funt!" shouted Chris, when he was near enough to see the poster. His
shout started the whole Mullarkey brood galloping towards the billboard.

"The circus!" cried Danny, from the superior experience of his nine
years. "The circus is coming to town!" He threw himself on the grass by
Jerry and pressed the uneaten apple core into his hand.

"I don't want it," said Jerry.

"Aw, take it, Jerry. I didn't mean to eat so much of it, honest I
didn't. I just wanted to tease you." He closed Jerry's fingers around
the core.

"It doesn't say the circus is coming," Nora observed, pointing to some
lettering in one corner of the poster. Nora was nearly eight years old
and proud of her ability to read print, if the words weren't too
big,--an ability shared by none of the others except Danny.

"It does, too!" contradicted Celia Jane, wrinkling up her nose
preparatory to crying with disappointment if the circus were not coming.
"There's some writin' on it."

"What does it say, Danny?" eagerly asked Jerry, going close to the
billboard as though that might help him to make out what was printed on
it. "Ain't it coming?"

"Read it quick, Danny! Please! I can't wait!" cried Celia Jane.

Thus besought, Danny read somewhat haltingly, for the "writin'" was in
queerly formed letters, these words which are known to all children:

Ask your mother for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence,
He jumped so high he hit the sky
And never came down till the Fourth of July.

"Is that all?" asked Celia Jane, very much disappointed.

"Didn't I just rea