"Tired waiting?" asked Billy Blow.
"Oh, no," answered Andy, "I could watch this forever, I think."
"It would soon get stale," declared the clown, with a faint smile. "Give us a hand, partner—one at a time, and we'll get my togs and ourselves under cover."
Andy took one handle of the box, the clown the other. They carried it to the door of one of twenty small tents near the cook's quarters. They brought the wicker trunk also, and then carried box and trunk inside the tent.
Andy looked about it curiously. A candle burned on a bench. Beyond it was a mattress. Near one side, and boxed in by platform sections as if to keep off draughts, was a second smaller mattress.
On a stool near it sat a thin-faced, lady-like woman. She was smiling down at a little boy lying huddled up in shawls and a comforter.
"This is my boy, Wildwood," spoke Billy Blow. "New hand, Midge—if he makes good."
The little fellow nodded in a grave, mature way at Andy. According to his size, he resembled a child of four. That was why they called him Midget. Andy learned later that he was ten years old. He had an act with the circus, going around the ring perched on the shoulders of a bare-back rider. He also sometimes had a part with "the Tom Thumb acrobats," doing some clever hoop-jumping with a trick Shetland pony.
He seemed to be just recovering from a fit of sickness. His face, prematurely old, was pinched and colorless.
"Our Columbine in the Humpty Dumpty afterpiece," was the way the clown introduced the lady. "I don't know how to thank you for all your trouble, Miss Nellis."