"All right, you can have the ole rabbit. You'll have to feed it, though.
I wouldn't raise my finger to feed it, not if it was starvin' to death.
I'd got kinda sick of always havin' to feed it whenever I wanted to do
something else, anyway."

"All right, I'll be the audience," Jerry promised, "but the rabbit's
mine."

"Then go in the house and put away your cap an' coat an' mittens, so's
mother won't suspect nothin'. An', Chris, don't you dare ever tell, nor
you, Nora, nor you, Celia Jane. I'll get even with you if it takes to my
last livin' day if you do."

"We won't ever tell," his brother and sisters assured him.

Jerry flew back to the house, and put away his winter clothes and the
cloth dog Kathleen had given him, and then dashed out to the circus
ground and climbed upon an old barrel which Danny and Chris had turned
upside down for a seat. He kicked his heels against its sides and
whistled as best he could as a sign of the audience's impatience for the
circus to begin.

"We'll begin all over again," announced Danny and marshaled his three
fellow performers back to the woodshed and led them forth in parade to
the strains of "I Went to the Animal Fair." Jerry duly applauded the
parade and waited for the real performance.

Then the green elephant rose up on his hind legs and with one front leg
pushed his trunk to one side while the voice of Danny Mullarkey
announced, "Ladies and gents, I'm pleased to make you acquainted with