Letty and the Twins Read online

  CHAPTER V

  THE CIRCUS

  All was pleasant confusion and excitement at Sunnycrest, for it wascircus day! A wee cloud of disappointment dimmed the horizon of Jane’sbliss when she learned that Mrs. Hartwell-Jones did not feel equal tothe effort of going. She was afraid she might tire or injure her lamefoot; and Jane was sorry, for she would have enjoyed sharing herimpressions with the sympathetic and understanding “lady who wrotebooks.” Still, there would be the happiness of telling her all about itafterward.

  Grandmother offered to remain at home with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. But onthe other hand, she thought that she ought to go, in order to look afterthe children. First, they were to watch the parade from the parlorwindows of the village hotel, by the invitation of the hotel proprietor,Mr. Grubbs. Afterward there was to be a picnic dinner and then—thecircus! Grandmother really could not have stood the strain of remainingat home and wondering whether the children had drunk too much lemonadeor fallen into a wild animal’s cage, and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones knew thiswhen she refused to let grandmother stay with her, or to change in anyway the household arrangements for her sake.

  Joshua was to drive the big, three-seated wagon and Huldah went too, tosuperintend the luncheon. Jo Perkins, having had permission to take aday off (as indeed had all the farm-hands, for grandfather firmlybelieved in the old saying that “all work and no play makes Jack a dullboy”) had vanished with the dawn. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones was left, togetherwith many instructions from grandmother, to the care of Mary thehousemaid, who said she didn’t care much for circuses anyway.

  Christopher appropriated the seat of honor in front, beside Joshua, butJane did not mind. Tucked in contentedly between grandfather andgrandmother she was lost in a wonderful dream of the delights to come.Huldah and the baskets had the back seat to themselves and there wasonly just room for Huldah to squeeze in upon one corner of the seatafter everything had been stowed away, for Huldah, as has perhaps beenhinted before, was a “generous provider.”

  The little town of Hammersmith presented a very different appearancefrom its every-day sleepiness. The narrow sidewalks for its whole milelength were packed with squirming, excited children and their no lessexcited if quieter elders. The reason that children are so restless isbecause they have not yet learned to soothe their nerves by waggingtheir tongues instead of their arms and legs.

  Farmers had come in from all the neighboring districts with theirfamilies. A good many had given their workmen, too, a holiday, asGrandfather Baker had his. Circuses did not come to Hammersmith veryoften.

  Grandfather, in spite of frowns and head-shakings from grandmother,bought Jane and Christopher each a bag of roasted peanuts and another ofsticky 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 thinkthat even the sorts of things that happen in story-books could be nicerthan this. Aren’t you glad we bought the apples?”

  “Oh, I guess so. But we’d have got to the circus anyhow. Grandfathernever would have kept us home.”

  “No, I don’t believe he would,” acknowledged Jane. “He’d be toogenerous. But we’d have deserved it, Kit, and I’d much rather be herewith things the way they are now. It’s comfortable to my insidessomewhere. Do you suppose the lady in the pink tights will be in thepercession?”

  “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. Outdoorsthey’d fade or get dusty, or she might fall off her horse into a puddleand spoil ’em.”

  “Oh, Kit, she’d never fall off her horse! She can ride too well. Justthink of the things she does in the pictures!”

  “Huh! I know a boy at school that saw a lady fall off her horse—right inthe 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 thirstfor the horrible.

  “Hullo, I guess they’re comin’,” cried Christopher. “See how the peopleare 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 bylooking out of his window, across the space of wall and in at the nextwindow where grandfather and grandmother were sitting. He lost hisbalance, of course, and nothing but Jane’s sudden grasp at the loosestpart of his trousers, and the special providence that protects smallboys, saved him from tumbling down upon the crowd below. He lost bothhis bags in a wild clutch at the window ledge and drew himself back,sputtering and red-faced with disappointment. He looked down to watch agroup 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 goodiesin excitement, for the procession was really coming. It was not a verywonderful display. Indeed, the grown-ups thought it rather melancholy.There were half a dozen tired looking men on tired looking horses, halfa dozen others dressed up as Indians, also on horseback, several cagesof wild animals and a brassy brass band in a gilded chariot drawn byfour horses. This band headed the procession and was the grandest thingin it except one other gilt chariot upon which a plump, pretty youngwoman in a Diana sort of costume sat enthroned. She rode just behind thewild-animal cages and Jane gazed after her enthralled until she passedout of sight.

  “I am sure she is the lady who wears the pink tights and does suchwonders on horseback,” she confided to Christopher. “Wasn’t she lovely?”

  Then followed a long line of animal cages with closed sides. A man whorode beside the driver on the first of these called out to the peoplethat the beasts within were too fierce and wild to stand the excitementof 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 inthese cages; the pictures painted on the outside were no guides, as eachrepresented a whole menagerie. An elephant followed, tired looking anddejected, led by two men, and after them appeared a young girl, dressedin 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 thewindow in her excitement.

  “Oh, Kit, grandmother, grandfather, it is Letty! It is, it is! And she’sdriving 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 acondescending air. “And Letty drives ’em well, too, you bet. But why isshe rigged up in that queer way? All that purple stuff slung over hershoulder. 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’sdressed 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 usedto drive.”

  The heavy, closed wagons, painted red and gold, that are used to carrythe tents and luggage of a circus, now appeared in line. Upon the top ofevery third or fourth wagon stood comic figures, men dressed in falseheads of exaggerated size, who nodded and danced and performed antics tomake the crowds laugh. A painted clown in a donkey cart, and a calliope(so necessary to every circus parade) brought up the rear of theprocession. The calliope was playing “Wait till the Clouds Roll by,Jennie” in a loud squawk, and the people along the street whistled thetune as they shouted and exchanged jokes with the clown. It was not atall an appropriate tune, for there was not a cloud in the sky. Indeed,the light was almost too bright, for it revealed mercilessly
all thebare spots on the wagons where the scarlet paint and gilt had peeledoff; and it shone pitilessly upon the shabby trappings of the horses andupon the anxious, tired faces of the performers. But the crowd wasneither particular nor critical and after cheering and whistling theprocession out of sight, it scattered gayly to hunt up families andlunch baskets.

  “Now then,” exclaimed Jane with great satisfaction, “we shall see Lettyagain,” and she tucked her hand into her grandmother’s.

  The circus tents were pitched in a wide field just outside the town andgrandfather selected the adjoining field, under a clump of trees andbeside a brook, for the picnic dinner. While Josh and Huldah wereunpacking the hampers Mr. and Mrs. Baker, with the twins, crossed towhere the circus people were grouped. The troupe had reached Hammersmithrather 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 thechildren stood watching this ceremony of tent pitching with absorbedinterest. Men ran here and there with coils of rope and long stakeswhich they drove into the ground and then stood in a circle around abroad sheet of canvas that lay spread on the ground. At a given word themen tugged at their ropes and slowly a mountain of dingy yellow whiterose in their midst. It swelled and swayed and flapped and then tookshape. More tugging of ropes, more shouting, the last securing hammer ona stake or two and lo, the circus tent was raised!

  A second tent was erected over the animal wagons and vans which had beenarranged in a half circle and the horses removed. Then smaller tentswere put up and painted signs hung out to advertise differentside-shows.

  “Where do you suppose all the queer people of the side-shows were whilethe percession was going on? The bearded woman, the armless man and allthose?” whispered Jane to her brother.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they were shut up inside of some of those closedwagons.”

  “Oh, I should think that would be lots of fun,” laughed Jane. “Makingpeople think you were some kind of a wild animal when really you weresomething lots more wonderful.”

  Presently grandfather reappeared, followed by Mr. Drake and Letty. Mrs.Drake joined them, carrying her baby, who insisted upon Letty’s takinghim at once, and chuckling with delight in her arms.

  “So you are the little girl who saved my precious grandchildren from thedreadful 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 anotherlife when I did that. It happened so long ago and so much else hashappened since. I was very happy then,” and the tears she could notcontrol filled her sad brown eyes.

  Jane looked at her in distress.

  “Don’t cry, Letty,” she whispered, drawing her aside. “You never used tocry. 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 beingin a circus.”

  “Poor little girl,” murmured grandmother sympathetically.

  Then Mrs. Drake joined them and grandfather went away with the managerto buy tickets for the performance and then to look at a group of workhorses 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 andgood-naturedly gave her consent, taking the heavy, unwilling baby againinto her own arms. The children ran off, leaving the two women standingtalking together.

  “Tell me what you can about Letty, Mrs. Drake. We are very muchinterested,” said grandmother and she explained who she was and why shewas so much interested in the little circus girl.

  “I am very sorry for Letty, mem,” replied Mrs. Drake sadly. “Hermother’s death was very hard on her, poor little thing, and then whenher 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. Shespoke very affectionately of you just now.”

  “She has been with us ever since her mother’s death, but I don’t knowwhat’s to become of her now,” and the good woman sighed. “I promised herbrother she should be to us like our own child, and so she has, up tonow.”

  “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? Thiswill be our last appearance; the circus breaks up to-night. Mr. Drakehas 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 sellssome of the work horses.”

  “Have the Shetland ponies been sold?”

  “Not yet. They’d be very nice for children to have as pets,” repliedMrs. Drake quickly, with an eye to business.

  Mrs. Baker smiled understandingly.

  “I was not thinking of ourselves, but of a friend of mine,” she saidquietly. “But, Mrs. Drake, I want to ask you please to keep me postedabout Letty’s whereabouts. Here is my card with the address on it. Inthe autumn I think I should like to place her in some good school whereshe can study and be equipped for making her way in the world. I am suremy daughter-in-law would be glad to have me do it in return for Letty’sact of heroism in saving the children’s lives. My daughter did try tofind the child that same autumn after her mother’s death.”

  “She was living with us, quite in the neighborhood. But I never thoughtof leaving an address,” exclaimed Mrs. Drake in some dismay. “I shouldhate 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 matterfor what reason,” she continued earnestly. “Her mother was a real ladyand always hoped her little girl could be properly brought up. She’s farabove such folk as us, mem,” she added humbly.

  Indeed, Mrs. Baker’s idea was to begin doing something for Letty’s goodbefore the autumn, but this plan must be considered very seriouslybefore it could be carried out.

  Letty and the twins came running back to them. Letty’s eyes were shiningand there was a pink glow in her thin cheeks. She looked more like herold, bright, cheerful self than she had since her mother’s death. Thechildren were greatly excited.

  “Oh, grandmother,” exclaimed Jane, “Letty says the Shetland ponies arefor sale and we thought——”

  “We thought Mrs. Hartwell-Jones might want to buy ’em,” put inChristopher.

  “Don’t you remember, grandmother,” went on Jane, “how Mrs.Hartwell-Jones said after she had sprained her ankle that she wished shehad a Bath chair and when Kit asked what that was she said it was a bigchair with wheels that they harnessed a pony to, to drive sick peopleabout. So I thought——”

  “We thought Mrs. Hartwell-Jones might like to buy Punch and Judy,”finished Christopher, taking advantage of Jane’s breathlessness to putthe climax to her tale.

  Mrs. Baker smiled.

  “Bless your hearts, children, I had thought of the very same thing. Wemust talk it over with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. There is plenty of time.”

  “And, grandmother, Josh came to tell us dinner is ready. Please, can’tLetty 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 feltobliged to make those pies—with quantities of cinnamon—if she had had toneglect 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 tostrengthen the resolve that was forming in her mind.

  T
he picnic was a very jolly affair, and Letty felt that she had notenjoyed herself so much since that happy summer, three long yearsbefore—which she and her mother had spent out in the country near WillowGrove. 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 insistingupon 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 dishesin the brook. The time passed by much more rapidly than any one realizedand Letty had to run off very hastily at length, in order to be ready intime to take her place in the grand march at the opening of the circusperformance. It was agreed before she left that Mr. Baker should returnin the morning to see about Punch and Judy and he promised the twins tobring 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 insidethe tent. Grandfather gave Joshua tickets for Huldah and himself, andthen he and grandmother and the twins crossed the wide field again.

  THEY GIGGLED AT EVERYTHING THE CLOWN SAID]

  There was a great hubbub about the group of tents; men were calling outthe attractions of the side-shows, a band was playing and boys movedabout through the crowd with trays of peanuts and lemonade, shoutingtheir wares in shrill, loud voices.

  All boys and girls who have been to a circus know exactly how Janeand Christopher felt when they got inside that tent. It was notthe first circus they had been to, by any means, but that doesnot make any difference; one always has that same furry creepinessin 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 handswildly when the trick elephant bowed and waltzed; and shut their eyestight—at least Jane did—when the “human fly” walked upside down on apiece of boarding suspended from the top of the tent like a ceiling.

  Christopher liked the Indians attacking the stage-coach best, andwriggled rapturously at each blood-curdling war-whoop. But Jane wasfaithful to her love of the lady in pink tights and watched her withopen eyes and open mouth, as she stood jauntily upright upon abarebacked horse and sprang gracefully through paper-covered hoops.

  “I wonder if Letty knows her,” she whispered to Christopher. “I mean toask to-morrow.”

  But it was the Shetland ponies and their little trainer that heldgrandmother’s attention. She watched Letty long and carefully, and saidsomething to grandfather in a voice too low for the children to hear.

  That evening, after Jane and Christopher were tucked away in bed, thegrown-ups, Mr. and Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, had a long, longtalk together. It was all about Letty, or most of it, for the Shetlandponies came in for a little share in the discussion.

  Dear little Letty, if only she could have overheard that conversationshe would not have spent such a wakeful, unhappy night. She had passedthree very hard, sad years, but better days were in sight again. As hermother had said, the little girl had the faculty of making friends.