Faster and faster played the music, and round and round went the pony.
The people laughed and shouted, and Peter made his farewell bow and
trotted soberly out of the ring, in the midst of a great shout of
applause.
"How did Parson Lorrimer feel? Of all that amused and wondering crowd,
not one was more taken by surprise than he--both at this exhibition of
Peter's accomplishments and at the tale it told of his early days; for
it was impossible to doubt that at some time in his life he had been a
trained horse in a circus. From the field near by he had recognized the
familiar strains that used to call him to his task, and had leaped the
fence and made his way to where the crowd was gathered, to play his
pretty part on the village green, before the sober citizens of
Centerville and Hilltown, as he had played it hundreds of times before,
under the canvas, to the motley crowd drawn together by the attractions
of the ring.
"Of course the minister felt sorry and ashamed when he learned, in this
public way, of the low company Peter had kept in his youth. Whenever a
traveling circus had stopped at Winterport, Parson Lorrimer had not
failed to warn his young people from the pulpit to keep their feet from
straying to this place of sinful amusement.
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