In a surprise ending, Antonio goes home to tell his wife that he has bought her a new bed and she gives him news that they are soon to have a child. A new bed will no longer be necessary. Now she finds favor with this bed. It serves from this point on as a mender of their marriage problems, and she proves it herself when she, rather than Antonio, plucks the headboard lute, playing “Santa Lucia.”

Although carnival imagery is not extensively used in this story, Bradbury’s love for the carnival is apparent. His description of the bed as a calliope, and Antonio and the bed as a tumbling act, establish in part the foundation for the many carnival stories that Bradbury was later to write.