NEAR THE SKY
It was half-past nine when Abbott met Fran, according to appointment,
before the Snake Den. From her hands she had removed the color of
Italy, and from her body, the glittering raiment of La Gonizetti.
Fran came up to the young man from out the crowded street, all
quivering excitement. In contrast with the pulsing life that
ceaselessly changed her face, as from reflections of dancing light-
points, his composure showed almost grotesque.
"Here I am," she panted, shooting a quizzical glance at his face, "are
you ready for me? Come on, then, and I'll show you the very place for
_us_."
Abbott inquired serenely, "Down there in the Den?"
Fran scrutinized him anew, always wondering how he had taken the
lions. What she saw did not alarm her.
"No," she returned, "not in the Den. You're no Daniel, if I _am_ a
Charmer. No dens for us."
"Nor lion-cages?" inquired Abbott, still inscrutable; "never again?"
"Never again," came her response; it was a promise.
As they made their way through the noisy "city square" she kept on
wondering. Since his face revealed nothing, his disapproval, at any
rate, was not so great as to be beyond control. Did that signify that
he did not feel enough for her really to care? Better for him to be
angry about the show, than not to care.
Fran stopped before the Ferris Wheel.
"Let's take a ride," she said, a little tremulously. "Won't need
tickets. Bill, stop the wheel; I want to go right up. This is a
friendof mine--Mr. Ashton. And Abbott, this is an older friend than
you--Mr. Bill Smookins."
Mr. Bill Smookins was an exceedingly hard-featured man, of no
recognizable age. Externally, he was blue overalls and greasy tar.
Abbott grasped Bill's hand, and inquired about business.
"Awful pore, sense Fran lef' the show," was the answer, accompanied by
a grin that threatened to cut the weather-beaten face wide open.
Fran beamed. "Mr. Smookins knew my mother--didn't you, Bill? He was
awful good to me when I was a kid. Mr. Smookins was a Human Nymph in
those days, and he smoked and talked, he did, right down under the
water--remember, Bill? That was sure-enough water--oh, he's a sure-
enough Bill, let me tell you!"
Bill intimated, as he slowed down the engine, that the rheumatism he
had acquired under the water, was sure-enough rheumatism--hence his
change of occupation. "I was strong enough to be a Human Nymph," he
explained, "but not endurable. Nobody can't last many years as a Human
Nymph."
Abbott indicated his companion--"Here's one that'll last my time."
The wheel stopped. He and Fran were barred into a seat.
"And now," Fran exclaimed, "it's all ups and downs, just like a
moving-picture of life. Why don't you say something, Mr. Ashton? But
no, you can keep still--I'm excited to death, and wouldn't hear you
anyway. I want to do all the talking--I always do, after I've been in
the cage. My brain is filled with air--so this is the time to be
soaring up into the sky, isn't it! What is your brained filled with?--
but never mind. We'll be just two balloons--my! aren't you glad we
haven't any strings on us--suppose some people had hold!--I, for one,
would be willing never to go down again. Where are the clouds?--Wish
we could meet a few. Down there on the solid earth--oh, down _there_
the first things you meet are reasons for things, and people's
opinions of how things look, and reports of what folks say. And up
here, there's nothing but the moon--isn't it bright! See how I'm
trembling--always do, after the lions. Now, Abbott, I'll leave a small
opening for just one word--"
"I'll steady you," said Abbott, briefly, and he took her hand. She did
not appear conscious of his protecting clasp.
"I never see the moon so big," she went on, breathlessly, "without
thinking of that night when it rolled along the pasture as if it
wanted to knock us off the foot-bridge for being where we oughtn't. I
never could understand why you would stay on that bridge with a
perfect stranger, when your duty was to be usher at the camp-meeting!
You weren't ushering me, you know, you were holding my hand--I mean, I
was holding your hand, as Miss Sapphira says I shouldn't. What a poor
helpless man--as I'm holding you now, I presume! But I laughed in
meeting. People ought to go outdoors to smile, and keep their religion
in a house, I guess. I'm going to tell you why I laughed, for you've
never guessed, and you've always been afraid to ask--"
"Afraid of _you_, Fran?"
"Awfully, I'm going to show you--let go, so I can show you. No, I'm in
earnest--you can have me, afterwards....Remember that evangelist?
There he stood, waving his hands--as I'm doing now--moving his arms
with his eyes fastened upon the congregation--this way--look, Abbott."
"Fran! As if I were not already looking."
"Look--just so; not saying a word--only waving this way and that...
And it made me think of our Hypnotizer--the man that waves people
into our biggest tent--he seems to pick 'em up bodily and carry them
in his arms. Well! And if the people are to be waved into a church, it
won't take much of a breeze to blow them out. I don't believe in soul-
waving. But that doesn't mean that I don't believe in the church--does
it?--do you think?"
"You believe in convictions, Fran. And since you've come into the
church, you don't have to say that you believe in it."
"Yes--there's nothing on the outside, and oh, sometimes there's so
little, so little under the roof--what do you think of me, Abbott?"
"Fran, I think you are the most--"
"But _do_ you!" she interposed, still unsteadily. "In the superlative?
I don't see how you can, after that exhibition behind the bars.
Anyway, I want you to talk about yourself. What made you go away from
town? But that's not the worst: what made you stay away? And what
were you doing off there wherever it was, while poor little girls were
wondering themselves sick about you? But wait!--the wheel's going
down--down--down....Good thing I have you to hold to--poor Miss
Sapphira, she can't come, now! Listen at all the street-criers,
getting closer, and the whistle-sounds--I wish we had whistles; the
squawky kind. See my element, Abbott, the air I've breathed all my
life--the carnival. Here we are, just above the clouds of confetti....Now
we're riding through....pretty damp, these clouds are, don't you
think! Those ribbons of electric lights have been the real world
for me. Abbott--they were home....No, Bill, we don't want to get out.
We intend to ride until you take this wheel to pieces. And oh, by the
way, Bill--just stop this wheel, every once in a while, will you?--when
we're up at the very tiptop. All right--good-by."
And Abbott called gaily, "Good-by, Mr. Smookins!"
"I'm glad you did that, Abbott. You think you're somebody, when
somebody else thinks so, too. Now we're rising in the world." Fran was
so excited that she could not keep her body from quivering. In spite
of this, she fastened her eyes upon Abbott to ask, suddenly, "'Most'--
what?"
"Most adorable," Abbott answered, as if he had been waiting for the
prompting. "Most precious. Most bewitchingly sweet. Most unanswerably
and eternally--_Fran!_"
"And you--" she whispered.
"And I," he told her, "am nothing but most wanting-to-be-loved."
"It's so queer," Fran said, plaintively. "You know, Abbott, how long
you've fought against me. You know it, and I don't blame you, not in
the least. There's nothing about me to make people....But even
now, how can you think you understand me, when I don't understand
myself?"
"I don't," he said, promptly. "I've given up trying to understand you.
Since then, I've just loved. That's easy."
"What will people think of a superintendent of public schools caring
for a show-girl, even if she _is_ Fran Nonpareil. How would it affect
your career?"
"But you have promised never again to engage in a show, so you are not
a show-girl."
"What about my mother who lived and died as a lion-tamer? What will
you do about my life-history? I'd never speak to a man who could feel
ashamed of my mother. What about my father who has never publicly
acknowledged me? I'd not want to have anything to do with a man who--
who could be proud of him."
"As to the past, Fran, I have only this to say: whatever hardships it
contained, whatever wrongs or wretchedness--it evolved you, _you_, the
Fran of to-day--the Fran of this living hour. And it's the Fran of
this living hour that I want to marry."
Fran covered her face with her hands. For a while there was silence,
then she said:
"Father was there, to-night."
"At the lion-show? Impossible! Mr. Gregory go to a--a--to--a--"
"Yes, it is possible for him even to go to a show. But to do him
justice, he was forced under the tent, he had no intention of doing
anything so wicked as that, he only meant to do some little thing like
running away--But no, I can't speak of him with bitterness, now.
Abbott, he seems all changed."
Abbott murmured, as if stupefied, "Mr. Gregory at a show!"
"Yes, and a lion-show. When it was over he came to me--he was so
excited--"
"So was I," spoke up the other--"rather!"
"You didn't show it. I thought maybe you wouldn't care if I _had_ been
eaten up....No, no, listen. He wanted to claim me--he called me
'daughter' right there before the people, but they thought it was
just a sort of--of church name. But he was wonderfully moved. I left
the tent with him, and we had a long talk--I came from him to you. I
never saw anybody so changed."
"But why?"
"You see, he thought I was going to be killed right there before his
eyes, and seeing it with his very own eyes made him feel responsible.
He told me, afterwards, that when he found out who it was in the
cage, he thought of mother in a different way,--he saw how his
desertion had driven her to earning her living with showmen, so I
could be supported. All in all, he is a changed man."
"Then will he acknowledge you?--but no, no,..."
"You see? He can't, on account of Mrs. Gregory. There's no future for
him, or for her, except to go on living as man and wife--without the
secretary. He imagines it would be a sort of reparation to present me
to the world as his daughter, he thinks it would give him happiness--
but it can't be. Grace Noir has found it all out--"
"Then she will tell!" Abbott exclaimed, in dismay.
"She would have told but for one thing. She doesn't dare, and it's on
her own account--of course. She has been terribly--well, indiscreet.
You can't think to what lengths she was willing to go--not from coldly
making up her mind, but because she lost grip on herself, from always
thinking she couldn't. So she went away with Bob Clinton--she'll marry
him, and they'll go to Chicago, out of Littleburg history--poor Bob!
Remember the night he was trying to get religion? I'm afraid he'll
conclude that religion isn't what he thought it was, living so close
to it from now on."
"All this interests me greatly, dear, because it interests you. Still,
it doesn't bear upon the main question."
"Abbott, you don't know why I went to that show to act. You thought I
was caring for a sick friend. What do you think of such deceptions?"
"I think I understand. Simon Jefferson told me of a girl falling from
a trapeze; it was possibly La Gonizetti's daughter. Mrs. Jefferson
told me that Mrs. Gregory is nursing some one. The same one, I
imagine. And La Gonizetti was a friend of yours, and you took her
place, so the mother could stay with the injured daughter."
"You're a wonder, yourself!" Fran declared, dropping her hands to
stare at him. "Yes, that's it. All these show-people are friends of
mine. When the mayor was trying to decide what carnival company they'd
have for the street fair, I told him about this show, and that's why
it's here. Poor La Gonizetti needs the money dreadfully--for they
spend it as fast as it's paid in. The little darling will have to go
to a hospital, and there's nothing laid by. The boys all threw in, but
they didn't have much, themselves. Nobody has. Everybody's poor in
this old world--except you and me. I've taken La Gonizetti's place in
the cage all day to keep her from losing out; and if this wasn't the
last day, I don't know whether I'd have promised you or not....
Samson was pretty good, but that mask annoyed him. So you see--but
honestly, Abbott, doesn't all this make you feel just a wee bit
different about me?"
"It makes me want to kiss you, Fran."
"It makes you"--she gasped--"want to do--_that?_ Why, Abbott! Nothing
can save you."
"I'm afraid not," he agreed.
The car was swinging at the highest reach of the wheel. The engine
stopped.
She opened her eyes very wide. "I'd think you'd be afraid of such a
world-famous lion-trainer," she declared, drawing back." Some have
been, I assure you."
"I'm not afraid," Abbott declared, drawing her toward him. He would
have kissed her, but she covered her face with her hands and bent her
head instinctively.
"Up!" cried Abbott. "Up, Samson, up!"
Fran laughed hilariously, and lifted her head. She looked at him
through her fingers. Her face was a garden of blush-roses. She
pretended to roar but the result was not terrifying; then she
obediently held up her mouth.
"After all," said Fran, speaking somewhat indistinctly, "you haven't
told why you ran away to leave poor Fran guessing where you'd gone. Do
you know how I love you, Abbott?"
"I think I know."
"I'm glad--for I could never tell you. Real love is like real
religion--you can't talk about it. Makes you want to joke, even if you
can't think of anything funny to say--makes you chatter about anything
else, or just keep still. Seems to be something down here--this is my
heart, isn't it?--hope I have the right place, I left school so
early--seems even when I refer to it I ought to--well, as I said,
make a sort of joke...."
"But this is no joke," said Abbott, kissing her again.
"Yes," said Fran, happily, "we can talk about it in _that_ way. Isn't
Bill Smookins a dear to keep us up here so long?"
It was a good while later that Abbott said, "As to why I left
Littleburg: Bob knew of a private school that has just been
incorporated as a college. A teacher's needed, one with ideas of the
new education--the education that teaches us how to make books useful
to life, and not life to books--the education that teaches happiness
as well as words and figures; just the kind that you didn't find at my
school, little rebel! Bob was an old chum of the man who owns the
property so he recommended me, and I went. It's a great chance, a
magnificent opening. The man was so pleased with the way I talked--
he's new to the business, so that must be his excuse--that I am to be
the president."
Fran's voice came rather faintly--"Hurrah! But you are to be far, far
above my reach, just as I prophesied. Don't you remember what I said
to you during our drive through Sure-Enough Country?"
"And that isn't all," said Abbott, looking straight before him, and
pretending that he had not heard. "In that town--Tahlelah, Oklahoma--I
discovered, out in the suburbs, a cottage--the dearest little thing--
as dear as...as Mr. Smookins; just big enough for a girl like
Fran. I rented it at once--of course, it oughtn't to be standing there
idle--there's such a fragrant flower-garden--I spent some time
arranging the grounds as I think you'll like them. I didn't furnish
the cottage, though. Women always like to select their own carpets and
things, and--"
Fran's face was a dimpled sea of pink and crimson waves, with starry
lights in her black eyes for signal-lights. "Oh, you king of hearts!"
she exclaimed. "And shall we have a church wedding, and just kill
'em?"
Abbott laughed boyishly. "No--you must remember that your connection
with show-life is at an end."
"But--and then--and so," cried Fran rapturously, "I'm to have a home
after all, with flower-gardens and carpets and things--a sure-enough
home--Abbott, a home with _you!_ Don't you know, it's been the dream
of my life to--to--"
Abbott was inexpressibly touched. "Yes, I was just thinking of what I
heard you say, once--to belong to somebody."
Fran slipped her arms about his neck. "And what a somebody! To belong
to you. And to know that my home is _our_ home...."
Abbott, with a sober sense of his unworthiness, embraced her silently.
From far below came a sudden sound, making its way through the
continuity of the street-uproar. It was the chugging of the engine.
The wheel began to revolve.
Down they came--down--down--
Fran looked up at the moon. "Good-by," she called, gaily. "The world
is good enough for me!"
THE END