Letty and the Twins

by Helen Sherman Griffith

Then followed a long line of animal cages with closed sides. A man who rode beside the driver on the first of these called out to the people that the beasts within were too fierce and wild to stand the excitement of having their cages opened on the sides so that people could see them. The spectators had to guess as to what kind of animals were shut up in these cages; the pictures painted on the outside were no guides, as each represented a whole menagerie. An elephant followed, tired looking and dejected, led by two men, and after them appeared a young girl, dressed in a purple Roman toga, driving a pair of piebald Shetland ponies.

At sight of these ponies it was Jane’s turn almost to fall out of the window in her excitement.

“Oh, Kit, grandmother, grandfather, it is Letty! It is, it is! And she’s driving Punch and Judy. Mayn’t I call to her? Oh, mayn’t I?”

“Hush, Janey, not now,” replied Mrs. Baker, clutching the squirming, excited child firmly around the waist. “We’ll arrange about it later. Grandfather will see the manager of the circus.”

“Punch and Judy look as nice as ever,” commented Christopher with a condescending air. “And Letty drives ’em well, too, you bet. But why is she rigged up in that queer way? All that purple stuff slung over her shoulder. I should think it would be in her way.”

“That’s the way people used to dress hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Don’t you remember the picture of Ben Hur in the chariot race? Letty’s dressed like that and she’s driving a sort of chariot, too.”

“Poor kind of a thing to ride in, I think. You can’t sit down,” commented Christopher. “I like the little carriage better that she used to drive.”

The heavy, closed wagons, painted red and gold, that are used to carry the tents and luggage of a circus, now appeared in line. Upon the top of every third or fourth wagon stood comic figures, men dressed in false heads of exaggerated size, who nodded and danced and performed antics to make the crowds laugh. A painted clown in a donkey cart, and a calliope (so necessary to every circus parade) brought up the rear of the procession. The calliope was playing “Wait till the Clouds Roll by, Jennie” in a loud squawk, and the people along the street whistled the tune as they shouted and exchanged jokes with the clown. It was not at all an appropriate tune, for there was not a cloud in the sky. Indeed, the light was almost too bright, for it revealed mercilessly all the bare spots on the wagons where the scarlet paint and gilt had peeled off; and it shone pitilessly upon the shabby trappings of the horses and upon the anxious, tired faces of the performers. But the crowd was neither particular nor critical and after cheering and whistling the procession out of sight, it scattered gayly to hunt up families and lunch baskets.

“Now then,” exclaimed Jane with great satisfaction, “we shall see Letty again,” and she tucked her hand into her grandmother’s.

The circus tents were pitched in a wide field just outside the town and grandfather selected the adjoining field, under a clump of trees and beside a brook, for the picnic dinner. While Josh and Huldah were unpacking the hampers Mr. and Mrs. Baker, with the twins, crossed to where the circus people were grouped. The troupe had reached Hammersmith rather late in the morning, only just in time to form for their parade, so that the tents were just now being put up.