Read Ebook: Polly of the Circus by Mayo Margaret

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Ebook has 1088 lines and 34259 words, and 22 pages

Jim "'lowed" some church shows might be better than "that un," but Polly said he could have her end of the bet, and summed up by declaring it no wonder that the yaps in these towns was daffy about circuses, if they didn't have nothin' better an' church shows to go to.

One of the grooms was entering the lot with Polly's horse. She stooped to tighten one of her sandals, and as she rose, Jim saw her sway slightly and put one hand to her head. He looked at her sharply, remembering her faintness in the parade that morning.

"You ain't feeling right," he said uneasily.

"You just bet I am," Polly answered with an independent toss of her head. "This is the night we're goin' to make them rubes in there sit up, ain't it, Bingo?" she added, placing one arm affectionately about the neck of the big, white horse that stood waiting near the entrance.

"You bin ridin' too reckless lately," said Jim, sternly, as he followed her. "I don't like it. There ain't no need of your puttin' in all them extra stunts. Your act is good enough without 'em. Nobody else ever done 'em, an' nobody'd miss 'em if you left 'em out."

Polly turned with a triumphant ring in her voice. The music was swelling for her entrance.

"You ain't my MOTHER, Jim, you're my GRANDmother," she taunted; and, with a crack of her whip she was away on Bingo's back.

"It's the spirit of the dead one that's got into her," Jim mumbled as he turned away, still seeing the flash in the departing girl's eyes.

Polly and Bingo always made the audience "sit up" when they swept into the ring. She was so young, so gaily clad, so light and joyous in all her poses. She seemed scarcely to touch the back of the white horse, as they dashed round the ring in the glare of the tent lights. The other performers went through their work mechanically while Polly rode, for they knew the audience was watching her only.

As for Polly, her work had never lost its first interest. Jim may have been right when he said that the spirit of the dead mother had got into her; but it must have been an unsatisfied spirit, unable to fulfil its ambition in the body that once held it, for it sometimes played strange pranks with Polly. To-night, her eyes shone and her lips were parted in anticipation, as she leaped lightly over the many coloured streamers of the wheel of silken ribbons held by Barker in the centre of the ring, and by Toby and the "tumblers" on the edge of the bank.

With each change of her act, the audience cheered and frantically applauded. The band played faster; Bingo's pace increased; the end of her turn was coming. The "tumblers" arranged themselves around the ring with paper hoops; Bingo was fairly racing. She went through the first hoop with a crash of tearing paper and cheers from the audience.

"Heigh, Bingo!" she shouted, as she bent her knees to make ready for the final leap.

Bingo's neck was stretched. He had never gone so fast before. Barker looked uneasy. Toby forgot to go on with his accustomed tricks. Jim watched anxiously from the entrance.

The paper of one hoop was still left unbroken. The attendant turned his eyes to glance at the oncoming girl; the hoop shifted slightly in his clumsy hand as Polly leapt straight up from Bingo's back, trusting to her first calculation. Her forehead struck the edge of the hoop. She clutched wildly at the air. Bingo galloped on, and she fell to the ground, striking her head against the iron-bound stake at the edge of the ring.

Everything stopped. There was a gasp of horror; the musicians dropped their instruments; Bingo halted and looked back uneasily; she lay unconscious and seemingly lifeless.

A great cry went up in the tent. Panic-stricken, men, women and children began to clamber down from their seats, while others nearest the ground attempted to jump into the ring. Barker, still grasping his long whip, rushed to the girl's side, and shouted wildly to Toby:

"Say something, you. Get 'em back!"

Old Toby turned his white face to the crowd, his features worked convulsively, but he could not speak. His grief was so grotesque, that the few who saw him laughed hysterically. He could not even go to Polly, his feet seemed pinned to the earth.

Jim rushed into the tent at the first cry of the audience. He lifted the limp form tenderly, and kneeling in the ring held her bruised head in his hands.

"Can't you get a doctor!" he shouted desperately to Barker.

"Here's the doctor!" some one called; and a stranger came toward them. He bent over the seemingly lifeless form, his fingers on the tiny wrist, his ear to the heart.

"Well, sir?" Jim faltered, for he had caught the puzzled look in the doctor's eyes as his deft hand pressed the cruelly wounded head.

"I can't tell just yet," said the doctor. "She must be taken away."

"Where can we take her?" asked Jim, a look of terror in his great, troubled eyes.

"The parsonage is the nearest house," said the doctor. "I am sure the pastor will be glad to have her there until we can find out how badly she is hurt."

In an instant Barker was back in the centre of the ring. He announced that Polly's injuries were slight, called the attention of the audience to the wonderful concert to take place, and bade them make ready for the thrilling chariot race which would end the show.

Jim, blind with despair, lifted the light burden and staggered out of the tent, while the band played furiously and the people fell back into their seats. The Roman chariots thundered and clattered around the outside of the ring, the audience cheered the winner of the race, and for the moment Polly was forgotten.

THE blare of the circus band had been a sore temptation to Mandy Jones all afternoon and evening. Again and again it had dragged her from her work to the study window, from which she could see the wonders so tantalisingly near. Mandy was housekeeper for the Rev. John Douglas, but the unwashed supper dishes did not trouble her, as she watched the lumbering elephants, the restless lions, the long-necked giraffes and the striped zebras, that came and went in the nearby circus lot. And yet, in spite of her own curiosity, she could not forgive her vagrant "worse half," Hasty, who had been lured from duty early in the day. She had once dubbed him Hasty, in a spirit of derision, and the name had clung to him. The sarcasm seemed doubly appropriate to-night, for he had been away since ten that morning, and it was now past nine.

The young pastor for a time had enjoyed Mandy's tirades against her husband, but when she began calling shrilly out of the window to chance acquaintances for news of him, he slipped quietly into the next room to finish to-morrow's sermon. Mandy renewed her operations at the window with increased vigour when the pastor had gone. She was barely saved from pitching head foremost into the lot, by the timely arrival of Deacon Strong's daughter, who managed, with difficulty, to connect the excited woman's feet with the floor.

"Foh de Lor' sake!" Mandy gasped, as she stood panting for breath and blinking at the pretty, young, apple-faced Julia; "I was suah most gone dat time." Then followed another outburst against the delinquent Hasty.

But the deacon's daughter did not hear; her eyes were already wandering anxiously to the lights and the tinsel of the little world beyond the window.

This was not the first time to-day that Mandy had found herself talking to space. There had been a steady stream of callers at the parsonage since eleven that morning, but she had long ago confided to the pastor that she suspected their reasons.

"Dey comes in here a-trackin' up my floors," she said, "and a-askin' why you don' stop de circus from a-showin' nex' to de church and den a-cranin' afar necks out de winder, till I can't get no housework done."

"That's only human nature," Douglas had answered with a laugh; but Mandy had declared that she knew another name for it, and had mumbled something about "hypocritters," as she seized her broom and began to sweep imaginary tracks from in front of the door.

Many times she had made up her mind to let the next caller know just what she thought of "hypocritters," but her determination was usually weakened by her still greater desire to excite increased wonder in the faces of her visitors.

Divided between these two inclinations, she gazed at Julia now; the shining eyes of the deacon's daughter conquered, and she launched forth into an eager description of how she had just seen a "wondeful striped anamule" with a "pow'ful long neck walk right out of the tent," and how he had "come apart afore her very eyes," and two men had slipped "right out a' his insides." Mandy was so carried away by her own eloquence and so busy showing Julia the sights beyond the window, that she did not hear Miss Perkins, the thin-lipped spinster, who entered, followed by the Widow Willoughby dragging her seven-year-old son Willie by the hand.

The women were protesting because their choir practice of "What Shall the Harvest Be?" had been interrupted by the unrequested acompaniment of the "hoochie coochie" from the nearby circus band.

"It's scandalous!" Miss Perkins snapped. "Scandalous! And SOMEBODY ought to stop it." She glanced about with an unmistakable air of grievance at the closed doors, feeling that the pastor was undoubtedly behind one of them, when he ought to be out taking action against the things that her soul abominated.

"Ma, let me see, too," begged Willie, as he tugged at his mother's skirts.

Mrs. Willoughby hesitated. Miss Perkins was certainly taking a long while for her argument with Julia. The glow from the red powder outside the window was positively alarming.

A few moments later when Douglas entered for a fresh supply of paper, the backs of the company were toward him. He crossed to the study table without disturbing his visitors, and smiled to himself at the eager way in which they were hanging out of the window.

Douglas was a sturdy young man of eight and twenty, frank and boyish in manner, confident and light-hearted in spirit. He had seemed too young to the deacons when he was appointed to their church, and his keen enjoyment of outdoor games and other healthful sports robbed him of a certain dignity in their eyes. Some of the women of the congregation had been inclined to side with the deacons, for it hurt their vanity that the pastor found so many other interests when he might have been sitting in dark, stuffy rooms discussing theology with them; but Douglas had been either unconscious of or indifferent to their resentment, and had gone on his way with a cheery nod and an unconquerable conviction of right, that had only left them floundering. He intended to quit the room now unnoticed, but was unfortunate enough to upset a chair as he turned from the table. This brought a chorus of exclamations from the women, who chattering rushed quickly toward him.

"What do you think of my naughty boy, Willie?" simpered the widow. "He dragged me quite to the window."

Douglas glanced amusedly first at the five-foot-six widow and then at the helpless, red-haired urchin by her side, but he made no comment beyond offering a chair to each of the women.

"Our choir practice had to be entirely discontinued," declared Miss Perkins sourly, as she accepted the proffered chair, adjusted her skirts for a stay, and glanced defiantly at the parson, who had dutifully seated himself near the table.

"Never mind about the choir practice," said Douglas, with a smile. "It is SOUL not SKILL that our congregation needs in its music. As for that music out there, it is NOT without its compensations. Why, the small boys would rather hear that band than the finest church organ in the world."

"And the SMALL BOYS would rather see the circus than to hear you preach, most likely," snapped Miss Perkins. It was adding insult to injury for him to try to CONSOLE her.

"Of course they would; and so would some of the grown-ups if they'd only tell the truth about it," said Douglas, laughing.

"What!" exclaimed Miss Perkins.

"Why not?" asked Douglas. "I am sure I don't know what they do inside the tents, but the parade looked very promising."

"The PARADE!" the two women echoed in one breath. "Did YOU see the parade?"

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