Girl Alone Part 10

To Sally it was all like a dream, a fantastic, lovely dream-except that in dreams you are never permitted to eat the feast that your hunger makes so real. And not even in a dream could she have imagined anything so good as the thick, furry, dark-brown buckwheat cakes, plastered with golden b.u.t.ter and swimming in maple syrup.

And Eddie Cobb's voice seemed real enough, although the things he was telling her and David in the hastily erected cook tent certainly had dream-like qualities. And David, sighing with satisfaction over his third plateful of hot cakes, was gloriously real. So was the long, rough-pine counter at which they ate, and behind which the big negro cook sang songs as he worked before a huge smoky oil stove. Tables scattered throughout the tent and covered with worn oilcloth reminded her of the refectory of the orphanage which now seemed so far away in the past of her childhood. She drew her wondering eyes from their exploration of the cook tent, focussed them on Eddie Cobb's freckled, good-natured face, listened to what he was telling them:

"This is a pretty good outfit. We carry our own show train, even for the short jumps, and the star performers and the big boss and the barkers-when they're flush-eat in the dining car. Got a special cook for the big bugs, waiters and everything. 'Course sometimes we can't get show grounds clost enough to the railroad to use the cars much, but in this burg we're lucky enough to get a lot pretty clost to a siding. The performers will sleep in their berths, less'n it gets too hot and they want their tents pitched on the lot."

"What do you do in the carnival, Eddie?" Sally asked respectfully.

"Oh, I'm helpin' Lucky Looey on the wheels. Gamblin' concessions, you know," he enlarged grandly. "Looey's got three kewpie dolls booths and I'm in charge of one of 'em. Old Bybee-Winfield Bybee-owns the show and travels with it-not like most owners. He owns the concessions and lets concessionaires operate 'em on percentage. He owns the freaks and the girlie show and the high-diver and all the ridin' rackets-ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, whips 'n everything. He'll be showin' up any minute now and I'll give you a knockdown to him."

"You're so good to us, Eddie," Sally glowed at him. "David and I hadn't an idea what we should do, and we were so hungry we could have eaten field corn off the stalks."

"You looked all in," Eddie grinned at her. "So you run away, too, Sally.

Couldn't stand the racket any longer, eh? Is David here a buddy you picked up on the road? Gos.h.!.+ To think of little Sally Ford hoboing?"

"I'm afraid I've taken advantage of your friends.h.i.+p for Sally, Cobb,"

David said. "The truth is, Cobb-"

"Aw, make it Eddie. We're all buddies, ain't we?"

"Well, the truth is, Eddie, that I'm afraid I'm a fugitive from justice.

I wanted to take Sally back to the orphanage and give myself up for murder-"

"Gawd!" Eddie e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, paling. Then something like admiration glittered in his little black eyes. "Put the soft pedal on, Dave. Don't let n.o.body hear you-"

"It wasn't murder, Eddie," Sally interrupted eagerly, her hand going out to close on David's rea.s.suringly. "It was-an accident, in a way. Tell him, David. Eddie will understand."

The cook tent was filling up, so David lowered his voice to a murmur as he told Eddie Cobb, briefly but accurately, the story of his probably fatal attack upon Clem Carson.

"Jees!" Eddie breathed, when the recital was finished. "I hope you finished for him! If the old buzzard ain't dead-and I'll bet he ain't-I'd like to take a crack at him myself. You two kids stick with us. I'll tip off Bybee and I'm a son-of-a-gun if he don't give you both jobs. The concessions are always short of help-"

"Oh, Eddie, if he only would!" Sally gasped. Then sudden doubt clouded her bright face. "But Eddie, we'd be so conspicuous with the carnival.

The police would lay hands on us as soon as we showed our faces-"

"Not if the Big Boss took you under his wing," Eddie rea.s.sured her. "In the carnival the Big Boss is the law. I'll speak to him myself."

The carnival roustabouts-big, rough-looking, powerful negroes in unders.h.i.+rts and soiled, nondescript trousers-eyed the trio curiously as they pa.s.sed from one tent to another, Eddie gesticulating like a Cook's Tour conductor.

"Jees, Sally, I never expected to see any of you kids again," Eddie interrupted his monologue, which was like Greek to his guests.

"Have you ever been sorry you ran away, Eddie?" Sally asked, wistfully desiring rea.s.surance, for it was still impossible for her to picture life independent of state charity.

Eddie snorted. "I've been seeing life, I have. New York and Chi and San Looey and all the big towns. But I reckon it's easier for a boy. I never did want to go back, but I've thought many a time I'd like to see some of the kids." He blushed crimson under his big freckles. "How-how's Ruby, Sally? You know-Ruby Presser? She still there? She must be seventeen now. She was two years younger'n me. I sorta figger on marryin' Ruby one of these days-say, what's the matter?" he broke off abruptly.

"Ruby-Ruby's dead, Eddie. Didn't you read about it in the papers?"

"Ruby-dead? You-you ain't kiddin' me, Sally? Ruby-dead!"

Sally's distressed blue eyes fluttered to David's face as if for help.

"Ruby-fell-out of a fifth story window, Eddie-last September," Sally admitted in a choked voice.

"After she had spent the summer on the Carson farm, Eddie," David broke in quietly, significantly.

Sally closed her eyes so as not to see the conflict of rage and grief in Eddie Cobb's boyish face.

"I hope to G.o.d you did kill him, David!" Eddie burst out at last. "If you didn't, I'll finish him!"

"What's all this, Eddie?" a great bellow brought them all to startled attention. "Old home week? Get to your work! Lucky's howling for you.

Who the h.e.l.l do you think's going to set out the dolls?"

Eddie's importance was suddenly shattered. The big man, who seemed to Sally to be as tall as the giant whom he advertised as a star attraction, came striding across the stubby, dusty lot. His enormous head, topped with a wide-brimmed black felt hat in defiance of the torrid June weather, showed a fringe of long-curling white hair which reached almost to the shoulders of his Prince Albert coat.

"I'd like to speak to you a minute, sir," Eddie urged.

After another frowning, considering up-and-down glance at David and Sally, but particularly at Sally, the big man strode away with Eddie, out of earshot.

"If the big man does take us, you won't be sorry, will you, David?"

Sally whispered, clinging to David's hand.

"Dear little Sally!" David drew her close against him for a moment. They stood close to each other, Sally not caring if the interview between Bybee and Eddie prolonged itself interminably, for David was there, thinking-she could feel his thoughts-"Dear little Sally"-

But after only a few minutes Winfield Bybee and Eddie came across the stubble toward them. Bybee spoke, gruffly:

"Eddie here has been telling me that you two kids have got yourselves into a peck of trouble, and want to hide out a bit. Well, I reckon a traveling carnival is about the best place in G.o.d's world to hide.

Anybody that wants to bother you will have to deal with Winfield Bybee, and I ain't yet turned any of my family over to a village constable.

Now, Dave-that your name?-if you want to keep out of sight, reckon I'd better let you help Buck, the cook on the privilege car.

"Sometimes Buck gets too chummy with a bootlegger and his K. P. has to rustle the chow alone, but otherwise the boy's all right. And you, Sally-" His keen eyes narrowed speculatively, took in the little flushed face, the big eyes sparkling. Then one of his big hands reached out and lifted the heavy braid of black hair that hung to her waist, weighed it, studied it thoughtfully.

"Right this way, la-dees and gen-tle-men! Step right up and see Boffo, the ostrich man, eat gla.s.s, nails, toothpicks, lead pipe, or what have you! He chews 'em up and swallows 'em like a kid eats candy! Boffo digests anything and everything from horseshoes to jack-knives! Any gentlemen present got a jack-knife for Boffo's dinner? Come on, folks!

Don't be bashful! Don't let Boffo go hungry!"

The spieler's voice went on and on, challenging, commanding, exhorting, bullying the gaping crowd of country people who surged after him like sheep. Admission to "The Palace of Wonders," a tent which housed a score of freaks and fakers, was 25 cents. It still seemed wonderful to Sally that she was there without having paid admission, that she-she, Sally Ford, runaway ward of the state!-was one of the many attractions which the farmers and villagers had paid their hard-earned money to see.

Dimly through the crowd came the voice of the barker and ticket seller in his tall, red, scarred box outside the tent: "All right, all right!

Here you are! Only a quarter-25 cents-two bits-to see the big show!

Performance just started! Step right up! All right, boys, this way!

Don't let your girls call you a piker! Two bits pays for it all! See the half-man half-woman! See the girl n.o.body can lift! Try and lift her, boys! Little and pretty as a picture, but heavy as lead! All right, step right in! Don't crowd! Room for everybody! See Princess Lalla, the Harem Crystal Gazer! Sees all, knows all! See Pitty Sing, the smallest woman in the world-"

Incredible! On Sat.u.r.day, just two days ago, she had been peeling apples to make pies for the Carson family. Today she was a member of a carnival troupe, under the protection of Winfield Bybee, owner of all these weird creatures about whom the spieler was chanting. It was too unreal to be true.

There had been twelve solid hours of sleep. Then had come a marvelously satisfying supper in the dining car, or "privilege" car, with Bybee himself introducing her to those astonis.h.i.+ng people whom the spieler was now exhibiting to the curious country people. The giant, a Hollander named Jan something-or-other, had bent from vast heights to take her hand; the tiny male midget, a Hawaiian billed merely as Noko, had gravely asked her, in a tiny, piping voice, if she would sew a b.u.t.ton on his miniature coat for him; the bearded "lady" was a man, after all, a man with a naturally falsetto voice and tiny hands and feet. Boffo, the human ostrich, had disappointed her by being satisfied with a very ordinary diet of corned beef and cabbage. The fat girl, who had confided to Sally that she only weighed 380 pounds, though she was billed as "tipping the scales" at 620, had patiently drunk gla.s.s after gla.s.s of milk, until a gallon had been consumed-all in the interest of keeping her weight up and adding to it.

Then Bybee had taken her to his wife, a thin, hatchet-faced shrew of a woman who seemed to suspect everything in petticoats of having designs on her husband, and who in turn, seemed to feel equally sure that every man must envy him the possession of such a wonderful woman as his wife.

His deference toward her touched Sally even as it amused her.