“What I said to Nita will hold her for a while.” Betty Tanner nodded with satisfaction. “But I don’t trust her. She’ll do something underhand if she thinks she can get away with it. But don’t worry. Once the carnival gets out of this state, you and your David will be pretty safe. I don’t think the police will bother about extradition, even if Nita should tip them off. In the meantime, I’ll break the first law of carnival and try to learn something of Nita’s past. I’ve seen her turn pale more than once when a detective or a policeman loomed up unexpectedly and seemed to be giving her the once-over. Oh, dear, I’m getting to be as slangy as any of the girls,” she mourned.
After Sally had splashed in the tin basin and had combed and braided her hair, she hesitated for a long minute over the two new dresses that had mysteriously found their way into the equally mysterious new tin trunk. She caught herself up at the thought. Of course they were not mysterious. “Pop” and Mrs. Bybee had provided them, out of the infinite kindness of their hearts. Were they always so kind to the carnival’s new recruits? Gratitude welled up in her impressionable young heart; overflowed her lips in song, as she dressed herself in the little white voile, splashed with tiny blue and yellow wild flowers.
Last night’s breeze had brought with it a light, cooling shower, and still lingered under the hot caress of the June sun. Sally sang, at Betty’s request, as she sped across vacant lots to the show train resting engineless on a spur track. At the sound of her fresh, young voice, caroling an old song of summertime and love, David Nash thrust his head out of the little high window in the box of a kitchen at the end of the dining car, and waved an egg-beater at her, lips and teeth and eyes flashing gay greetings to her.
“Better tell your David how Nita’s been carrying on,” the midget piped from Sally’s shoulder.
Song fled from Sally’s throat and heart. “No,” she shook her head. She couldn’t be a tattle-tale. If the orphanage had taught her nothing else it had taught her not to be a tale-bearer. Besides, to talk of Nita and her threats would make it necessary to tell David all that Nita had said, and at the thought Sally’s cheeks went scarlet. It might kill his friendship for her to let him know that others—apparently all the carnival folk—had labeled that friendship “love.” Why couldn’t they let her and David alone? Why snatch up this beautiful thing, this precious friendship, and maul it about, sticking labels all over it until it was ruined?
She had placed the midget in her own little high chair at her own particular table in the privilege car and was hurrying down the car bound for the cook tent and her own breakfast when Winfield Bybee and his wife entered. Mrs. Bybee was dressed as if for a journey of importance.
Winfield Bybee boomed out a greeting to Sally, tilting his head to peer into her smiling blue eyes.
“All dolled up and looking pretty enough to eat,” he chuckled. “Ain’t that a new dress?”
“Oh, yes, and it fits perfectly,” Sally glowed. “Thanks so very much for the trunk and the dresses, Mrs. Bybee,” she added, tactfully addressing the showman’s wife. “I—I’ll pay you back out of my salary as I make it—”
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Bybee demanded sternly, her eyes flashing from Sally’s flushed face to her husband’s. “I never bought you any dresses or a trunk. Now, you looka here, Winfield Bybee! I’m a woman of few words, and of a long-suffering disposition, but even a saint knows when she’s got a stomachful! I swallowed your mealy-mouthed palaverin’ about this poor little orphan, but if you’re sneaking around and buying her presents behind my back, I’ll turn her right over to the state and not lose a wink of sleep, and let me tell you this, Winfield Bybee—” Her words were a rushing torrent, heated to the boiling point by jealousy and suspicion.