But Big Jim stood apart. He was thinking of the buttons that his clumsy fingers used to force into the stiff, starchy holes too small for them and of the pigtails so stubborn at the ends; and Toby was remembering the little shoes that had once needed to be laced in the cold, dark mornings, and the strings that were always snapping.
Something had gone.
They were not philosophers to reason like Emerson, that for everything we lose we gain something; they were simple souls, these two, they could only feel.
Chapter II
WHILE Polly sat in the dressing tent, listening indifferently to the chatter about the “Leap of Death” girl, Jim waited in the lot outside, opening and shutting a small, leather bag which he had bought for her that day. He was as blind to the picturesque outdoor life as she to her indoor surroundings, for he, too, had been with the circus since his earliest recollection.
The grass enclosure, where he waited, was shut in by a circle of tents and wagons. The great, red property vans were waiting to be loaded with the costumes and tackle which were constantly being brought from the “big top,” where the evening performance was now going on. The gay striped curtains at the rear of the tent were looped back to give air to the panting musicians, who sat just inside. Through the opening, a glimpse of the audience might be had, tier upon tier, fanning and shifting uneasily. Near the main tent stood the long, low dressing “top,” with the women performers stowed away in one end, the “ring horses” in the centre, and the men performers in the other end.
A temporary curtain was hung between the main and the dressing tent, to shut out the curious mob that tried to peep in at the back lot for a glimpse of things not to be seen in the ring.
Coloured streamers, fastened to the roofs of the tents, waved and floated in the night air and beckoned to the towns-people on the other side to make haste to get their places, forget their cares, and be children again.
Over the tops of the tents, the lurid light of the distant red fire shot into the sky, accompanied by the cries of the peanut “butchers,” the popcorn boys, the lemonade venders,{sic} and the exhortations of the side-show “spieler,” whose flying banners bore the painted reproductions of his “freaks.” Here and there stood unhitched chariots, half filled trunks, trapeze tackle, paper hoops, stake pullers or other “properties” necessary to the show.