Dan’s eyes were aflame with curiosity. “Tonic?” he whispered. “What are you trying to hand me?” New worlds were rapidly opening for the young czar.
“Skin tonic—to get their coats in shape for the opening on Decoration Day. Sometimes they’re as glossy as silk by spring. Pa and Ma used to do it when I was too little, but their coughs got awful bad, so I took the job.”
“You mean—you swear to goodness,” Dan’s voice sunk to an excited whisper, “you rubbed tonic on—on a tiger?”
Thurley nodded carelessly; she saw no cause for agitation. “Yes, they need a lot—almost as much as the giraffe—his neck’s so long. After we used pails of it on the giraffe, he died—wasn’t that tough beans? The men holds ’em and we keep pouring it on and rubbing it on—they get real used to it after awhile—most of ’em haven’t any teeth anyhow. I wouldn’t be scared of any circus animal, if I had a pail of our tonic with me—they all know it for an old friend. It comes in a big, red pail labelled ‘Ma Thorpe’s Sheep Dip—Cures Man and Beast Alike.’ Why, one clown was the baldest thing you ever saw and he nearly beat the Sutherland Sisters at their own game when spring came, and the bearded lady never sat down for a moment that she wasn’t dipping her hand in a little saucer of it and rubbing it on her chin.”
“I declare,” sighed Dan, fairly writhing with envy. “What else do you do?”
“Paint the props over, and the clown practises his shines, and Ma and the bearded lady went over all the property tights and costumes and darned and washed ’em and sewed on new spangles. It was like a real family. You know,” she edged up confidentially, “I always played that it was a family—with the india-rubber man and his wife for the father and mother, and the clowns and acrobats for uncles and aunts, and all the animals—except the snakes—were my brothers and sisters. I played the snakes were out-of-town relations.”
“And what were your own father and mother?” Dan managed to inquire.
“Merely neighbors,” Thurley said with chilly politeness.
Presently Dan sighed, “I wisht you’d stay in this town. Don’t your father or mother ever work or anything?”
“They’re sick. I guess I ought to have been their father and mother. All the way here I sung for food and sold tins. Ma didn’t tell but two fortunes all the time. She got a summer squash for one and some lake trout for the other.”