



Produced by Charles Keller





POLLY OF THE CIRCUS

By Margaret Mayo


To My "_KLEINE MUTTER_"




Chapter I

The band of the "Great American Circus" was playing noisily. The
performance was in full swing.

Beside a shabby trunk in the women's dressing tent sat a young,
wistful-faced girl, chin in hand, unheeding the chatter of the women
about her or the picturesque disarray of the surrounding objects. Her
eyes had been so long accustomed to the glitter and tinsel of circus
fineries that she saw nothing unusual in a picture that might have held
a painter spellbound.

Circling the inside of the tent and forming a double line down the
centre were partially unpacked trunks belching forth impudent masses
of satins, laces, artificial hair, paper flowers, and paste jewels.
The scent of moist earth mingled oddly with the perfumed odours of the
garments heaped on the grass. Here and there high circles of lights
threw a strong, steady glare upon the half-clad figure of a robust
acrobat, or the thin, drooping shoulders of a less stalwart sister.
Temporary ropes stretched from one pole to another, were laden with
bright- stockings, gaudy, spangled gowns, or dusty street
clothes, discarded by the performers before slipping into their circus
attire. There were no nails or hooks, so hats and veils were pinned to
the canvas walls.

The furniture was limited to one camp chair in front of each trunk,
the till of which served as a tray for the paints, powders and other
essentials of "make-up."

A pail of water stood by the side of each chair, so that the performers
might wash the delicately shaded tights, handkerchiefs and other small
articles not to be entrusted to the slow, careless process of the
village laundry. Some of these had been washed to-night and hung to dry
on the lines between the dusty street garments.

Women whose "turns" came late sat about half-clothed reading, crocheting
or sewing, while others added pencilled eyebrows, powder or rouge to
their already exaggerated "make-ups." Here and there a child was putting
her sawdust baby to sleep in the till of her trunk, before beginning
her part in the evening's entertainment. Young and old went about their
duties with a systematic, business-like air, and even the little knot
of excited women near Polly--it seemed that one of the men had upset a
circus tradition--kept a sharp lookout for their "turns."

"What do you think about it, Polly?" asked a handsome brunette, as she
surveyed herself in the costume of a Roman charioteer.

"About what?" asked Polly vacantly.

"Leave Poll alone; she's in one of her trances!" called a motherly,
good-natured woman whose trunk stood next to Polly's, and whose business
was to support a son and three daughters upon stalwart shoulders, both
figuratively and literally.

"Well, _I_ ain't in any trance," answered the dark girl, "and _I_ think
it's pretty tough for him to take up with a rank outsider, and expect
us to warm up to her as though he'd married one of our own folks." She
tossed her head, the pride of class distinction welling high in her
ample bosom.

"He ain't asking us to warm up to her," contradicted Mademoiselle
Eloise, a pale, light-haired sprite, who had arrived late and was making
undignified efforts to get out of her clothes by way of her head. She
was Polly's understudy and next in line for the star place in the bill.

"Well, Barker has put her into the 'Leap of Death' stunt, ain't he?"
continued the brunette. "'Course that ain't a regular circus act,"
she added, somewhat mollified, "and so far she's had to dress with
the 'freaks,' but the next thing we know, he'll be ringin' her in on a
regular stunt and be puttin' her in to dress with US."

"No danger of that," sneered the blonde; "Barker is too old a stager to
mix up his sheep and his goats."

Polly had again lost the thread of the conversation. Her mind had
gone roving to the night when the frightened girl about whom they
were talking had made her first appearance in the circus lot, clinging
timidly to the hand of the man who had just made her his wife. Her eyes
had met Polly's, with a look of appeal that had gone straight to the
child's simple heart.

A few nights later the newcomer had allowed herself to be strapped into
the cumbersome "Leap of Death" machine which hurled itself through space
at each performance, and flung itself down with force enough to break
the neck of any unskilled rider. Courage and steady nerve were the
requisites for the job, so the manager had said; but any physician would
have told him that only a trained acrobat could long endure the nervous
strain, the muscular tension, and the physical rack of such an ordeal.

What matter