Sunday, on the show train, was a happy day, the happiest that Sally had
ever known in her life. Freaks and dancers, barkers and concessionaires,
all the members of that weirdly assorted family, the carnival, mingled
in a joyous freedom from work and worry, singing together, reminiscing,
gambling, gossiping.
The last week, except for the storm, had been an excellent one; money
was free, spirits high. Even Mrs. Bybee, hovering like a mother hen over
David, was good-natured, inclined to reminisce and give advice. Sally,
whose talent for exquisite darning had been discovered by the women and
girls, sat on the edge of David's berth, her lap full of flesh and beige
and gun metal silk stockings, her needle flying busily, her lips curved
with a smile of pure delight, as she listened to the surge of laughter
and song and talk. The midget, "Pitty Sing," perched on the window ledge
of David's berth, a comical pair of spectacles across her infinitesimal
nose, was reading aloud to David from one of her own tiny books, and
David was listening, but his eyes were fixed worshipfully upon Sally,
and now and again his left hand reached out and patted her busy fingers
or twirled the hanging braid of her hair.
Oh, it was a happy day, and Sally was sorry to have it end. But the show
had to go on. The train wheels could not click forever over the rails.
Monday, with its bustle and confusion and ballyhoo and inevitable
performances, lay ahead. But they were far out of the state which held
Clem Carson, the orphanage, Enid Barr, Arthur Van Horne and all other
menaces to freedom when the train did stop at last, on the outskirts of
a town of 10,000 inhabitants.
Carnival routine had already become an old story to Sally; she no longer
minded the curious stares of villagers, the crude advances of dressed-up
young male "rubes." The glamor had worn off, but in its place had come a
deep contentment and a sympathetic understanding, born on that happy
Sunday when the relaxed carnival family had shown her its heart and
hopes. She was glad to be one of them, to be earning her living by
giving entertainment and happiness--fake though her crystal-gazing
was--to thousands of people whose lives were blighted with monotony.
During their first week in the new territory business was even better
than the Bybees had dared hope. Positively the only calamity that befell
the carnival was the discovery that Babe, the fat girl, had lost five
pounds, due to her loudly confessed but unrequited passion for the
carnival's hero, David Nash.
On Wednesday, David was permitted to get up, and that afternoon for the
first time he witnessed Sally's performance as "Princess Lalla." She had
become so proficient in her intuitions regarding those who sought
knowledge of "past, present and future" that his smiling, amused
attentiveness to her "readings" did not embarrass her.
When the show was over, she joined him proudly, her little brown-painted
hands clinging to his arm, her face uplifted adoringly to his, as she
pattered at his side on a tour of the midway. It was then that her
dreams came true. At last she was "doing the carnival" with a "boy
friend," like other girls. And David played up magnificently, buying her
hot dogs, salt water taffy, red lemonade--the two of them drinking out
of twin straws from the same glass.
On Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning before show time the two
wandered about the village to which the carnival had journeyed the night
before. It was heavenly to be able to walk the streets unafraid. David
walked with head high, shoulders squared, unafraid to look any man in
the face, and Sally could have cried with joy that he was free again,
for Bybee had assured them that there was not the slightest chance of
extradition on the charges which still stood against the two in their
native state.
Some day, somehow, the cloud against them would be lifted, and David
could walk the streets of Capital City as proudly as he walked these
village streets.
With money in their pockets, they could afford to buy all the
necessities and little luxuries which their enforced flight from the
Carson farm had deprived them of. Sally, her little face enchantingly
grave and wise, chose ties and socks and shirts for David, and almost
forgot to bother about her own needs. And David, in another part of the
village "general store," bought, blushingly but undauntingly, little
pink silk brassieres and silk jersey knickers and silk stockings for the
girl he loved. When she saw them she burst into tears, hugging them to
her breast as if they were living, feeling things.
"Why, David, darling!" she sobbed and laughed, "I've never before in all
my life had any silk underwear or a pair of silk stockings! I--I'm
afraid to wear them for fear I'll spoil them when I have to wash them.
Oh, the dear things! The lovely, precious things!"
"And here's something else," David said to her that Saturday morning.
They were in the still-deserted Palace of Wonders, their purchases
spread out on Sally's platform.
"Give me your hand and shut your eyes," David commanded gently, with a
throb of excitement in his voice.
She obeyed, but when she felt a ring being slipped upon the third finger
of her left hand her eyes flew open and found a sapphire to match them.
For the ring that David had bought for her was a plain loop of white
gold, with a deep-blue sapphire in an old-fashioned Tiffany mounting,
such as tradition has made sacred to engagement rings.
"Oh, David!" She laid her hand against her cheek, pressing the stone so
hard that it left its many-faceted imprint upon her flesh. Then she had
to kiss it and David had to kiss it--and her.
"I wish it could have been a diamond," David deprecated. "I suppose all
girls prefer diamond engagement rings. But--"
"Oh, David, is it an engagement ring?" she breathed, then flung herself
upon his breast, her hands clinging to his shoulders.
"Of course it is, precious idiot!" he laughed. Very gently but
insistently he forced her face upward, so that their eyes met and clung.
His were boyishly ardent but solemn, hers were misted over with tears,
but brighter and bluer than the stone upon her finger. "I don't know
when we can be married, Sally, but--I wanted you to have a ring and to
know that I'll always be thinking and planning and--oh, I can't talk!
You want to be engaged, don't you, Sally? You love me--enough?"
"I adore you. I love you so that I feel I am not even half a person when
you're not with me. I couldn't live without you, David," she said
solemnly.
They were still sitting there, talking, planning, making love shyly but
ardently, when Gus, the barker, mounted the box outside the tent and
began to ballyhoo for the first show of the morning.
"Eleven o'clock and I'm not in make-up yet, and you've got to run the
wheel for Eddie today," Sally cried in dismay, jumping to her feet and
gathering up her scattered purchases and presents.
As the day wore on, with show after show drawing record crowds for a
village of its size, "Princess Lalla" gazed more often into the shining
blue depths of a small sapphire than into the magic depths of her
crystal. But perhaps the sapphire had a magic of its own, for never had
her audiences been better pleased, never had quarters been thrust so
thick and fast upon her.
At half-past nine that night, Gus, the barker, had not quite finished
his "spiel" about the Princess Lalla when the girl, whose eyes had been
fixed trance-like upon her ring, saw a woman suddenly begin to ascend
the steps to the platform. Before her startled eyes had traveled upward
to the woman's face Sally knew who it was. For twelve years that big,
stiffly corseted, severely dressed body had been as familiar to her as
her own. Instinctively, though her blood had turned instantly to ice
water in her veins, Sally's right hand closed over her left, to conceal
the sapphire. Thelma had not been permitted to keep even a bit of blue
glass--
Sally felt as if her flesh were shriveling upon her bones. An actual
numbness spread from her shoulders to her fingertips, in anticipation of
the shock of feeling the Orphans' Home matron's grip upon them. How
many, many times in her twelve years in the orphanage had she been
roughly jerked to her feet by those broad, heavy hands, when she had
been caught in some minor infringement of Mrs. Stone's stern rules!
Her hands, instinctively clasped so that her precious engagement ring
might be hidden from those gimlet-like gray eyes, were so rigid that
Sally wondered irrelevantly if they would ever come to life again, to
curve their fingers about the magic crystal. But of course she would
never "read" the crystal again. She was caught, caught!
"Are you deaf?" Mrs. Stone's harsh voice pierced her numbed hearing as
if from a great distance. "I want my fortune told. I've paid my quarter
and I don't intend to dilly-dally around here all day."
The relief was so terrific that the girl's body began to tremble all
over, but the rigidity of terror had mercifully relaxed, so that she
could lift her shaking hands.
Gus, the barker, who always remained upon the platform during her
"readings," had long ago arranged a code signal of distress, and now she
gave it. Her hands went up to the ridiculous crown of fake jewels that
banded her long black hair and adjusted it, tipping it first to the
right and then to the left, as if to ease the pressure of its weight
upon her forehead.
That very natural gesture told Gus more plainly than words that
"Princess Lalla" was in danger and asked him to use his ingenuity to
rescue her. There was no need for her to lift her eyes to him. Jerkily
her hands came down, hovered over the crystal, and before Mrs. Stone
could voice another harsh complaint, the sing-song voice which "Princess
Lalla" used was requesting "ze ladee" to sit down in the chair opposite.
But what should she tell Mrs. Stone, with whose personality and history
she had been familiar for twelve years? If she dared to read "past,
present and future" with any degree of accuracy, the matron would be
startled into observing the "seeress" with those gimlet eyes of hers. If
she went too wide of the mark in generalities, Mrs. Stone was entirely
capable of raising a disturbance which would ruin business for the rest
of the day.
"Well, what do you see--if anything?" Mrs. Stone demanded angrily.
That gave Sally her cue. Bending low over the crystal, so that her face
was within a few inches of that of the woman who sat opposite her, with
only the crystal stand between them, she pretended to peer into the
depths of the glass ball. Then slowly she began to shake her head
regretfully.
"Princess Lalla is so-o-o sor-ree"--the small, sing-song voice was
raised a bit, so that Gus, who had strolled leisurely across the
platform to take his stand behind Sally's chair, might hear
perfectly--"but ze creeystal she ees dark. She tell me nossing about ze
nice-tall la-dee. Sometimes it ees so. Ze gen-tle-man weel give ze money
back."
The thin little shoulders under the green satin jacket shrugged
eloquently, the little brown hands spread themselves with a gesture of
helplessness and regret.
"Glad to refund your money, lady!" Gus sang out loudly. "Here you are!
Better luck next time! Princess Lalla is the gen-u-ine article! If she
don't see nothing in the crystal for you, she don't string you
along--right here, lady! Here's your money back--"
Sally leaned back in her chair, weak with relief, her eyes closed, as
Gus tried to urge her nemesis from the platform. In a moment the danger
would be over--
Then, so quickly was it done that Sally had not the slightest chance to
shield her eyes, a hand had snatched the little black lace veil from her
face. Terror-widened sapphire eyes stared, with betraying recognition,
into narrowed, angry gray ones. Mrs. Stone nodded with grim
satisfaction.
"So Betsy was right! If that idiotic Amelia Pond had told me while the
carnival was still in Capital City, I'd have been saved this trip. Get
up from there, Sal--"
A shriek from the throat of a woman in the audience, which was packed
densely about the platform, interrupted the matron, successfully
diverting the attention of the curious from the puzzling drama upon the
platform.
"I've been robbed! Help! Police!" Again the siren of a woman's scream
made the air hideous. "It was her! She was standing right by me! Police!
Police!"
Even Mrs. Stone was diverted for the moment. Gus, the barker, sprang to
the edge of the platform as a red-faced, disheveled woman fought her way
through the crowd to the platform.
"What seems to be the trouble, madam?" Gus demanded loudly. "Who took
your purse?" He reached a helping hand to the woman who was struggling
to get to the steps leading to the platform.
"It was _her_!" The "country woman," whom Sally had recognized instantly
as a "schiller," an employe of the circus, extremely useful in just such
emergencies, shook an angry forefinger in Mrs. Stone's astounded face.
"She's got it right there in her hands! The gall of her! Standing right
by me, she was, before she come up here to get her fortune told. Stole
my purse, she did, right outa my hands--"
"This is _my_ purse!" Mrs. Stone shrilled, her face suddenly strutted
with blood. "I never heard of anything so brazen in my life! It's my
purse and I can prove it is." She turned menacingly toward Gus, who was
looking from one angry woman to another as if greatly embarrassed and
perplexed.
"Reckon I'd better call the constable and let him settle this thing," he
said apologetically.
"I'm a deppity sheriff," a man called loudly from the audience. "Make
way for the law!"
The awe-stricken and happily thrilled crowd parted obediently to let a
fat man with a silver star on his coat lapel pass majestically toward
the platform. Sally knew him, too, as a "schiller" whose principal job
with the carnival was to impersonate an officer of the law when trouble
rose between the "rubes" and any member of the carnival's big family.
"Come along quiet, ladies!" the fat man admonished the two women
briskly. "We'll settle this little spat outside, all nice and peaceable,
I _hope_." The last word was spoken to Mrs. Stone with significant
emphasis.
"This is an outrage!" the orphanage matron raged, but the "deppity
sheriff" gave her no opportunity to say more, either in her own defense
or to Sally.
Gus, the barker, bent over the trembling girl while the crowd was still
enthralled over the spectacle of two apparently respectable middle-aged
women being dragged out of the tent under arrest.
"Better beat it, kid. The dame's hep to you. Reckon she's the Orphans'
Home matron, you been telling us about. Here, take this--" and he thrust
a few crumpled bills into her hand--"and don't ever let on to Pop Bybee
that I helped you get away. Goodby, honey. Good luck. You're a great
kid.... All right, folks! Excitement's all over! It gives me great
pleasure to introduce to you the smallest and prettiest little lady in
the world. We call her 'Pitty Sing,' and I don't reckon I have to tell
you why--"
Five minutes later Sally was cowering against the rear wall of Eddie
Cobb's gambling-wheel concession, pouring out her story to David, to
whom she had fled as soon as Gus had tolled the crowd away from her
platform.
"And she recognized me, David!" the girl sobbed, the palms of her
trembling hands pressed against her face. "I was so startled when she
tore my veil off that I couldn't pretend any longer. As soon as she gets
away from the 'schillers' she'll set the real constable on my trail. Gus
told me to beat it--oh, David! What's going to become of me--and you?
Oh!" And she choked on the sobs that were tearing at her throat.
"Why, darling child, we're going to 'beat it,' as Gus advises. Of
course! We've 'beat it' together before. Listen, honey! Stop crying and
listen. Go to the dress tent, get your make-up off, change your clothes
and make a small bundle of things you'll need, and I'll join you there,
just outside the door flaps, in not more than ten minutes. I've got to
get my money from Pop Bybee--"
"He'll stop you!" Sally wailed despairingly. "He'll make us both stay--"
"Nothing can stop me," he promised her grimly. "And he'll give me my
money, too, if I have to take it away from him. But it'll be all right.
Now run, and for heaven's sake, darling, don't let these 'rubes' see you
crying. Smile for David," he coaxed, tilting her chin with a forefinger.
When her lips wavered uncertainly, he bent swiftly and kissed her. "Poor
little sweetheart! There's nothing to be afraid of. Gus will see that
the 'schillers' give us plenty of time, even if he has to call in a real
cop and have Mrs. Stone arrested on a fake charge. Now, walk to the
dress tent, and I'll be there before you're ready."
When Sally reached the dress tent she found "Pitty Sing" perched on her
bed, her tiny fingers busy counting a sheaf of bills that was almost as
large as her miniature head.
"Gus brought me," she piped in her matter-of-fact, precise little voice.
"Get to your packing, Sally, while I'm talking. But you might kiss me
first, if you don't mind. I don't usually like for people to kiss me.
No, wait until you get your make-up off," she changed her mind as she
saw tears well in Sally's hunted blue eyes. "This money is for you and
David. He's going with you, of course?"
"Yes," Sally acknowledged proudly, as her fingers dug deep into a can of
theatrical cold cream. "But we won't need the money, Betty. Please--"
"Don't be silly!" little Miss Tanner admonished her severely. "Gus sent
the word around the tent and everybody chipped in. Jan cleaned the boys
at poker last night and he contributed $20. I think there's nearly a
hundred altogether. Gus gave $20, and Boffo--"
"Oh, I can't take it!" Sally protested. "It's sweet of you all, but I'd
feel awful--"
"Shut up and get busy!" "Pitty Sing" commanded tersely. "I'd wear that
dark-blue taffeta if I were you, and the blue felt you bought in
Williamstown. It won't show up at all in the dark. Lucky for you it's
night, isn't it? It will be nice to be married in, too--"
"Married?" Sally whirled from her open trunk, her cold, cream-cleansed
face blank with astonishment.
From outside the tent came a whistled bar of music--"I'll be loving you
always!"
"That's David!" Sally gasped, a blush running swiftly from her throat to
the roots of her soft black hair. "I'll have to hurry. I--I think I
_will_ wear the blue taffeta!"
"Pitty Sing" chuckled softly, but there were tears in the old, wise
little blue eyes set so incongruously in a tiny, wizened face no bigger
than a baby's.
"Oh, let's say goodby to the carnival!" Sally cried, homesickness for
the dearest "family" she had ever known already tightening her throat
with tears.
And so they paused, hand in hand, on the crest of the little hill which
rose at the end of Main Street, on which Winfield Bybee's Bigger and
Better Carnival was selling temporary joy and excitement to villagers
and farmers weary of the insular monotony of their lives.
There it all lay just below them--big tents and little tents with gay,
lying banners; the merry-go-round with its music-box grinding out "Sweet
Rosie O'Grady"; the ferris wheel a gigantic loop of lights. The
composite voice of the carnival came up to these two children of
carnival who were deserting it, and the roar, muted slightly by
distance, was like the music of a heavenly choir in their ears.