The Circus of Adventure Read Online Free PDF

thick yellow cream. Honey. Home-made strawberry jam. Hot scones. A large fruit-cake as black as a plum pudding inside. Egg sandwiches. Tea, cocoa and creamy milk.
    ‘I’m absolutely determined to live on a farm when I’m grown up,’ said Jack, looking approvingly at all the food on the big round table. ‘I never saw such food as farm-houses have. I say, isn’t this smashing?’
    Gussy felt glad that Mrs. Cunningham had insisted that he should eat very little at lunch-time. He felt sure he had an appetite three times bigger than anyone else’s.
    ‘What will you have?’ asked the farmer’s wife, kindly, seeing his hungry look.
    ‘I will have some—some pig-meat,’ said Gussy. ‘And some pie-meat with it. And I will have some cream with it, and . . .’
    ‘He’s a little foreigner, isn’t he?’ said the farmer’s wife, with a laugh. ‘Pig-meat! Does he mean ham? And surely he’ll be sick if I pour cream over it all?’
    ‘Cut him a little ham, if you will,’ said Mrs. Cunningham. ‘No pie. He can’t possibly eat both. And of course not the cream!’
    ‘I have ordered my meal,’ said Gustavus, in a very haughty voice, staring at the surprised farmer’s wife. ‘I will have what I say. Plizz,’ he added as an afterthought.
    ‘Shut up, Gus,’ said Bill. ‘You’ll do as you’re told. You’re forgetting yourself.’
    ‘I have not forgot myself,’ said Gus, puzzled. ‘I have remembered myself, and I want . . .’
    ‘Shut up,’ said Bill, and Gus shut up.
    The others grinned. It was nice to see Bill squashing Gussy. Gussy was very angry. He glared at Bill, and seemed about to say something. But Bill looked across at him, and he didn’t say it. Bill winked at the others, and they winked back.
    ‘Fussy-Gussy,’ remarked Kiki, from Jack’s left shoulder. ‘Ding-dong-bell, Gussy’s in the well.’
    ‘Pussy’s in the well, not Gussy,’ corrected Jack. ‘Oh, you pest—you’ve nabbed a strawberry out of the jam!’
    The farmer’s wife took Kiki in her stride, and was not unduly surprised at her, nor annoyed. ‘My old aunt had a parrot once,’ she said. ‘One like yours here. She didn’t talk as well as yours though.’
    ‘Is she alive?’ asked Jack, thinking that it would be fun to put the two parrots together and see them eyeing one another. What kind of conversation would they have?
    ‘Is who alive? My aunt or her parrot?’ asked the farmer’s wife, pouring out cups of creamy milk. ‘The parrot’s dead. It was supposed to be over a hundred years old when it died. My old aunt is still alive, though. There she is, sitting by the fire over in that corner. She’s my great-aunt really, and she’ll be more than a hundred if she lives another ten years.’
    The five children stared in awe at the old woman in the corner. She looked rather like a witch to them, but her eyes were faded blue, instead of green. She smiled a dim smile at them, and then bent her white head to her knitting again.
    ‘She’s a real worry sometimes,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘She wanders round and falls about, you know. And the doctor’s off on a week’s holiday soon, and what I shall do if old Aunt Naomi falls and hurts herself then, I don’t know! There’s no neighbours near but you—and you’re a good bit away!’
    ‘You send a message to us if you want us at any time,’ said Mrs. Cunningham at once. ‘I’ll certainly come. I am quite good at first-aid and nursing. So don’t worry about the doctor going. Send a message if you want us.’
    ‘Ah, yes—I could do that,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘Thank you kindly. Now—who wants a bit of that fruit-cake? It’s good, though I shouldn’t say it, seeing that I made it myself.’
    ‘If I eat any more I shan’t be able to move a step,’ said Bill, at last. ‘Will you kindly make up your minds to finish, you kids? We’ll get along to Quarry Cottage, and settle in. Did you manage to send a woman in to clean up the place for us,