Sandhelo was a very small donkey, standing no higher than a Shetland pony, and when the old lady was seated on his back her feet dragged on the ground. Calmly crossing them underneath his body, she gave his tail a smart jerk, accompanied by the shrill command, “Giddap!” Sandhelo, mortified to death at the undignified position of his rider, had but one idea in his mind—to escape from the gibing crowd and hide his head in his stable. Around the ring he flew as fast as his tiny legs would carry him, the old woman sticking to him like a burr, her bonnet strings flying in the wind, her big slippers flapping against his sides, and her shrill voice urging him on to greater speed. The act brought down the house and a whole row of folding camp chairs collapsed under the strain of the applause.
Beside himself with rage and shame, Sandhelo bolted into the barn and carried his strange rider into the midst of the company of players. Sliding off his back, she looked around the ring of curious faces before her with little twinkling gray eyes. Then she held out her hand suggestively. “Where’s the quarter I git fer ridin’ the mule?” she asked. Something in her voice awakened a memory in Hinpoha’s mind. In a twinkling she was carried back to the incident at Raymond’s that noon when Miss Parker stopped to present her cousin from the west. Surely there never were two such voices! At the same time Hinpoha noticed that the old woman’s gray hair was sliding back on her head, and a long wisp of yellowish hair was hanging out underneath. She stared at the curious figure in growing wonder, and the woman stared back at her with a knowing grin that became wider every moment. Then with a quick movement the old woman snatched off a gray wig, mopped a damp handkerchief over her face, produced a pair of glasses from some pocket in the wide skirt, and stood before them the same awkward, ungainly creature that Hinpoha had met that noon. It was Katherine Adams, Miss Parker’s cousin.
Such a babel there was when Hinpoha recognized the strange comedian and presented her to the others! The waiting audience was completely forgotten as they listened fascinated while Katherine explained how she had come “by special invitation” to the circus and had decided that people who had “pep” enough to get up a circus were worth knowing, and the best way to get acquainted with the players was to be in the show herself. So she had joined the company without the formality of being asked.
“You’re appointed assistant clown for the remainder of the circus,” said Nyoda.
“And you’re invited to the spread upstairs afterwards,” said Hinpoha.
“It’s time for the Chair-iot Race,” said the Captain warningly, and the players returned to their duties with a guilty start. The new comedian proved such a diversion and put the regular clown up to so many tricks that he would never have thought of by himself, that the audience refused to go home when the big show was over, and called for encore after encore.
“Let’s get her to sell cocoa,” suggested Gladys; “they’ll buy from her when they wouldn’t from us.”
So Katherine, who up until a few hours ago had never heard of the Winnebagos and Sandwiches, did more for them in the way of dispensing cups of cocoa at five cents a cup than they were able to do for themselves. She made such inimitably droll speeches in her efforts to advertise her wares that the audience crowded around her just to hear her talk, and bought and bought until the huge kettles were empty and the paper box till was full. The small boys crowded around the Ringmaster, demanding their ride on the trick mule, and, tearing himself away from the fascinating orator, he betook himself to the barn, followed by the whole string of would-be riders. But when he arrived there the stall was empty and Sandhelo was nowhere to be found. Loud chorus of disappointment from the small boys. The Captain turned their interest in Sandhelo to account by enlisting them in the search for him, but it was vain. Nowhere could they find a trace of him. His shame at the indignity heaped upon him that afternoon had been too great. Finding his stall left open in the excitement he had escaped and wandered off while the attention of everyone was riveted on the antics of the new comedian, and hid his head among new scenes and faces. The small boys finally gave up and went home, partly consoled by the assurance that if Sandhelo ever turned up again the promised ride would still be theirs, and the players, rather exhausted, but exulting over the success of the performance, gathered in the Winnebago room of the Open Door Lodge for the jollification spread.
Katherine Adams was the lioness of the evening. Begged for a speech, she obligingly mounted the table and held a discourse that left her hearers limp with merriment. What she said was sidesplitting enough, but her gestures, her expression and her voice were beyond description. She spoke in a lazy southern drawl, mixed up with a nasal twang, and the peculiarly veiled, husky quality of her voice gave it a sound the like of which was never heard before. She still wore the big flapping slippers and had much ado to keep them on when she climbed on the table with the mincing air of a young miss making an elocution lesson. She planted her feet carefully, heels together and toes apart, taking several minutes in the operation, and then surveyed them with a silly smirk of satisfaction that was convulsing. When her discourse became a little heated the feet suddenly flew around and toed in until both heels and toes were in a straight line. At the ripple of laughter which this called forth she looked down at her feet with a sad, pained expression and carefully set them right again. A few moments later she again waxed eloquent and again the feet turned, seemingly of themselves, and this time her toes pointed outward until toes and heels were all one straight line. The shrieks of delight made her look down again, with that same puzzled, pained expression, and again she set them right in an affected manner.
When the speech was over the boys and girls begged her to do it again, and kept her speechifying until she declared she had no voice left to whisper. “You know I have to be very careful of my voice,” she said in a tone of confiding simplicity. “It’s so sweet that I’m afraid of cracking it all the time.”