he forenoon
they went up like white mountains, and in the evening, almost before the
last spectator had left his seat, they began to come down. Sometimes in
half an hour after the last whistle had sounded, the tents and all the
circus paraphernalia were packed in wagons and rumbling off to the depot.
It was a life of hustle and bustle, jostle and push, here to-day, and a
hundred miles away tomorrow.

The small boy, who was up before the first pale streak of light appeared
in the east, and off to the freight-yards to see the four or five long
circus trains come in, could have told you something about the marvelous
way in which circus-men handle their strange caravan. There was always a
crowd of these enterprising urchins standing wide-eyed and with gaping
mouths, while the circus wonders were being unloaded.

They could have told you that the great gaudy vans were loaded on a train
of flat cars, and that a single horse working a rope and pulley-block
trundled the vans from the train nearly as fast as their respective
teamsters could hitch horses to them and drive away. These boys knew
that the stake and chain wagon was always the first to leave the train.
Some of them usually fell in behind it and followed to the circus
grounds, for it was good sport to see men with heavy sledge-hammers drive
the many stakes and stretch the long chain which formed the perimeter of
the mammoth tent, and behind which all the vans would ultimately take
their places.

After the stake and chain wagon, came wagons bearing the cooking and
dining tents, for breakfast is a most important matter when you have five
hundred hungry people to feed. By nine o'clock the vast concourse were
all on the circus ground, breakfast was over and preparations for the
great parade were on foot. Nearly everything in the circus, with the
exception of the side-shows, had to take part in the parade.

Only the small boy, who stands upon the pavement, holding to lamp-post or
iron hitching-post to steady himself in the wild excitement, can tell you
how his heart races and his blood leaps as the first gilded chariot
swings around the corner into the main street. Thoughts of this moment
have been in the boy's mind for weeks, and the realization is always
greater than his anticipation. No matter if it is a small one-horse
show, the hallucination of paint and tinsel, and gleam and glitter are
there, and what a concourse it is! To get together this strange medley