Sally and David had met or had had pointed out to them nearly every
member of the show troupe, and there was no Steve among them. Of course
Steve might be one of the roughneck white roustabouts. But a star
performer, such as Nita considered herself, would hardly consort with
such a man. The two classes—simply did not mix, except in rare
instances. David of course was different. Everyone connected with the
carnival knew that he was a university student, working in the kitchen
with Buck only because he was hiding from the police.
Then the thought of David dismissed Nita and her threats and her Steve.
She crawled out of her berth, scurried to the women’s dressing room and
hastily applied her show make-up. Pop Bybee had summoned her to the
privilege car on her return from her momentous walk with David the night
before to caution her not to appear in Capital City, even in the dress
or cook tent, without her “Princess Lalla” complexion, which she was to
apply with exceeding care so that the disguise might be impenetrable.
Because the carnival lot selected by “the Kidder,” Pop Bybee’s advance
man and “fixer,” was in the heart of the city, and the railroad spur
allotted to the show train on the outskirts of it, the cars would be
abandoned by the carnival performers and employes, only Pop and Mrs.
Bybee continuing to occupy their drawing room in one of the Pullmans.
Sally, being told the arrangements, suspected that they stayed with the
train to guard the safe under the green plush seat, the existence of
which was known only to Sally. Mrs. Bybee took little interest in the
carnival itself, caring only for the heaviness of the canvas money bags,
which were brought to her at the end of each day’s business.
It was still not seven o’clock when Sally joined the straggling
procession of performers headed for the cook tent and dress tent, a
quarter of a mile from the show train. She knew very little of the city
itself, since the orphanage was situated on its own farm in a thinly
settled suburb.
There was no glow of pride, no sense of home-coming as she trudged
through the almost deserted streets, but every time she passed a
policeman idly swinging his “billie” on a street corner she thanked Pop
Bybee in her heart that he had cautioned her to don her disguise. For
beyond a casually interested glance at her brown face and hands and her
long swinging braids of fine, lustrous black hair, the law did not seem
to find her worthy of attention.
If only David could pass that cordon successfully! Probably he had gone
to the carnival grounds. But Pop Bybee, true to his promise to protect
the boy, had decreed that he should become private chef and waiter to
himself and Mrs. Bybee, remaining cooped up all day in the privilege car
of the show train.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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