“Why, she was breathing a mile or two back,” the one they called Betty said. “I looked in at her and gave her a drink.” “We didn’t stay in the wagon because it shut out the air,” explained the other. “Zalie here, wanted to stay with her mamma, but we coaxed her not to, for the poor thing needed all the air she could get.” But the girl was in the wagon now, letting her tears rain on the face of the only one in all the world she ever had called her own. Betty Bowen began to call to her to come out, but Ma McBirney said: “Just let her cry! Poor little thing—she’s just got to cry.” Betty Bowen, and her friend Susan Hetter, began to sniffle a little too, but Mary McBirney looking at them made up her mind that they were not caring very much. They looked too dragged out to care about anything. The dust of the road seemed to have got into their very skin; they looked as if they never had slept in a proper bed or dressed in a proper room; and though Mrs. McBirney did not like them, and could hardly keep from drawing away from them, she felt very sorry for them too. “Where’s the girl’s pa?” she asked them. “We don’t know,” Betty Bowen said. “Mrs. Knox—that’s the dead woman, ma’am—never said anything about him.” “Ain’t she got no kin?” asked ma gently. “None that we know of, ma’am.” Jim stood looking on, his lips pressed hard together. The girl’s mother was dead. _Her mother was dead_! Why, that must be like having the world come to an end, pretty near. If your mother was dead, it didn’t matter if you did belong to a show. But that boy over there, his mother wasn’t dead, and yet he acted as “dumb” as a snail. Jim felt that if he, himself, belonged to a show he’d be yelling and jumping and having a whopping time. Every spare minute he’d be practicing up in his part. But these folks acted as if they hardly had life enough to cross the yard; and as for the horses, their heads hung down and their bones stuck out as if they were ready for the buzzards to pick. Jim hated to have that girl crying like that. There was no fun in having a show in your yard when a girl was making such a noise. He tried to forget about it, and walked around looking in the wagons—not the wagon where the girl was, but the others—hoping to find some wild animals in cages. But the only wild animals he saw were made out of wood. “What’s them for?” he asked one of the men, pointing to a wooden zebra and a somewhat faded tiger. “For the merry-go-round,” said the man. “Ever see one?” Jim shook his head, and the man tried to tell him what a merry-go-round was like. Jim was disgusted to think how long he had lived without seeing anything like that. “I should think,” he said to the man, “that this here bench would be a good place to set up your show.” “Oh, fine!” answered the man with a disagreeable laugh. “Then all the jack rabbits and spit cats in the whole neighborhood could come, couldn’t they?”