on't ever listen to him! He's been the means of your
almost missing a fine treat--and one that doesn't come every day in the
year."

IX

CIRCUS TRICKS

Johnnie Green had been to the circus. And of course he wanted to try a
good many tricks that he had learned there. At first he made old dog
Spot perform for him. But when he attempted to get Spot to jump through
a hoop of fire the old dog refused flatly to play any more.

That was why Johnnie went to the pasture and brought Snowball Lamb back
to the farmyard.

"Now, Snowball," said Johnnie Green, "I've been to the circus and seen
ever so many kinds of trained animals--horses and elephants and dogs and
monkeys and seals. But I didn't see any trained lamb. If you pay
attention and learn what I try to teach you maybe you and I can join the
circus next year."

Snowball Lamb answered, "_Baa-a-a!_"

"All right!" cried Johnnie. "Now you just jump through this wooden
hoop!"

But it didn't prove to be as easy as all that. Johnnie Green had to work
a long, long time before he succeeded at last in teaching Snowball to
obey him. And then, after Snowball jumped through the hoop in as
graceful a manner as anybody could have asked for, Johnnie was not quite
satisfied.

"You'll have to learn to jump through a paper hoop if we're ever going
to be taken along with the circus," he told Snowball.

Again Snowball answered, "_Baa-a-a!_"

"All right!" said Johnnie. "I'll make some paper hoops. And to-morrow
we'll see what you can do."

So back to the pasture went Snowball. And into the woodshed went Johnnie
Green. There he stayed all the rest of the afternoon, knocking old
barrels apart, chopping and sawing and hammering. He laid newspapers
down upon the floor and trimmed them neatly with his mother's shears. He
made flour paste in the kitchen. And when milking time came he had four
fine hoops all covered with newspaper.

Johnnie wanted to make one more. But his father came along and happened
to pick up a barrel stave, remarking that it was just the thing to make
a boy jump to his work. So Johnnie decided, for some reason or other,
that four hoops would be enough to practice with. Of course when he and
Snowball joined the circus they would need dozens of hoops. But there
wasn't really any hurry about that.

So he went for a milk pail and trotted off to the barn, where he sat
down on his three-legged stool and began milking the Muley Cow.

He couldn't help thinking,