noon
It was circus day . The dead-walls and bill-boards of the city had been gorgeous for weeks and weeks with pictures heralding the wonders of the coming show . By the turnpike road , not forty rods from where the breaker stood , there was a wide barn the whole side of which had been covered with brightly colored prints of beasts and birds , of long processions , of men turning marvellous somersaults , of ladies riding , poised on one foot , on the backs of flying horses , of a hundred other things to charm the eyes and rouse anticipation in the breasts of boys . Every day , when the whistle blew at noon , the boys ran , shouting , from the breaker , and hurried , with their dinner-pails , to the roadside barn , to eat and gaze alternately , and discuss the pictured wonders . And now it was all here ; beasts , birds , vaulting men , flying women , racing horses and all . They had seen the great white tents gleaming in the sunlight up in the open fields , a mile away , and had heard the distant music of the band and caught glimpses of the long procession as it wound through the city streets below them . This was at the noon hour , while they were waiting for the signal that should call them back into the dust and din of the screen-room , where they might dream , indeed , of circus joys while bending to their tasks , but that was all .