“Just pretend as though nothing had never happened,” Nora suggested.

“Yes, that’s best,” Danny agreed.  “Let him speak first.”

They watched Darn’s nearer approach without seeming to do so.  They tried to keep talking and laughing so he wouldn’t think they were the least little bit afraid of him, but Jerry and Celia Jane first fell silent and then Chris and Nora, and finally Danny, so that when they met Darn they were as quiet and subdued as a funeral party.

“Hello!” said Darn, as they were in the act of passing.  “Where you kids been?”

“Hullo, Darn,” replied Danny.  “We just been out in the woods.”

“There’s goin’ to be lots of hazelnuts in the fall,” Nora informed him, in a voice which she tried to make genial.

“And hickory nuts too,” added Jerry, feeling that such good news would help keep Darn in his present state of good humor and from thinking about what had happened at their circus.

“That don’t interest me much just now,” Darn remarked.  “I’m goin’ to the circus.  We’re goin’ to have reserved seats, a dollar and a half apiece.  There ain’t no better to be had.”

“A dollar an’ a half for one seat!” exclaimed Celia Jane.  “I thought it cost only fifty cents to see the circus.”

“That’s just to get in and set on an ole board without any back to it,” Darn informed her.  “We’re goin’ to have reserved seats in the boxes, with chairs to sit on.”

“A fifty-cent seat would suit me all right,” observed Danny.

“An’ me, too,” echoed Chris and Nora and Celia Jane and Jerry.

“Are you kids goin’ to see the circus unload?” asked Darn.

“Will they let you get close enough to see?” questioned Danny in turn.

“Of course.  They can’t keep you from lookin’, I guess.”

“No, I guess not.”  Danny answered his own question as though it had been asked by Chris.  “Anybody knows he could look.”

“Could you see the el’funt?” Jerry asked timidly.

“You could if you had eyes,” replied Darn loftily.

“Where’re they goin’ to unload?” Danny queried.

“On the sidetrack by Smith’s house, just back of the depot, at five o’clock in the morning.  I’m goin’ to see them unload.”

“So’m I!” cried Danny.

“An’ me, too!” asserted Chris.

“An’ me, too!” Jerry hurried to make that statement so that Danny could not say he couldn’t go because he had not chosen to go when there was a chance.

“No, you’re not,” Darn asserted with a sudden frown.

“I am, too!” cried Jerry.  Then after a moment he asked plaintively, “Why ain’t I?”

“I guess you ain’t got nothin’ to say about whether Jerry goes or not,” Danny interposed quickly.  “He can go if he wants to.”

“No, he can’t,” contradicted Darn.

“Why can’t he?” Nora asked.

“They don’t let anybody in the poor farm go to the circus,” was Darn’s unexpected reply.