Letty and the Twins Part 7

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 s.p.a.ce 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 bra.s.sy bra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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.