"You must come around to the big barn Friday night, after the circus."
"—the circus?"
"Oh, we have a circus of our own every summer about this time ... we represent the animals ourselves ... some of us don't need to make up much, neither, if we only knew it," he roared.
"After the imitation circus, the real circus will begin. I have compelled the announcement of a general meeting to discuss my grievances, and that of others, who are not game enough to speak for themselves."
I found nobody but Hildreth—Mrs. Baxter—at home, when I returned. She was lying back in the hammock where Penton lounged to read his news clippings ... near the outdoor table ... dressed easily in her bloomers and white middy blouse with the blue bow tie ... her great, brown eyes, with big jet lashes, drooping langourously over her healthy, rounded cheeks ... her head of rich, dark hair touseled attractively. She was reading a book. I caught the white gleam of one of her pretty legs where the elastic on one side of her bloomers had slipped up.
Alone with her, a touch of my old almost paralytic shyness returned ... but the pathway to my tent lay so near her hammock I would almost brush against its side in passing....
She looked up. She gazed at me indefinitely, as if coming back from a far dream to reality.
"Oh, Johnnie Gregory! You?" fingering her hair with flexible fingers like a violinist trying his instrument.
"Yes!" I stopped abruptly and flushed.