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? The few dollars earned in this way would mean a
great deal to the mother, whom the girl's marriage had left
desolate.
Polly had looked on hungrily the night that the mother had taken
the daughter in her arms to say farewell in the little country
town where the circus had played before her marriage. She could
remember no woman's arms about HER, for it was fourteen years
since tender hands had carried her mother from the performers'
tent into the moonlit lot to die. The baby was so used to seeing
"Mumsie" throw herself wearily on the ground after coming out of
the "big top" exhausted, that she crept to the woman's side as
usual that night, and gazed laughingly into the sightless eyes,
gurgling and prattling and stroking the unresponsive face. There
were tears from those who watched, but no word was spoken.
Clown Toby and the big "boss canvas-man" Jim had always taken
turns amusing and guarding little Polly, while her mother rode in
the ring. So Toby now carried the babe to another side of the
lot, and Jim bore the lifeless body of the mother to the distant
ticket-wagon, now closed for the night, and laid it upon the
seller's cot.
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