_The July pocket that came first was opened on July third at noon. It held a wee American flag. The story pocket came later and it held a Fourth of July story. They read it sitting in the hammock on the porch. It was called, “Arne’s Fourth of July Battle.”_
Arne drove the white horse, Christopher, into Danville every morning to take the milk to the creamery. He started from the farm as soon as the milk was in the cans, just as Lyman or Leslie--whichever it might happen to be--took the cows to the wood pasture. It was a long drive over the Prairie Road into Danville Creamery. Most usually it was uneventful. And every day, now that the last of June had come, grew warmer and warmer. Some days it was decidedly hot on the Prairie Road, even though Arne and Christopher started so early of a morning.
There were almost always errands to do in Danville, after having been to the creamery. Afterwards, Arne and Christopher had to hurry back to the farm because there was work to do there, too. The men needed Christopher in the fields, and Arne, too. There never was any time to idle along the road. It seemed to Arne that work never ended. He wanted some fun--that’s what he wanted. The other boys didn’t have to work all the time in summer--but then, it wasn’t all of them that owned thrift cards. Arne did. He already had earned ten stamps. When he thought of that, then he was rather glad he had the work to do for his father. His father gave him a thrift stamp every week that work was well and satisfactorily done--and without shirking. So far, Arne had only missed getting his stamp once. That was when he slipped off one day to go to the swimming-hole with Jimmy Smith when he was supposed to be working in the hay-field, raking. That was last week.
As Arne reflected upon these things and Christopher jogged into Danville that day that was the very last day of June, he slapped the reins and decided that he would lose no more thrift stamps. He wore his knot of red, white and blue ribbon pinned on his blue shirt and he was “doing his bit” quite as much as anybody, even though the other boys did have more chance to have fun. Then he looked up and saw--the circus poster!
Right then and there, he stopped Christopher and sat gazing at it. The circus was coming to Danville on the Fourth of July--twenty-five cents admission. The picture showed all manner of lovely ladies dancing on the backs of black horses. It showed elephants that played hoop; it pictured funny clowns and monkeys riding dogs--in short, everything that a circus ought to be seemed suggested by the big circus poster. “I’m a-goin’,” Arne resolved aloud. “Sure, I’m a-goin’ to it, somehow!” Then he clucked to Christopher and the wagon rattled onward toward the creamery. Just that one afternoon was the circus coming. It was a splendid kind of Fourth of July treat. “I guess my father’ll let me go,” he mused. “I guess so.”