THE ARRIVAL OF KATHERINE
Preparations were completed and the day for the presentation of the
greatest show on earth had arrived. It was crisply cool, but clear and
sunshiny, as the last Saturday in beloved October should be; and not too
cold to sit still and witness an out-of-doors performance. Tickets had
sold with such gratifying readiness that a second edition had been
necessary, and the Committee on Seating Arrangements was nearly in
despair over providing enough seats.
"It's no use," declared Bottomless Pitt, "we've done the best we could
and half of them will still have to stand. It'll be a case of 'first
come, first served.'"
Sahwah and Hinpoha, their arms filled with bundles of "props," which they
had spent the morning in collecting, sank wearily down at a table in the
"Neapolitan" soda dispensary and ordered their favorite sundaes. "Now,
are you perfectly sure we have everything?" asked Hinpoha, between
spoonfuls.
"There's the Better Baby's rattle," recounted Sahwah, identifying her
parcels by feeling of them, "the Magician's natural hair a foot long, the
china eggs he finds in the lady's handbag, the bareback rider's spangles,
and--O Hinpoha!" she cried in dismay, dropping her spoon on the tile
floor with a great clatter, "we forgot the red, white and blue cockade
for Sandhelo. I'll have to go back to Nelson's and get it. Dear me, it's
eleven o'clock now and we still have to go out home and dress. And the
marshmallows have to be bought yet; that's another thing I promised Nyoda
I'd see about. Won't you please get them, Hinpoha, while I run up to
Nelson's? There's a dear. Get them at Raymond's--theirs are the freshest;
and then you had better go right on home without waiting for me. It will
take me a little longer, but I'll hurry as fast as I can. And please tell
Nyoda that I didn't forget the marshmallows this time; I just turned the
responsibility over to you." And Sahwah gathered up her bundles and
retraced her steps toward the big up-town store, while Hinpoha took her
way to Raymond's. Five pounds of marshmallows make a pretty big box, and
Hinpoha had several other parcels to carry. She had them all laid out on
the counter with an eye to tying some of them together to facilitate
transportation when a voice suddenly called out: "Dorothy! Dorothy
Bradford!" She turned and saw Miss Parker, one of the teachers at
Washington High, at the other end of the counter. "Come and meet my
cousin," said Miss Parker, and brought forward a young girl she had with
her. "This is Katherine Adams," said Miss Parker. "Katherine, I would
like you to meet one of my pupils, Dorothy Bradford."
Hinpoha acknowledged the introduction cordially, but it was all she could
do to suppress a smile at Katherine's appearance. She was an extremely
tall, lanky girl, narrow chested and stoop shouldered, with scanty
straw-colored hair drawn into a tight knot at the back of her neck, and
pale, near-sighted eyes peering through glasses. She wore a long
drab-colored coat, cut as severely plain as a man's, and a narrow-brimmed
felt sailor hat. She wore no gloves and her hands were large and bony.
Her shoes--Hinpoha looked twice in her astonishment to make sure--yes,
there was no mistake, the shoes she had on were not mates! One was a
cloth-top button and the other a heavy laced walking boot. Miss Parker
followed Hinpoha's surprised glance and looked distressed. But Katherine
was not at all disconcerted when she discovered the discrepancy in her
footgear.
"That's what you get for interrupting me in the middle of my dressing,"
she said coolly. "Now, I've forgotten which pair I intended to wear." She
had an odd, husky voice, that made everything she said sound funny.
Miss Parker seemed rather anxious that her cousin should make a good
impression on Hinpoha. Katherine was from Spencer, Arkansas, she
explained, and had gone as far in school as she could out there and had
now come east to stay with her cousin and take the last year in high
school. Hinpoha promised to introduce her around to the girls in the
class, with her eyes on the clock all the while and her mind on the
performance she should be helping to prepare that minute instead of
standing there talking.
"Won't you come to our circus this afternoon?" she said politely, fishing
among the small "props" in her handbag. "Here's a ticket. It's going to
be in the big field at the corner of May and ----th streets. Come into
the barn if you come and I'll introduce you to some of my friends."
Miss Parker and her caricature of a cousin finally departed, and Hinpoha
hastily gathered up her bundles. Something about the package of
marshmallows struck her as unfamiliar, and she examined it in
consternation. It certainly was not her package, though like it in shape.
Somebody had taken hers by mistake. She looked around the store and was
just in time to see her box being carried out the front door under the
arm of a woman. Hinpoha gathered her packages into her arms hit and miss
and rushed after her. But impeded as she was she got stuck in the
revolving door and was delayed a full minute before she escaped to the
sidewalk. She was just in time to see the object of her pursuit board a
car at the corner. Before Hinpoha could reach the corner the car had
started. Hinpoha stamped her foot with vexation, mostly directed toward
Miss Parker and her freak cousin for taking her attention away from her
belongings. Then she considered. The car the woman had boarded must make
a loop and come out a block below and it would be possible to catch it
there. Hinpoha puffed along the sidewalk at a great rate, worming her way
through the Saturday noon crowds and colliding with people right and
left. She reached the corner just as the car did and made a mad dash over
the pavement, dodging in among wagons and automobiles at dire peril of
life and limb. She scrambled aboard and landed sprawling on the back
platform, while her bundles scattered over the floor in every direction.
Breathless and embarrassed, she gathered them up and entered the car just
in time to see the lady carrying her box of marshmallows get out of the
front door. Hinpoha made a wild dash for the rear exit, but the door was
closed and the car already in motion. She rang the bell frantically, at
the same time following the woman with her eyes to see in which direction
she went. The car finally released her two blocks up street, and then
began the mad chase back again. Poor Hinpoha was never built for speed;
her breath gave out and she developed an agonizing pain in her side. Her
bundles weighed her down and her hat flopped into her eyes. Chugging
along thus she ran smartly into someone and again her packages covered
the sidewalk.
"Oh, excuse me!" she gasped, struggling to get her hat back on her head.
"I couldn't see where I was going. _Why, Captain_----" For it was none
other than he with whom she had collided.
"Pretty well loaded down, aren't you?" said the Captain, stooping to pick
up the litter on the sidewalk.
"Never mind them," said Hinpoha hastily, "go after _her_."
"Go after _her_?" repeated the Captain in a tone of bewilderment.
Hinpoha pointed speechlessly up the street and then with a mighty effort
regained a speck of her breath and panted "Lady--blue coat--plush
collar--our marshmallows--left this--Raymond's--go get them," and,
shoving the stranger's package into his hands, she indicated with waving
arms that he was to pursue the lady in question and regain the club's
property. The Captain started off obediently, though her explanation was
not yet clear in his mind, but the truth flashed over him when he
presently overtook a lady that fitted the description just turning into
the door of Raymond's store with a large package under her arm, and he
soon made his errand known and recovered the marshmallows. She was just
in the act of returning them to Raymond's, having discovered her mistake.
Hinpoha was out in front when the Captain emerged from the store, and she
surrendered her bundles to him gratefully, saying with a breathless sigh,
"Boys _are_ useful to have around once in a while, after all."
"Only once in a while?" asked the Captain.
"Well, maybe twice in a while, then," said Hinpoha graciously.
Hinpoha arrived on the scene of action so late that there was no time to
press her for explanations; she was summarily hustled out of her street
clothes and into her orchestra costume. The audience was arriving in
crowds and the Sandwiches, who were detailed as ticket takers, had much
to do to keep legions of small boys from climbing the fence and seeing
the show without the formality of buying a ticket.
The Grand Parade, "including every single member of the entire show," was
scheduled to start promptly at two. The parade was necessarily held in
sections, as all hands were needed for each section. The clock in a
neighboring steeple had not finished chiming the hour when there was an
unearthly blare of trumpets and crashing of drums, and the band issued
from the entrance of the Open Door Lodge. Nyoda led the band and made a
stunning drum major in a fur hat a foot high, made out of a muff. The
members of the band were dressed as Spanish troubadours in costumes of
blinding scarlet, with their instruments hung around their neck by
ribbons. They marched around the ring at a lively pace, playing the music
of a popular football song, which made the audience cheer wildly, for it
was largely composed of students from the two great rival schools,
Washington High and Carnegie Mechanic. In the wake of the troubadours
stumbled an enormously fat clown in a suit half red and half white,
blowing up a rubber bladder, which emitted a plaintive squawk. Loud
applause greeted every move the clown made and when he accidentally
stumbled into a hole and measured his length on the ground the small boys
shrieked in ecstasy.
The band made a stately and melodious exit in the House of the Open Door
and once inside broke ranks in haste to prepare for the second section of
the parade--the procession of the animals. This was a much more
complicated matter than the band had been, but it had been so well
rehearsed that the crowd, who were being amused by the antics of the
clown, had not time to grow impatient before they were ready. Shrieks of
delight went up at the appearance of the five ferocious animals from
Nowhere--The Camelk, The Crabbit, The Alligatortoise, The Kangarooster
and The Salmonkey, and they had to go around the ring five times before
being allowed to retire. The parade being such an unqualified success, it
is needless to say that the circus proper went even better. The actors
had all worked themselves up into the right mood for it.
The magician gave more entertainment than he had counted on, for the
mice, which he had concealed in his pocket ready to produce from under
the folded handkerchief, bit him before their turn in the show came, and
the beholders were startled to see the magician suddenly spring into the
air, uttering a wild yell and, thrusting his hand into his hip pocket,
throw the cause of the disturbance half-way across the ring. The Fattest
Man on Earth, who was Slim, with the addition of several pillows fore and
aft, mounted the small stage and laboriously sat on a toothpick, breaking
down the stage in the process; and the Inja Rubber Man did such amazing
contortions that the audience began to hold their breath for fear he
would never come untangled again.
When it happened to be her turn to go out in one of the numbers Hinpoha
looked the audience over to see if Katherine Adams had come in response
to her invitation, but she did not see her. But, while looking for
Katherine, her eye was caught by a strange figure, the like of which she
had never seen before. She was a woman, old and bent, and dressed in such
old-fashioned clothes that she looked like a caricature out of a funny
page. She had on a tight green basque, which flared out below the waist
in a ripple and a very full red skirt, held out in a ridiculous curve by
that atrocity of bygone days known as a "bustle." She was climbing
stiffly up and down among the spectators trying to sell papers which she
was crying in a shrill voice. As she went up and down among the benches
she held up her skirt in her hand, disclosing purple stockings and
enormous flapping slippers. Wherever she went she was followed by a
ripple of laughter; the audience seemed to be getting as much fun out of
her as they were out of the show. Hinpoha told Nyoda about it when she
was in the barn again and Nyoda asked all the players not to do anything
to drive her away, as she was no doubt trying to make an honest living by
selling papers wherever there was a crowd, and she was adding an
unexpected touch to the circus to amuse the audience.
The bareback rider proved a real sensation. Up to that time the numbers
had merely been in the nature of stunts--clever and original and highly
diverting, and yet something which any group of young people could
produce. But here was something different. Veronica was so dark that in
her costume she looked like a real gypsy, and as she was not yet well
known she was not recognized. She came in riding a beautiful black horse
that belonged to Mr. Evans, and, after galloping around the ring several
times and making him rear up on his hind legs until the audience thought
she must slide off, she set him to leaping obstacles, keeping her seat
all the while with amazing ease. There was a touch of realism in her act,
too, which made the audience tingle for a while. In their eagerness to
see the horse and the daring rider the children down in the front row had
pressed forward until they were fairly under the ropes. Without warning a
little girl lost her balance and fell out into the ring, rolling right
into the path of the galloping horse. An exclamation of horror went up
from the crowd, and many covered their eyes with their hands. The others,
gazing as if fascinated, saw the horse in obedience to a quick command
leap into the air with all four feet and come down several feet beyond
the little form on the ground. Shouts rose up from every side and cheers
for the skilful horsewoman who had been able to avert a tragedy when it
was too late to turn aside. But Veronica sat unmoved, a graceful statue
on the beautiful horse, looking out over the audience with brooding eyes
that saw them not.
Of course the _piece de resistance_ of the whole show was the trick mule,
Sandhelo. He had been the most widely advertised feature and had been the
means of selling the most tickets. The small boys came lured by the
promise of a free ride after the show and could hardly wait for that time
to come. His appearance in the ring was hailed with tumultuous applause.
Led by the clown, who played the mouth organ constantly to assure his
continuous locomotion, he did his tricks over and over again, lying down
as if dead when Slim played "John Brown's Body," and springing to his
feet with a lively bray when he played "Yankee Doodle"; and sitting up on
the table and waving his fore feet at the audience while he tossed a lump
of sugar on his nose.
Then the clown tried to ride him and fell off, first on one side and then
the other, and after several vain attempts offered a quarter to anyone in
the audience who would come out and ride him around the ring. As the
players along knew that Sandhelo would only go to music, they anticipated
no little fun from this business. Sandhelo was perfectly safe to ride--he
was as gentle as a kitten--but his refusal to stir when commanded made
him appear a very balky mule indeed, and there was no response to Slim's
invitation for somebody to come out and ride him. Even the small boys,
who were eager to ride him, preferred to wait until the show was over
before making the trial.
"Don't all come at once," appealed Slim in derision. "One at a time,
please. Who'll ride the famous trick mule, Sandhelo, around the ring and
win the handsome prize of twenty-five cents, a whole quarter of a
dollar?" Still no volunteers. Sandhelo yawned and looked bored to death.
Slim stretched out his hands to the audience imploringly.
Suddenly there was a commotion at one end of the seats and down from the
top of the picnic tables, where the raised seats were, there climbed the
little old woman who had gone around selling papers. "I'll ride him for
twenty-five cents," she cackled in her high shrill voice. And she hobbled
across the ring to where Sandhelo stood. The players were ready to hug
themselves with joy. Here was a real circus-y touch they had not counted
on.
"Aren't you afraid she'll get hurt?" whispered Hinpoha to Nyoda.
"No danger," returned Nyoda. "Sandhelo won't go a step without the mouth
organ."
The little old woman, her back bent almost double, shuffled over and
grasped Sandhelo, not by the bridle, but by the cockade on his head. Then
she suddenly straightened up and a gasp of astonishment went around the
circle. She was taller than the tallest of them. Without assistance from
anyone she climbed on Sandhelo's back and sat with her face toward his
tail. The audience, suspecting that it was a "put-up job," and this was
another stunt, roared its appreciation, but the players looked at each
other in utter bewilderment. Who was this strange character?
Sandhelo was a very small donkey, standing no higher than a Shetland
pony, and when the old lady was seated on his back her feet dragged on
the ground. Calmly crossing them underneath his body, she gave his tail a
smart jerk, accompanied by the shrill command, "Giddap!" Sandhelo,
mortified to death at the undignified position of his rider, had but one
idea in his mind--to escape from the gibing crowd and hide his head in
his stable. Around the ring he flew as fast as his tiny legs would carry
him, the old woman sticking to him like a burr, her bonnet strings flying
in the wind, her big slippers flapping against his sides, and her shrill
voice urging him on to greater speed. The act brought down the house and
a whole row of folding camp chairs collapsed under the strain of the
applause.
Beside himself with rage and shame, Sandhelo bolted into the barn and
carried his strange rider into the midst of the company of players.
Sliding off his back, she looked around the ring of curious faces before
her with little twinkling gray eyes. Then she held out her hand
suggestively. "Where's the quarter I git fer ridin' the mule?" she asked.
Something in her voice awakened a memory in Hinpoha's mind. In a
twinkling she was carried back to the incident at Raymond's that noon
when Miss Parker stopped to present her cousin from the west. Surely
there never were two such voices! At the same time Hinpoha noticed that
the old woman's gray hair was sliding back on her head, and a long wisp
of yellowish hair was hanging out underneath. She stared at the curious
figure in growing wonder, and the woman stared back at her with a knowing
grin that became wider every moment. Then with a quick movement the old
woman snatched off a gray wig, mopped a damp handkerchief over her face,
produced a pair of glasses from some pocket in the wide skirt, and stood
before them the same awkward, ungainly creature that Hinpoha had met that
noon. It was Katherine Adams, Miss Parker's cousin.
Such a babel there was when Hinpoha recognized the strange comedian and
presented her to the others! The waiting audience was completely
forgotten as they listened fascinated while Katherine explained how she
had come "by special invitation" to the circus and had decided that
people who had "pep" enough to get up a circus were worth knowing, and
the best way to get acquainted with the players was to be in the show
herself. So she had joined the company without the formality of being
asked.
"You're appointed assistant clown for the remainder of the circus," said
Nyoda.
"And you're invited to the spread upstairs afterwards," said Hinpoha.
"It's time for the Chair-iot Race," said the Captain warningly, and the
players returned to their duties with a guilty start. The new comedian
proved such a diversion and put the regular clown up to so many tricks
that he would never have thought of by himself, that the audience refused
to go home when the big show was over, and called for encore after
encore.
"Let's get her to sell cocoa," suggested Gladys; "they'll buy from her
when they wouldn't from us."
So Katherine, who up until a few hours ago had never heard of the
Winnebagos and Sandwiches, did more for them in the way of dispensing
cups of cocoa at five cents a cup than they were able to do for
themselves. She made such inimitably droll speeches in her efforts to
advertise her wares that the audience crowded around her just to hear her
talk, and bought and bought until the huge kettles were empty and the
paper box till was full. The small boys crowded around the Ringmaster,
demanding their ride on the trick mule, and, tearing himself away from
the fascinating orator, he betook himself to the barn, followed by the
whole string of would-be riders. But when he arrived there the stall was
empty and Sandhelo was nowhere to be found. Loud chorus of disappointment
from the small boys. The Captain turned their interest in Sandhelo to
account by enlisting them in the search for him, but it was vain. Nowhere
could they find a trace of him. His shame at the indignity heaped upon
him that afternoon had been too great. Finding his stall left open in the
excitement he had escaped and wandered off while the attention of
everyone was riveted on the antics of the new comedian, and hid his head
among new scenes and faces. The small boys finally gave up and went home,
partly consoled by the assurance that if Sandhelo ever turned up again
the promised ride would still be theirs, and the players, rather
exhausted, but exulting over the success of the performance, gathered in
the Winnebago room of the Open Door Lodge for the jollification spread.
Katherine Adams was the lioness of the evening. Begged for a speech, she
obligingly mounted the table and held a discourse that left her hearers
limp with merriment. What she said was sidesplitting enough, but her
gestures, her expression and her voice were beyond description. She spoke
in a lazy southern drawl, mixed up with a nasal twang, and the peculiarly
veiled, husky quality of her voice gave it a sound the like of which was
never heard before. She still wore the big flapping slippers and had much
ado to keep them on when she climbed on the table with the mincing air of
a young miss making an elocution lesson. She planted her feet carefully,
heels together and toes apart, taking several minutes in the operation,
and then surveyed them with a silly smirk of satisfaction that was
convulsing. When her discourse became a little heated the feet suddenly
flew around and toed in until both heels and toes were in a straight
line. At the ripple of laughter which this called forth she looked down
at her feet with a sad, pained expression and carefully set them right
again. A few moments later she again waxed eloquent and again the feet
turned, seemingly of themselves, and this time her toes pointed outward
until toes and heels were all one straight line. The shrieks of delight
made her look down again, with that same puzzled, pained expression, and
again she set them right in an affected manner.
When the speech was over the boys and girls begged her to do it again,
and kept her speechifying until she declared she had no voice left to
whisper. "You know I have to be very careful of my voice," she said in a
tone of confiding simplicity. "It's so sweet that I'm afraid of cracking
it all the time."
Katherine was too good to be true. "Just like a character out of a book,"
the delighted Winnebagos whispered to one another. Before the evening was
over they had unanimously decided to urge--not merely invite, mind you,
but urge--her to become a Winnebago. Katherine was delighted with the
idea and accepted the invitation with another convulsing speech. It
seemed incredible to the girls that they had met her just that afternoon.
It seemed as if they had known her always. She fitted into their group
like a thumb on a hand. She was plied with slumgullion and every other
delicacy, and her health was drunk in numerous cups of cocoa. The
continual flow of banter which the Winnebagos usually kept up among
themselves was hushed, and everyone was willing to put the soft pedal on
her own speech if only Katherine would talk some more. She told
fascinating things about her life on a big stock farm out in Arkansas.
"Are there any Indians around there?" asked Veronica, whose ideas of the
American Far West were rather hazy and romantic.
"Indians!" said Katherine. "I should say there were! They're something
terrible. Why, you don't dare hang your clothes on the line, because the
Indians will shoot them full of arrows! And then," she continued, as she
saw Veronica's eyes becoming saucerlike, "there are all kind of wild
animals out there, too. We can't keep milk standing around in the pantry
because the wildcats come in and drink it up, and the bears shed their
hair all over the carpet! Why, one day I came in from the yard and there
was a rattlesnake curled up on the piano stool!"
The Winnebagos and the Sandwiches doubled up with merriment at her awful
"yarns," but Veronica believed every word of it.
"O Katherine, you awful thing, I'm in love with you," cried Hinpoha, in
rather mixed metaphor, and drew her down on the bearskin bed beside her.
"Goodness, Veronica, don't look so excited. All the Indians there are in
this country now are on reservations, and they're entirely peaceable. You
mustn't believe a word she says."
The jollification supper ended in a hilarious Virginia Reel, which hardly
anyone could dance for laughing at Katherine's big slippers, as she
shuffled up and down the line.
"What a day this has been," sighed Hinpoha to Gladys, with whom she was
spending the night, as she sank down on the bed with all her clothes on.
"We've made enough money to equip the Sandwiches' gym be-yoo-tifully;
we've made Veronica famous as a horsewoman; we've lost our trick mule and
gained a new member for the Winnebagos. In the classic words of our
gallant Captain, I think that's 'going some.'"