Circus April 1st

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Circus April 1st

   Author:  Louis Slobodkin
Copyright Date:  1953
Publisher:  Macmillan
Pagination:  89, [1] p.

     On the first day of April the Circus came to Tannersville. Early spring mornings in Tannersville (since it is a seacoast town) are usually dark and murky with fog. But this particular morning was exceptionally dark. As the engineer said when he pulled his throttle and brought the circus train to a stop, “This is the darkest morning yet. You can’t see the back of your hand.”
     It was very difficult to unload the circus cars. The floodlights that usually lit up the railroad siding could not pierce the fog. The heavy gilded wagons that held the cages of the wild lion, the tiger, the polar bear and the wild (but timid) monkeys were rolled off the flat cars as everybody shouted to everybody else, “Watch what you are doing.”
     There was a dark exciting confusion and noise all along the railroad siding where the circus train had stopped. But in the freight car that held the best ... the most important act ... the Grand Finale Act of the circus ... it was quiet. . . . . .

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On the first day of April the Circus came to Tannersville. Early spring mornings in Tannersville (since it is a seacoast town) are usually dark and murky with fog. But this particular morning was exceptionally dark. As the engineer said when he pulled his throttle and brought the circus train to a stop, “This is the darkest morning yet. You can’t see the back of your hand.” It was very difficult to unload the circus cars. The floodlights that usually lit up the railroad siding could not pierce the fog. The heavy gilded wagons that held the cages of the wild lion, the tiger, the polar bear and the wild (but timid) monkeys were rolled off the flat cars as everybody shouted to everybody else, “Watch what you are doing.” There was a dark exciting confusion and noise all along the railroad siding where the circus train had stopped. But in the freight car that held the best ... the most important act ... the Grand Finale Act of the circus ... it was quiet. . . . . .