be first," said Danny, "an--"

"An' I'll be second!" cried Chris.

"I'm third!" Nora and Celia Jane exclaimed together.

Jerry said nothing. He knew where his place would be,--the very tail end
of the parade.

"Boom!" sang out Danny and again, "Boom!"

"What's that for?" asked Chris.

"It's the music so that the people will know the circus is about to
begin," replied Danny. "They always have music for the parade an'
everything. Darn Darner said so."

"Let's sing then," suggested Nora.

"Sing what?" queried Danny crossly, seeing a threat to diminish his
importance in the circus.

"We might sing 'Heigho, the cherry-o,'" said Celia Jane.

"'I Went to the Animal Fair' will be much more appropriate," Nora
suggested.

"All right, sing," consented Danny, "but the crowd's gettin' restless; I
can hear them stampin' and whistlin'!"

"I'll start it," said Nora. "All ready."

Thus the parade started and entered the main circus tent, which
consisted of a pole in the center, with no canvas at all, to the strain
of,

I went to the animal fair;
The birds and the beasts were there;
The little raccoon, by the light of the moon,
Was combing his auburn hair.
The monkey he got drunk,
Ran up the elephant's trunk,
The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees
And what became of the monkey-monkey-monk?

Jerry tried to sing, too, but he had a very hard time, for he couldn't
crawl as fast as the others walked and the carpet-rag balloon wouldn't
stay balanced on his nose but kept rolling off to the ground. The rest
of the parade was halfway around the ring (marked by a circle of sawdust
which Danny had made after sawing wood energetically for half a day to
get enough sawdust) when the trained seal had just reached the main
entrance.

"Run and catch up with the parade," came Danny's voice through the
circus music. "We can't have the parade split in two that way."

The trained seal jumped up on his hind feet carrying the balloon under a
forefoot, and ran until he caught up with Celia Jane; then he plumped
down on his stomach again.

Jerry was very hot and flushed and the muscles of his back and neck
ached. He tried desperately to balance the ball of carpet rags on his
nose, but it kept rolling off, and Jerry had to scramble after it and
the parade was soon away ahead again. In desperation, he held the
balloon on his nose with one hand and tried to creep ahead with but one
arm and his legs as