Suddenly she turned upon us with the information that she was a circus.
"A whole circus?" asked Jean François derisively.
"A whole circus, and I'm going to perform," she informed us.
She then insisted that Jean François and I go away, as she was going to do her act on the horizontal bar. In fact, she commanded us to leave, but whatever we chose to do she nevertheless intended to do her trick. The pedler promptly turned his back and began the imitation of the kind of music played when the acrobats are out. As for me I stood my ground. She needed an audience, I insisted. Who ever heard of a circus without an audience? Then, quite to my astonishment, Nance proceeded to skin the cat. She sputtered something about getting even at her party—I remembered this afterward—as she heaved her legs between her hands, and a multitude of clothes obscured her features. I was somewhat awed by this bit of prowess. I respected her for it. Still, I, myself, fully intended, so soon as I became a man, to walk on the ceiling. Also I found myself wondering if the immortal Jean François numbered this among his accomplishments.
Just then the climax came, in the shape of her Aunt Barbara, who, silently and suddenly, like death, stood before us.
"Aunt Barbara," she explained as she dropped, a tearful little bundle of apologies, into the dust, "Aunt Barbara, I didn't want to do it before Charles. Really, I didn't, but I just couldn't get him to go away.... I hated to do it, really, but he simply would not leave."
Then to see her hurried through the crack in the fence with a sharp spank, as she stooped through the opening, almost convinced me that she was one thing on earth God had made without any purpose.
Jean François says there isn't any greater creative force in this world for pity than a very tearful, snuffy, turned-up, little girl-nose.