“Another ice cream cone,” said John, as he spied a man going by with a tray.

“All right,” said Grandfather, “do you want one too, Pussy?”

“No, I know what I want, but it isn’t here yet,” said Mary Jane.

“Where is it?” asked Grandfather.

“At the gate,” replied Mary Jane.  “I saw it when we came in and I want to buy it for my grandmother ’cause she couldn’t come.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Grandfather.  “You tell me when we come to it.”

Mary Jane pointed out the stand where balloons were sold, and with grandfather’s help picked out a fine big red one to take to Grandmother.

Of the drive home Mary Jane remembered not a thing.  She had seen and heard so much that she just sat and listened while Grandfather and John talked about everything.  She almost went to sleep twice—­almost but not quite, because she had to stay awake to hold Grandmother’s balloon and keep it from blowing out of the car.

Grandmother was watching for them when they drove into the yard and was delighted with her balloon, said she felt exactly as though she had been to the circus herself.

She tied it to the big glass water pitcher so they could see it all the while they were eating their supper and she thanked Mary Jane many times, for thinking to bring it to her.

“I know what I’m going to do first thing in the morning,” said John, as he and Mary Jane climbed upstairs to bed.  “I’m going to get out that picture and see if they did everything it said.”

“Well, I know they did,” said Mary Jane positively, “and they did more too, because they did all the noise; I heard ’em!”

LEARNING TO COOK

John stayed a whole week at Grandfather’s and every one of the seven days, he and Mary Jane had a beautiful time.  They fed chickens for Grandmother and gathered eggs; they visited the rabbits, carrying with them tit-bits of lettuce so they could the easier make friends with the little creatures; they played with the lamb and watched Mary Jane’s ducks and rode in the car with Grandfather and altogether had a wonderful time.  But the thing that both Mary Jane and John liked the best—­well, anyway, almost the best of all, was playing circus in the barn.

They pretended that the downstairs was the animal tent and that Brindle Bess was the elephant—­“she waves her hind tail just like he did his front tail, so that’s almost the same,” John said—­and that the hogs were lions and little pigs, tigers.  And they pretended that the loft was the performers’ tent and that they were the circus folk.  Mary Jane learned to turn a summerset in the hay and she tried to walk a rope but that didn’t work very well because the rope came down; evidently it wasn’t tied tightly.  John stood on his head and did tumbling and was learning to throw three bottles at one time.  They tried to do the elephant-eating-his-dinner act with Brindle Bess but she didn’t seem to understand (maybe because she hadn’t been to the circus herself) and tipped the table over and broke two dishes so they had to give that up.