A PAPER CIRCUS
But it was not Polly who had made off with the two saddle-horses; for as
the two soldiers dashed up the slope after Roxy the runaway had appeared
from his hiding-place, carrying the loaf of bread in one hand, and had
hastened to where the two horses stood nibbling at the wayside grass;
without a word to Polly he slipped the bread into a big pocket of one of
the saddles, seized the swinging bridle reins and mounted the horse, and
leading the other, was off at a gallop down the road toward Sharpsburg.
Polly stared after him until the sound of the hoofs of the speeding
horses died away in the distance, and then turned her horse toward home.
Her quick glance had noted the loaf of bread, and that something
resembling the frame of a chicken bulged from the young man’s pocket.
“He must have been hiding there all the time. I wonder where he got the
bread?” thought the surprised girl, and she smiled at the thought of the
two men who were in search of him and who had been so cleverly misled.
“If Roxy had known about the man and planned to help him she could not
have done anything better,” thought Polly. “Poor little Roxy! They
frightened her half out of her senses,” and Polly resolved to go over
that very evening and see her friend and tell her of the hidden man and
of his escape from his pursuers.
But it was from Dulcie that Roxy first heard the news. Dulcie peering
over the wall had seen the young man as he ran toward the horses,
mounted and galloped out of sight, and when the gray-clad Confederate
soldiers dashed past her she had chuckled with delight.
“Dey won’ be a-ridin’ off so gran’ as dey are spectin’ to,” she said.
“Wot dey mean anyway a-prospectin’ roun’ in Marylan’? Dis state ain’ fer
upsettin’ de United States Gubbermint. ’Deed it ain’t,” and Dulcie shook
her head disapprovingly over the idea that Southern soldiers should so
fearlessly enter a loyal state. Dulcie well knew that the great conflict
between North and South meant not only the freedom of the negroes, if
the Northern Armies were successful, but a united and undivided nation.
Mrs. Miller talked freely with her colored servants, and Dulcie was sure
that whatever “Ole Miss” said was true; and she now hurried back to the
farmhouse to tell the family what she had seen.
Roxy and her mother were in the big sitting-room, and the little girl
was still greatly excited over her encounter with the soldiers; and
beside that she was fearful and anxious as to the safety of the Yankee
soldier. She had not mentioned him, remembering her promise, and her
mother and grandmother did not imagine that Roxy had ever seen the man
for whom the two soldiers were searching. That she should be frightened
seemed only natural, although Grandma Miller carefully explained that
the soldiers would only, had they overtaken her, have questioned her
about the runaway.
“I know it,” Roxy whimpered. “I wasn’t afraid of them. The tall one
looked like my father.”
“What made you run then?” asked Mrs. Delfield, but before Roxy could
answer Dulcie, smiling and bobbing her turbaned head, appeared in the
doorway.
“What is it, Dulcie?” Mrs. Miller questioned, wondering if the fleeing
Yankee had been overtaken.
“De Yankee-man was hid up, Miss, down clus to de road; an’ when dose
sojers come a-racin’ up de slope de Yankee-man put out ob de bushes an’
hists hisse’f on to one hoss, an’ he hoi’s on to de udder one and off he
goes!” and Dulcie flourished both hands to show how swiftly the fleeing
man had disappeared.
“Oh, goody! Goody!” exclaimed Roxy, jumping up from the sofa where she
had been sitting beside her mother, and running toward Dulcie. “Which
road did he take? Was he out of sight before the men knew he was gone?
Did he get away?” she questioned eagerly.
“For de lan’ sakes!” exclaimed the bewildered Dulcie. “W’ich one ob dose
questions you spect me ter reply to, Missy? You kinder be-willers me!”
“Oh, Dulcie!” and Roxy jumped up and down in front of the old negress.
“Tell me if he got away.”
“Ain’ I jes’ tole you? He got clare out ob sight, an’ he tuk de extra
hoss! Yas’m, he was right clever, dat Yankee feller was. I spect he’s in
Sharpsburg ’fore dis time.”
Roxy smiled so radiantly as she turned toward her mother that Mrs.
Delfield smiled in response, well pleased that her little daughter
should forget the fear and excitement of her adventure.
“What became of Polly Lawrence?” asked Mrs. Miller.
“Oh! Miss Polly jes’ druv toward home. She didn’ wait fer de gray coats
to get back either,” and Dulcie went off chuckling with satisfaction.
“Well, Roxy, I think the Yankee boy owes his escape to you,” declared
Mrs. Miller. “Your running off made the soldiers think you could tell
them of the escaped prisoner, and so they ran after you, and that gave
the man his chance.”
“As if the child could know——” began Mrs. Delfield, but was interrupted
by an outcry from the cellar, and Dulcie’s complaining voice as she made
her heavy way up the stairs and came hurrying to the sitting-room.
“What can be the matter now?” exclaimed Mrs. Miller, starting toward the
door.
“Ole Miss—Ole Miss! We’s robbed! Yas’m!” exclaimed Dulcie, nearly
breathless. “My roas’ chicken bin stole. Yas’m! An’ I cayn’t lay eyes on
my egg baskit, an’ my bread am took!” and Dulcie stood rolling her
frightened eyes and trembling with excitement.
“Why, Dulcie! It can’t be! I have never had a thing taken from the house
in all my life,” declared Mrs. Miller, and with Dulcie beside her she
hurried off to the kitchen.
Roxy gave a little exclamation, and Mrs. Delfield hastened to assure her
that probably Dulcie was mistaken, and had forgotten where she had set
the food. But the little girl seemed so troubled, so grave and quiet,
that her mother felt anxious.
“Don’t you want to finish the ‘Circus,’ dear?” she suggested. “You’ll
need a herd of camels, several elephants, beside lions and zebras.”
But Roxy shook her head. Not even her beloved “Circus,” on which she had
worked several hours each day since her arrival at Grandma Miller’s,
seemed to interest her. When she had given the man the basket of food
she had not thought of the fact that it would be promptly missed, and
that Dulcie would make such an outcry over it. But, as no special person
was suspected of taking it, Roxy quickly decided that all was well.
Dulcie would scold and wonder about her loss, and Grandma Miller would
endeavor to find out who had really made off with the chicken, but no
real harm had been done, so in a little while Roxy was quite ready to
follow her mother’s suggestion and begin on the animals that were to be
a part of the “paper circus”; and when Mrs. Delfield followed Mrs.
Miller to the kitchen to find out what had really occurred Roxy was
happily at work near one of the wide windows that looked across the
green wheat field toward the distant mountains.
A broad low table, that Grandma Miller said was Roxy’s table, stood near
this window. It had two deep wide drawers, and the straight-backed
cushioned chair in front of it was exactly the right height and size for
a little girl ten years old. Roxy could lean on her table and look out
over the pleasant countryside, and see a distant bend of the slow-moving
river.
She opened the upper drawer of the table and took out some squares of
heavy brown paper, a pair of pointed scissors and a box of crayons; then
Roxy ran across the room to a closet and opened the door and from one of
the lower shelves she drew out a thick book and carried it to her table,
opened it and turned the leaves carefully.
It was a wonderful book! On the very first page there was a picture of
an amiable lion, with his family resting peacefully about him. On the
next page were pictured a group of monkeys gathering cocoanuts, and
further on were shown camels journeying across a desert; there were
pictures of zebras, tigers, rhinoceros, and there were pages of
wonderful birds with all their fine plumage.
Roxy turned to the page where a tall camel was pictured, and then taking
one of the sheets of brown paper and a freshly sharpened pencil she
began, very carefully, to draw the outlines of the strange animal. Its
queer head, long legs and humped back were easy to copy, and with a
little smile of satisfaction Roxy held up the drawing she had made, and
then, scissors in hand, she cut carefully into the paper following her
pencil marks until a paper camel lay on the table before her.
“There! Now I can cut out two or three more from this one!” she said
aloud, and pulled open the lower drawer and placed the camel with a
number of other animals cut from the brown paper. Later on Roxy planned
to use all these paper figures in the “Paper Circus.”
It was Grandma Miller who had suggested, during a week of rainy days
when Roxy and her mother had first arrived at the farm, that the little
girl should begin it, and told her that when her mother was a small girl
there was no game she enjoyed more. And Roxy’s mother had brought out
the “Animal Book” and shown Roxy how to trace the pictures.
Grandma Miller had explained that the animals were only a part of the
circus; there would be a clown, who wore strange garments, men who must
be mounted on prancing horses, and all could be assembled in a
procession.
Grandma Miller knew just how to make the figures stand upright with
clever little braces of stiff paper pasted on their backs; and Roxy’s
mother had suggested that Roxy could use her box of colored crayons to
color the lion’s mane, the stripes on the zebras, and to mark the eyes
of the monkeys.
As Roxy added the camel to the pile of figures in the lower drawer she
thought happily that her paper menagerie was now nearly complete.
“Then I’ll cut out clowns and circus-men,” she decided, “and then I can
get ready to surprise Grandma,” for Roxy was making a plan to celebrate
her grandmother’s birthday, that came in mid-July, by an entertainment
in which the “paper circus” was to have a prominent place. Polly had
promised to help Roxy with this plan, and no one else was to be in the
secret.
For the moment Roxy had nearly forgotten the adventures of the
afternoon, but the sound of voices just outside the open windows made
her jump up from the table and run toward the door.
“There’s Polly!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I hope it’s just as Dulcie said,
and that the Yankee soldier did really escape.”
Polly was on the front porch talking to Roxy’s mother, and as Roxy
appeared she saw that Polly was carrying the missing egg basket, and
heard her explain that she had found it near a thicket of dogwood as she
came up the slope.