MANDY had secretly enjoyed the commotion caused by the little circus-rider being left in the parsonage, at first, because of her inborn love of mischief, and later, because Polly had become second in her heart only to the pastor. She went about her work, crooning softly during the days of Polly's convalescence. The deep, steady voice of the pastor reading aloud in the pretty window overhead was company. She would often climb the stairs to tell them some bit of village gossip, and leave them laughing at a quaint comment about some inquisitive sister of the church, who had happened to incur her displeasure.
As spring came on, Douglas carried Polly down to the sun-lit garden beneath the window; and Mandy fluttered about arranging the cushions with motherly solicitude.
More days slipped by, and Polly began to creep through the little, soft-leaved trees at the back of the church, and to look for the deep, blue, sweet-scented violets. When she was able, Douglas took her with him to visit some of the outlying houses of the poor. Her woman's instinct was quick to perceive many small needs in their lives that he had overlooked, and to suggest simple, inexpensive joys that made them her devoted friends.
Their evenings were divided between making plans for these unfortunates and reading aloud from the Bible or other books.
When Polly gained courage, Douglas sometimes persuaded her to read to him—and the little corrections that he made at these times soon became noticeable in her manner of speech. She was so eager, so starved for knowledge, that she drank it as fast as he could give it. It was during their talks about grammar that Mandy generally fell asleep in her rocker, her unfinished sewing still in her lap.
When a letter came from Jim and Toby, it was always shared equally by Mandy and Hasty, Polly and the pastor. But at last a letter came from Jim only, and Douglas, who was asked to read it, faltered and stopped after the first few words.
“It's no use my tryin' to keep it from you any longer, Poll,” the letter began, “we ain't got Toby with us no more. He didn't have no accident, it wasn't that. He just seemed kinder sick and ailin' like, ever since the night we had to leave you behind. I used to get him warm drinks and things, and try to pull 'im through, but he was always a-chillin' and a-achin'. If it wasn't one thing the matter, it was another. I done all I knowed you'd a-wanted me to, an' the rest of the folks was mighty white to him, too. I guess they kinder felt how lonesome he was. He couldn't get no more laughs in the show, so Barker had to put on another man with him. That kinder hurt him too—I s'pose—an' showed him the way that things was a-goin'. It was just after that, he wrote the parson a-tellin' him to never let you come back. He seemed to a' got an idee in his head that you was happier where you was. He wouldn't let me tell ye 'bout his feelin' so rocky, 'cause he thought it might mebbe make you come back. 'She's diff'runt from us,' he was allus a-sayin'. 'I never 'spected to keep 'er.'”
Douglas stopped. Polly was waiting, her face white and drawn. He had not told her of Toby's letter, because with it had come a request to “say nothin' to the kid.”
He felt that Polly was controlling herself with an effort until he should reach the end of Jim's letter, so he hurried on.
“The parson's promise didn't get to him none too quick,” he read. “That seemed to be what he was waitin' for. He give up the night it come, and I got him a little room in a hotel after the show, and let one of the other fellers get the stuff out o' town, so's I could stay with him up to the finish. It come 'round mornin'. There wasn't much to it—he just seemed tired and peaceful like. 'I'm glad he wrote what he did,' he said, meanin' the parson. 'She knows, she allus knows,' he whispered, meanin' you, Poll, and then he was on his way. He'd already give me what was saved up for you, and I'm sendin' it along with this—” A blue money order for two hundred and fifty dollars had fluttered from the envelope when Douglas opened it.
“I got everythin' ready afore I went on the next day, an' I went up and saw the little spot on the hill where they was goin' to stow him. It looked kinder nice and the digger's wife said she'd put some flowers on to it now and then. It was YOU what made me think o' that, Poll, 'cause it seemed to me what you would a' done; you was always so daffy about flowers, you and him.
“I guess this letter's too long for me to be a-sayin' much about the show, but the 'Leap-a-Death' girl got hern last week. She wasn't strong enough for the job, nohow. I done what I could for her outside the show, 'cause I knowed how you was always a-feelin' 'bout her. I guess the 'Leap-a-Death's' husband is goin' to jump his job soon, if he gets enough saved up, 'cause him and Barker can't hit it off no more. We got a good deal o' trouble among the animals, too. None o' the snakes is sheddin' like they ought to, and Jumbo's a-carryin' a sixteen foot bandage around that trunk a' hisn, 'cause he got too fresh with Trixy's grub the other night, and the new giraffe's got the croup in that seven-foot neck o' his'n. I guess you'll think I got the pip for fair this time, so I'll just get onto myself now and cut this short. I'll be writin' you agin when we hit Morgantown.
“Your old Muvver Jim.”
Douglas laid the letter gently on the table, his hand still resting upon it. He looked helplessly at the little, shrunken figure in the opposite chair. Polly had made no sound, but her head had slipped lower and lower and she now sat very quietly with her face in her hands. She had been taught by Toby and Jim never to whimper.
“What a plucky lot they are,” thought Douglas, as he considered these three lonely souls, each accepting whatever fate brought with no rebellion or even surprise. It was a strange world of stoics in which these children of the amusement arena fought and lost. They came and went like phantoms, with as little consciousness of their own best interests as of the great, moving powers of the world about them. They felt no throes of envy, no bitterness. They loved and worked and “went their way.”
For once the pastor was powerless in the presence of grief. Both he and Mandy left the room quietly, feeling that Polly wished to be spared the outburst of tears that a sympathetic word might bring upon her. They allowed her to remain alone for a time, then Mandy entered softly with a tender good night and Douglas followed her cheerily as though nothing at all had happened.
It was many weeks before Polly again became a companion to Douglas and Mandy, but they did not intrude upon her grief. They waited patiently for the time when youth should again assert itself, and bring back their laughing mate to them.
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