THE CIRCUS
All was pleasant confusion and excitement at Sunnycrest, for it was
circus day! A wee cloud of disappointment dimmed the horizon of Jane’s
bliss when she learned that Mrs. Hartwell-Jones did not feel equal to
the effort of going. She was afraid she might tire or injure her lame
foot; and Jane was sorry, for she would have enjoyed sharing her
impressions with the sympathetic and understanding “lady who wrote
books.” Still, there would be the happiness of telling her all about it
afterward.
Grandmother offered to remain at home with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. But on
the other hand, she thought that she ought to go, in order to look after
the children. First, they were to watch the parade from the parlor
windows of the village hotel, by the invitation of the hotel proprietor,
Mr. Grubbs. Afterward there was to be a picnic dinner and then—the
circus! Grandmother really could not have stood the strain of remaining
at home and wondering whether the children had drunk too much lemonade
or fallen into a wild animal’s cage, and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones knew this
when she refused to let grandmother stay with her, or to change in any
way the household arrangements for her sake.
Joshua was to drive the big, three-seated wagon and Huldah went too, to
superintend the luncheon. Jo Perkins, having had permission to take a
day off (as indeed had all the farm-hands, for grandfather firmly
believed in the old saying that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull
boy”) had vanished with the dawn. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones was left, together
with many instructions from grandmother, to the care of Mary the
housemaid, who said she didn’t care much for circuses anyway.
Christopher appropriated the seat of honor in front, beside Joshua, but
Jane did not mind. Tucked in contentedly between grandfather and
grandmother she was lost in a wonderful dream of the delights to come.
Huldah and the baskets had the back seat to themselves and there was
only just room for Huldah to squeeze in upon one corner of the seat
after everything had been stowed away, for Huldah, as has perhaps been
hinted before, was a “generous provider.”
The little town of Hammersmith presented a very different appearance
from its every-day sleepiness. The narrow sidewalks for its whole mile
length were packed with squirming, excited children and their no less
excited if quieter elders. The reason that children are so restless is
because they have not yet learned to soothe their nerves by wagging
their tongues instead of their arms and legs.
Farmers had come in from all the neighboring districts with their
families. A good many had given their workmen, too, a holiday, as
Grandfather Baker had his. Circuses did not come to Hammersmith very
often.
Grandfather, in spite of frowns and head-shakings from grandmother,
bought Jane and Christopher each a bag of roasted peanuts and another of
sticky pop-corn. Then he placed them side by side in an open window,
with due caution not to fall out. The children were absolutely happy.
“Oh, Kit, I’m so glad I’m alive!” half whispered Jane. “I don’t think
that even the sorts of things that happen in story-books could be nicer
than this. Aren’t you glad we bought the apples?”
“Oh, I guess so. But we’d have got to the circus anyhow. Grandfather
never would have kept us home.”
“No, I don’t believe he would,” acknowledged Jane. “He’d be too
generous. But we’d have deserved it, Kit, and I’d much rather be here
with things the way they are now. It’s comfortable to my insides
somewhere. Do you suppose the lady in the pink tights will be in the
percession?”
“She may be in the percession, but she won’t have on the pink tights.
She has to save them for the tent, where it’s nice and clean. Outdoors
they’d fade or get dusty, or she might fall off her horse into a puddle
and spoil ’em.”
“Oh, Kit, she’d never fall off her horse! She can ride too well. Just
think of the things she does in the pictures!”
“Huh! I know a boy at school that saw a lady fall off her horse—right in
the circus ring, too. It hurt her awfully. Broke her back or something.
Wish I’d seen it.”
“Oh, dear, I’m glad I wasn’t there,” exclaimed Jane, who had no thirst
for the horrible.
“Hullo, I guess they’re comin’,” cried Christopher. “See how the people
are yelling and clapping down by the post-office. I say, grandfather,
they’re coming, they’re coming! Hooray!”
Christopher tried to see his grandfather, not by turning around but by
looking out of his window, across the space of wall and in at the next
window where grandfather and grandmother were sitting. He lost his
balance, of course, and nothing but Jane’s sudden grasp at the loosest
part of his trousers, and the special providence that protects small
boys, saved him from tumbling down upon the crowd below. He lost both
his bags in a wild clutch at the window ledge and drew himself back,
sputtering and red-faced with disappointment. He looked down to watch a
group of small street urchins scrambling for their contents.
“Pshaw, Jane, why didn’t you catch the bags?” he exclaimed in disgust.
Then he straddled the window sill and forgot all about his lost goodies
in excitement, for the procession was really coming. It was not a very
wonderful display. Indeed, the grown-ups thought it rather melancholy.
There were half a dozen tired looking men on tired looking horses, half
a dozen others dressed up as Indians, also on horseback, several cages
of wild animals and a brassy brass band in a gilded chariot drawn by
four horses. This band headed the procession and was the grandest thing
in it except one other gilt chariot upon which a plump, pretty young
woman in a Diana sort of costume sat enthroned. She rode just behind the
wild-animal cages and Jane gazed after her enthralled until she passed
out of sight.
“I am sure she is the lady who wears the pink tights and does such
wonders on horseback,” she confided to Christopher. “Wasn’t she lovely?”
Then followed a long line of animal cages with closed sides. A man who
rode beside the driver on the first of these called out to the people
that the beasts within were too fierce and wild to stand the excitement
of having their cages opened on the sides so that people could see them.
The spectators had to guess as to what kind of animals were shut up in
these cages; the pictures painted on the outside were no guides, as each
represented a whole menagerie. An elephant followed, tired looking and
dejected, led by two men, and after them appeared a young girl, dressed
in a purple Roman toga, driving a pair of piebald Shetland ponies.
At sight of these ponies it was Jane’s turn almost to fall out of the
window in her excitement.
“Oh, Kit, grandmother, grandfather, it is Letty! It is, it is! And she’s
driving Punch and Judy. Mayn’t I call to her? Oh, mayn’t I?”
“Hush, Janey, not now,” replied Mrs. Baker, clutching the squirming,
excited child firmly around the waist. “We’ll arrange about it later.
Grandfather will see the manager of the circus.”
“Punch and Judy look as nice as ever,” commented Christopher with a
condescending air. “And Letty drives ’em well, too, you bet. But why is
she rigged up in that queer way? All that purple stuff slung over her
shoulder. I should think it would be in her way.”
“That’s the way people used to dress hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
Don’t you remember the picture of Ben Hur in the chariot race? Letty’s
dressed like that and she’s driving a sort of chariot, too.”
“Poor kind of a thing to ride in, I think. You can’t sit down,”
commented Christopher. “I like the little carriage better that she used
to drive.”
The heavy, closed wagons, painted red and gold, that are used to carry
the tents and luggage of a circus, now appeared in line. Upon the top of
every third or fourth wagon stood comic figures, men dressed in false
heads of exaggerated size, who nodded and danced and performed antics to
make the crowds laugh. A painted clown in a donkey cart, and a calliope
(so necessary to every circus parade) brought up the rear of the
procession. The calliope was playing “Wait till the Clouds Roll by,
Jennie” in a loud squawk, and the people along the street whistled the
tune as they shouted and exchanged jokes with the clown. It was not at
all an appropriate tune, for there was not a cloud in the sky. Indeed,
the light was almost too bright, for it revealed mercilessly all the
bare spots on the wagons where the scarlet paint and gilt had peeled
off; and it shone pitilessly upon the shabby trappings of the horses and
upon the anxious, tired faces of the performers. But the crowd was
neither particular nor critical and after cheering and whistling the
procession out of sight, it scattered gayly to hunt up families and
lunch baskets.
“Now then,” exclaimed Jane with great satisfaction, “we shall see Letty
again,” and she tucked her hand into her grandmother’s.
The circus tents were pitched in a wide field just outside the town and
grandfather selected the adjoining field, under a clump of trees and
beside a brook, for the picnic dinner. While Josh and Huldah were
unpacking the hampers Mr. and Mrs. Baker, with the twins, crossed to
where the circus people were grouped. The troupe had reached Hammersmith
rather late in the morning, only just in time to form for their parade,
so that the tents were just now being put up.
While grandfather went in search of the manager, grandmother and the
children stood watching this ceremony of tent pitching with absorbed
interest. Men ran here and there with coils of rope and long stakes
which they drove into the ground and then stood in a circle around a
broad sheet of canvas that lay spread on the ground. At a given word the
men tugged at their ropes and slowly a mountain of dingy yellow white
rose in their midst. It swelled and swayed and flapped and then took
shape. More tugging of ropes, more shouting, the last securing hammer on
a stake or two and lo, the circus tent was raised!
A second tent was erected over the animal wagons and vans which had been
arranged in a half circle and the horses removed. Then smaller tents
were put up and painted signs hung out to advertise different
side-shows.
“Where do you suppose all the queer people of the side-shows were while
the percession was going on? The bearded woman, the armless man and all
those?” whispered Jane to her brother.
“I don’t know. Maybe they were shut up inside of some of those closed
wagons.”
“Oh, I should think that would be lots of fun,” laughed Jane. “Making
people think you were some kind of a wild animal when really you were
something lots more wonderful.”
Presently grandfather reappeared, followed by Mr. Drake and Letty. Mrs.
Drake joined them, carrying her baby, who insisted upon Letty’s taking
him at once, and chuckling with delight in her arms.
“So you are the little girl who saved my precious grandchildren from the
dreadful bear?” said grandmother kindly, holding out her hand to Letty.
“I am very glad to see you at last, to thank you for your brave act.”
“Oh,” replied Letty, with a catch in her voice, “it seems like another
life when I did that. It happened so long ago and so much else has
happened since. I was very happy then,” and the tears she could not
control filled her sad brown eyes.
Jane looked at her in distress.
“Don’t cry, Letty,” she whispered, drawing her aside. “You never used to
cry. Aren’t they kind to you?”
“Oh, yes,” exclaimed Letty, drying her eyes quickly, as she saw Mrs.
Drake approaching, “they are very kind to me. But I—I don’t like being
in a circus.”
“Poor little girl,” murmured grandmother sympathetically.
Then Mrs. Drake joined them and grandfather went away with the manager
to buy tickets for the performance and then to look at a group of work
horses tied to stakes at the back of one of the smaller tents.
“May we see Punch and Judy?” asked Jane.
“Would I have time before dinner?” Letty inquired wistfully of Mrs.
Drake.
Mrs. Drake saw how eager Letty was to go with the children and
good-naturedly gave her consent, taking the heavy, unwilling baby again
into her own arms. The children ran off, leaving the two women standing
talking together.
“Tell me what you can about Letty, Mrs. Drake. We are very much
interested,” said grandmother and she explained who she was and why she
was so much interested in the little circus girl.
“I am very sorry for Letty, mem,” replied Mrs. Drake sadly. “Her
mother’s death was very hard on her, poor little thing, and then when
her brother was killed last year she could scarcely get over the shock.”
“Poor, poor child! But you have been very good to her, Mrs. Drake. She
spoke very affectionately of you just now.”
“She has been with us ever since her mother’s death, but I don’t know
what’s to become of her now,” and the good woman sighed. “I promised her
brother she should be to us like our own child, and so she has, up to
now.”
“And what is to happen now?” asked Mrs. Baker with sympathy.
“Oh, didn’t my husband tell you that we are giving up the circus? This
will be our last appearance; the circus breaks up to-night. Mr. Drake
has sold the menagerie and most of the troupe have got other positions.
We shall stay here two or three days, I think, until Mr. Drake sells
some of the work horses.”
“Have the Shetland ponies been sold?”
“Not yet. They’d be very nice for children to have as pets,” replied
Mrs. Drake quickly, with an eye to business.
Mrs. Baker smiled understandingly.
“I was not thinking of ourselves, but of a friend of mine,” she said
quietly. “But, Mrs. Drake, I want to ask you please to keep me posted
about Letty’s whereabouts. Here is my card with the address on it. In
the autumn I think I should like to place her in some good school where
she can study and be equipped for making her way in the world. I am sure
my daughter-in-law would be glad to have me do it in return for Letty’s
act of heroism in saving the children’s lives. My daughter did try to
find the child that same autumn after her mother’s death.”
“She was living with us, quite in the neighborhood. But I never thought
of leaving an address,” exclaimed Mrs. Drake in some dismay. “I should
hate to think I had stood in Letty’s way of getting settled in life.
Indeed, Mrs. Baker, she would repay any kindness shown her, no matter
for what reason,” she continued earnestly. “Her mother was a real lady
and always hoped her little girl could be properly brought up. She’s far
above such folk as us, mem,” she added humbly.
Indeed, Mrs. Baker’s idea was to begin doing something for Letty’s good
before the autumn, but this plan must be considered very seriously
before it could be carried out.
Letty and the twins came running back to them. Letty’s eyes were shining
and there was a pink glow in her thin cheeks. She looked more like her
old, bright, cheerful self than she had since her mother’s death. The
children were greatly excited.
“Oh, grandmother,” exclaimed Jane, “Letty says the Shetland ponies are
for sale and we thought——”
“We thought Mrs. Hartwell-Jones might want to buy ’em,” put in
Christopher.
“Don’t you remember, grandmother,” went on Jane, “how Mrs.
Hartwell-Jones said after she had sprained her ankle that she wished she
had a Bath chair and when Kit asked what that was she said it was a big
chair with wheels that they harnessed a pony to, to drive sick people
about. So I thought——”
“We thought Mrs. Hartwell-Jones might like to buy Punch and Judy,”
finished Christopher, taking advantage of Jane’s breathlessness to put
the climax to her tale.
Mrs. Baker smiled.
“Bless your hearts, children, I had thought of the very same thing. We
must talk it over with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. There is plenty of time.”
“And, grandmother, Josh came to tell us dinner is ready. Please, can’t
Letty come to the picnic with us?”
“There’s apple pie,” added Christopher.
Of course Huldah had made apple pie for the picnic. She would have felt
obliged to make those pies—with quantities of cinnamon—if she had had to
neglect her whole week’s baking to do it!
Mrs. Drake glanced at Letty’s eager, wistful face.
“You want to go, don’t you?” she said aside to her.
“Oh, yes, I would like to go, so much—if you can spare me, Mrs. Drake,”
replied Letty, trying to think of some one else before herself.
Grandmother overheard this unselfish little speech and it helped to
strengthen the resolve that was forming in her mind.
The picnic was a very jolly affair, and Letty felt that she had not
enjoyed herself so much since that happy summer, three long years
before—which she and her mother had spent out in the country near Willow
Grove. When everybody had eaten as much as he or she could possibly hold
(and Christopher a wee bit more) Letty won Huldah’s heart by insisting
upon helping with the tidying up.
“I always help Mrs. Drake, so please let me,” she said.
The twins asked leave to help too, and found it great fun to wash dishes
in the brook. The time passed by much more rapidly than any one realized
and Letty had to run off very hastily at length, in order to be ready in
time to take her place in the grand march at the opening of the circus
performance. It was agreed before she left that Mr. Baker should return
in the morning to see about Punch and Judy and he promised the twins to
bring them with him, that they might have another visit with Letty.
Soon it was time for every one who was to attend the circus to go inside
the tent. Grandfather gave Joshua tickets for Huldah and himself, and
then he and grandmother and the twins crossed the wide field again.
[Illustration: THEY GIGGLED AT EVERYTHING THE CLOWN SAID]
There was a great hubbub about the group of tents; men were calling out
the attractions of the side-shows, a band was playing and boys moved
about through the crowd with trays of peanuts and lemonade, shouting
their wares in shrill, loud voices.
All boys and girls who have been to a circus know exactly how Jane
and Christopher felt when they got inside that tent. It was not
the first circus they had been to, by any means, but that does
not make any difference; one always has that same furry creepiness
in the back of one’s neck, and the same swelled-up, lost breath,
wish-to-laugh-without-being-heard feeling.
They giggled at everything the clown said and did, clapped their hands
wildly when the trick elephant bowed and waltzed; and shut their eyes
tight—at least Jane did—when the “human fly” walked upside down on a
piece of boarding suspended from the top of the tent like a ceiling.
Christopher liked the Indians attacking the stage-coach best, and
wriggled rapturously at each blood-curdling war-whoop. But Jane was
faithful to her love of the lady in pink tights and watched her with
open eyes and open mouth, as she stood jauntily upright upon a
barebacked horse and sprang gracefully through paper-covered hoops.
“I wonder if Letty knows her,” she whispered to Christopher. “I mean to
ask to-morrow.”
But it was the Shetland ponies and their little trainer that held
grandmother’s attention. She watched Letty long and carefully, and said
something to grandfather in a voice too low for the children to hear.
That evening, after Jane and Christopher were tucked away in bed, the
grown-ups, Mr. and Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, had a long, long
talk together. It was all about Letty, or most of it, for the Shetland
ponies came in for a little share in the discussion.
Dear little Letty, if only she could have overheard that conversation
she would not have spent such a wakeful, unhappy night. She had passed
three very hard, sad years, but better days were in sight again. As her
mother had said, the little girl had the faculty of making friends.