“Why, Ma,” I interrupted. But by that time we were right in front of the tent. Looked like real canvas because it billowed gently. I said, “I haven’t got the heart. Who wants to look through this time?”
But Ma already had her head through the flap of the tent. I heard her say, “Why, hello Sam, you old soak.”
I said, “Ma, quit kidding or I’ll—”
But by that time I was past her and inside the tent, and it was a tent, all four sides of one, and a good big one at that. And it was lined with the old familiar coin machines. There, counting coins in the change booth, was Sam Heideman, looking up with almost as much surprise on his face as there must have been on mine.
He said, “Pop Wherry! I’ll be a dirty name.” Only he didn’t say “dirty name”—but he didn’t get around to apologizing to Ma and Ellen for that until he and I had pounded each other’s backs and he had shaken hands around and been introduced to Johnny Lane.
It was just like old times on the carny lots of Mars and Venus. He was telling Ellen how she’d been ” so high” when he’d seen her last and did she really remember him?
And then Ma sniffed.
When Ma sniffs like that, there’s something to look at, and I got my eyes off dear old Sam and looked at Ma and then at where Ma was looking. I didn’t sniff, but I gasped.
A woman was coming forward from the back of the tent, and when I call her a woman it’s because I can’t think of the right word if there is one. She was St. Cecilia and Guinevere and a Petty girl all ironed into one. She was like a sunset in New Mexico and the cold silver moons of Mars seen from the Equatorial Gardens. She was like a Venusian valley in the spring and like Dorzalski playing the violin. She was really something.
I heard another gasp from alongside me, and it was unfamiliar. Took me a second to realize why it was unfamiliar; I’d never heard Johnny Lane gasp before. It was an effort, but I shifted my eyes for a look at his face. And I thought, “Oh—oh. Poor Ellen.” For the poor boy was gone, no question about it.