church mouse had so much money after he came back from india that he decided to start a circus.
“there is nothing,” said he, “which will make so much money as a circus, for red lemonade costs only half a cent a barrel and we sell it for five cents a glass; and there is so very much money in selling candy at two sticks for a cent apiece that i really think that i ought to start a very fine circus.”
so he hired all the spiders he could find to make him a tent and had patrick o’possum cut some very fine tent poles. he pitched the tent right out in the middle of deacon jones’ meadow lot. he got ugly dog to sell tickets because nobody would dare to give ugly dog any bad money. ugly dog was such a good barker that all the animals and all the birds could hear him as he said:
“here, birds and animals, is your superior circus. step right up and see the fierce lion, brought from his native lair and the great and only striped tiger which can eat a man without asking by your leave. come on, birds and animals, for this is the only show on earth owned by a church mouse. circus, menagerie and hiphopadrome, all under one tent. walk right up.”
church mouse had tried to get a real live tiger, but he found that he could not afford to pay for a tiger’s ticket all the way from india, so he got his friend field mouse to put on striped clothes and look very fierce and be the tiger. mole was the elephant and white rabbit put some wool around his neck for a mane and pretended that he was a lion. this circus was held at night and the glow worms came in free on condition that they would hang from the top of the tent and give all the light that was needed.
church mouse had been so careful in arranging the circus that when the animals came they thought it was the finest show which they had ever seen. when they got to looking too closely at anything and began to wonder if all lions were white and had long ears, the lights would go out all at once and they had to think about something else. over in one corner was a little musk rat in a tank and all the animals and all the birds, although they thought that they had seen him before, believed that he was a hippopotamus. the more they looked at him the more they wondered, for he seemed like such a wonderful animal.
[86]
salamander says he eats fire.
[87]
when the time for the circus came, all the birds and all the animals gathered around the ring for which more than a hundred ants had brought the sand. there was a loud clapping of hands and the tumblebug brothers came into the centre of the ring kissing their hands to the crowd and making a low bow to everybody. they leaped up into the air and turned somersaults and stood on their heads, and whirled around on their backs. every time they did anything wonderful all the beasts and all the birds clapped their paws or shook their wings and said: “isn’t this a very fine show, indeed?”
then about twenty ants, all dressed up in green, rolled two great big balls into the middle of the ring. each tumblebug took one of these balls, which was as big as he was himself, and whirled it around and up and down, and then he lay on his back and with his feet threw the ball clear up into the air and caught it again. then the tumblebugs threw the balls back and forth to each other.
nimble grasshopper came out, and he jumped clear over the back of the make-believe elephant and the make-believe lion and came right down again on his feet. then leap frog came stumbling out into the middle of the ring all covered over with flour and with red paint on his face and a little bit of a white pointed hat on his head.
“when is a mouse when it is spinning?” he asked.
all the animals and all the beasts looked at each other and said: “why, we don’t understand. when is a mouse when it is spinning?”
leap frog looked all around, and then said: “what! give it up? don’t know? can’t guess? too hard? why, it’s very easy indeed. the answer is, a paper of tacks.”
[88]
then all the birds and all the animals laughed like anything.
“what a very good joke,” they said. “how very clever! and isn’t it strange that we should never have thought of it before?”
“now, then,” said church mouse, who was all dressed up in a long coat, and had a silk hat and a long whip. “as the ring master of this show, i want to introduce my great and good friend, sig salamander, who eats fire for breakfast instead of oatmeal, and drinks his coffee boiling hot. he will now do himself the honor of eating a red hot poker as though it were a stick of molasses candy.”
then salamander came out, followed by four mice, carrying a pan of coals.
“everything that i have,” said salamander, “must be red hot. once i ate some red pepper drops and ever since that nothing has been too hot for me.”
he ate all sorts of fire, and then wasp got up and said that he did not think salamander could stand everything hot, and with this he gave him a sting.
salamander ran away from the place, and as he turned to go his feet kicked the pan of coals and sent them way up in the air, until they set fire to the tent. all the beasts and all the birds saw the flames above them, and they were nearly scared to death. they scampered everyway that they could. they knocked down the seats and kicked over the tent poles, upset the[90] animal cages and spilled the red lemonade. before church mouse knew what had happened his tent had all burned up, and it was all that he could do to save his money and his boxes of cheese. after it was all over he sat looking at the ruins, and then said:
“it seems to me that i have made a great mistake. if i ever have a salamander in a circus of mine again i will have everybody who sees the circus a salamander, too.”
although the tent had burned up, church mouse had made so much money that he did not have to work any more. he built a fine house, and every sunday as you saw him sitting in church under one of the pews you would never have believed that he knew a single thing about circuses.
