The docile child slid off the lounge and stood against it, piping directly one of her songs. Yet while her trembling treble arose, she had a troubled expression, and twisted her fingers about each other.
In an instant this expression became one of helpless terror. She crowded back against the lounge and tried to hide herself behind Bobaday and Corinne.
They looked toward the door, and saw standing there the young man who sold tickets at the entrance of the pig-headed individual's show. His hands were in his pockets, but he appeared ready to intone forth:
“Walk right in, ladies and gentlemen, and hear Fairy Carrie, the child vocalist!” And the smoky torch was not needed to reveal his satisfaction in standing just where he did.
CHAPTER XVIII. “COME TO MAMMA!”
Though the dissipated looking young man only stood at the door a moment, and then walked out on the log steps at a sauntering pace, he left dismay behind him. Aunt Corinne flew to her mother, imploring that Carrie be hid. Robert Day stood up before the child, frowning and shaking his head.
“All the pig-headed folks will be after her,” exclaimed aunt Corinne. “They'll come right into this room so soon as that fellow tells them. Le's run out the back way, Ma Padgett!”
Grandma Padgett, who had been giving the full strength of her spectacles to the failing light and her knitting, beheld this excitement with disapproval.
“You'll have my needles out,” she objected. “What pig-headed folks are after what? Robert, have you hurt Sissy?”