Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 5

"Well, come on."

Out on the street they joined the stream of lovers like themselves, moving hand in hand down the walk, a.s.saulted by cries of lemonade, candy and fruit hucksters.

The sun beat upon their heads; a dust arose from the feet of the pa.s.sing teams and settled upon the white dresses of the girls, and sank through the meshes of their sleeves and gathered in the moist folds of their ruches. They moved on rapidly toward the clanging band, the flutter of the pennants and the brazen outcries of the ticket-takers.

On to the square before the tents, thronged with innumerable people, an avenue of side-shows faced them like a gauntlet to be run. Before each flapping sign of fat woman, or snake charmer, stood a man who cried in strange, clanging, monotonous and rhythmical voice:

"You still have a half an hour, ladies and gentlemen, before the great show opens. Come in and see the wonders of the world."

Before the ticket wagon a straggling, excited crowd wrestled, suspicious, determined, hurried. Leaving their girls in the more open s.p.a.ce, the boys drew deep breaths of resolution and plunged into the press with set, determined faces.

They returned soon, hot, disarranged but triumphant. "Come on, girls."

They moved upon the main entrance, where a man stood s.n.a.t.c.hing at the tickets which were handed to him. He was humorous, and talked as he pushed the people in.

"Hurry up, old man; trot close after your mother. Have your tickets ready, everybody. Yes, right this way, uncle. Bless your dear little face--right ahead. H'y'ere, bub, this ticket's no good!--Oh, so it is, I didn't see the right side--get on quick."

As Rose pa.s.sed him he said, "You go in free, my dear," and resumed his bawling cry, "Have your tickets ready."

Under the tent! Rose looked up at the lifting, tremulous, translucent canvas with such awe as the traveler feels in St. Peter's dome. Her feet stumbled on, while she clung to Carl's hand without knowing it. O, the enormous crowds of people, the glitter and change of it all!

They followed in the stream which flowed around the circle of animal dens, and Rose silently looked at all she saw. The others laughed and exclaimed, but she did not. Everything seemed inexplicable and mysterious, and roused confusing trains of thought.

She saw the great tigers, and caught the yellow-green sheen of their eyes. She saw the lions rise like clouds of dust in their corners, silent as mist and terrible as lightning. She looked at the elephant and wondered how he could live and be so like the toy elephants she had at home. On past shrieking tropical birds and grunting, wallowing beasts, and chattering crowds of people she moved, without a word, till they came around to the circus entrance, and then she lifted her eyes again around the great amphitheater.

"_Peanuts, peanuts here, five a bag!_"

"Here's your lemonade, cool and fresh."

On all sides brazen-voiced young men were selling, at appalling prices, sticks of candy, gla.s.ses of lemonade, palm-leaf fans and popcorn b.a.l.l.s.

There was something about them that frightened her, and she walked a little closer to Carl.

They heard familiar voices call and saw some young people from their coule, and so clambered up where they sat. The boards were narrow and the seats low, but n.o.body minded that, for that was part of the circus.

They were settled at last and ready to enjoy all that came. Two or three volunteered to say: "This is great! the best place to see 'em come in."

Then they pa.s.sed the peanut bag in reckless liberality.

Rose sat in a dream of delight as the band began to play. It was an ambitious band and played operatic selections with modulations, and it seemed to Rose to be the most splendid music in the world. All other bands she had heard played right along tum-tummy tum-tummy tummy, tummy-tum. This band sang and talked and whispered and dreamed. It shook her like a stallion's neigh, and soothed her like the coo of a dove on the barn roof.

She heard nothing that was said about her, and she did not know she sat squeezing Carl's arm.

People streamed by in enormous crowds. Ladies in elegant dresses, and hats such as she had never seen before. Handsome young men went by, and yet she gave them no second look. They were like figures in a dream.

At last the band blared an announcing note, and the uniformed attendants filed into the ring and took positions at set points like sentries. Then the music struck into a splendid galop, and out from the curtained mysteries beyond, the knights and ladies darted, two and two, in glory of crimson and gold, and green and silver. At their head rode the man with the brown mustache.

They came around into position, and then began a series of bewildering changes, directed by her knight, whose shout dominated the noise of the horses and the blare of the band, with hollow wild sound.

They vanished as they came, and then came the clowns, and tricks and feats of strength. The iron-jawed woman lifted incredible weights; the j.a.panese jugglers tossed cannon-b.a.l.l.s, knives and feathers; the baby elephant stood on his head--and then suddenly six men dressed in tights of blue and white and orange ran into the ring, and her hero led them.

He wore blue and silver, and on his breast was a rosette. He looked a G.o.d to her. His naked limbs, his proud neck, the lofty carriage of his head, made her s.h.i.+ver with emotion. They all came to her lit by the white radiance; they were not naked, they were beautiful, but _he_ was something more.

She had seen naked boys, and her own companions occasionally showed themselves naked and cowering before her, but these men stood there proud and splendid. They invested their nakedness with something which exalted them. They became objects of luminous beauty to her, though she knew nothing of art.

As she grew clearer-eyed, she saw that one was a little too short, another too lean, but he of the rosette was perfect. The others leaped, with him, doing the same feats, but as distances were increased, and the number of camels and horses grew, the others stood by to see him make his renowned double somersault over a herd of animals. When the applause broke out she joined it, while her temples throbbed with emotion. To see him bow and kiss his fingers to the audience was a revelation of manly grace and courtesy. He moved under the curtain, bowing still to the cheering crowd.

Once more he came back later on, leading a woman by the hand. She too was in tights throughout, and like him she walked with a calm and powerful movement, but she seemed petty beside him.

Something new seized upon Rose's heart, a cold contraction that she had never felt, and her teeth pressed together. She wondered if the woman were his wife.

The woman seized a rope with her right arm and was drawn to the tent roof. He took a strap in his mouth and was drawn to his trapeze also.

There, in mid-air, they performed their dangerous evolutions. It was all marvelous and incredible to the country girl.

She heard him clap his hands, then his glorious voice rang above the music, and the lithe figure of his companion launched itself through the air, was caught by the shoulders in his great hands, thence with a twist he tossed her, and hooked her by the hands.

Each time, the blood surged into Rose's throat as if to suffocate her. A horrible fear that was a pleasure, some way, rose and fell in her. She could not turn away her head. She must look.

She was a powerful girl, and the idea of fainting had never come to her, but when at the conclusion, he dropped in a revolving ball into the net far beneath, she turned sick and her eyes seemed to whirl in their sockets. Then as he leaped to the ground, bowing and smiling, the blood rushed back to her face, and the perspiration stood like rain on her face.

Thereafter riders came, and the clowns capered, and the ring-master cracked his whip and she enjoyed it, but it was an after-climax. She saw it, but saw it dimly. Nothing but the lions and their trainers aroused her to applause. Her brain was full. It was a feast of glories and her very hunger made her lay hold upon the first that came, to the neglect of what came after.

At last the brazen, resounding voice of the ring-master announced the last of the show, and the audience arose and moved out in a curious sort of a hush, as if in sorrow to think it was all over, and the humdrum world was rus.h.i.+ng back upon them.

Rose moved along in perfect silence, clinging to Carl's hand. Around her was the buzz of low speech, the wailing of tired and hungry babies and the clamor of attendants selling tickets for the minstrel show to follow.

Suddenly she perceived that her dress was wet with perspiration and grimy with dust. She saw all about her women with flushed faces and grimy hands, their hats awry and their brows wrinkled with trouble over fretful children. The men walked along with their coats over their arms, and their hats pushed back. The dust arose under their feet with a strange smell. Out in the animal tent the odor was stifling and Rose hurried Carl out into the open air.

Somehow it seemed strange to see the same blue sky arching the earth; things seemed exactly the same and yet Rose had grown older. She had developed immeasurably in those few hours. It took her some time to fully recover the use of her feet, and it took longer to get back a full realization of where she was.

The gra.s.s, crushed and trampled and littered with paper, and orange peel, gave out a fresh farm-like odor, that helped her to recover herself. She would not talk, she could not talk yet. She only urged them to go home. She wanted to get home to think.

As they climbed the slope on the other side of the river, they looked back at the tents with their wilted streamers, at the swarming bug-like teams and the ant-like human beings, and it seemed to Rose as if she should weep, so poignant was her sense of personal loss.

She knew something sweet and splendid and mystical was pa.s.sing out of her life after a few hours' stay there. Her feeling of loss was none the less real because it was indefinable to her.

The others chattered about each part of the show, and shouted admiration about this and that feat, but Rose was silent. When they stopped at sunset beside a spring to eat their lunch she merely said:

"I don't feel hungry."

The others fell silent after a time, and they rode dreamily forward, with the roll of wheels making them sleepy and the trample of the horses' feet telling them how rapidly they were leaving their great day's pleasure behind them.

When Rose huddled into her little attic bed, her eyes were wide open, and her brain active as at noonday. There was no sleep for her then.

Lying there in the darkness she lived it all over again; the flutter of flags, the wild voices, the blare of music, the chariots, the wild beasts, the knights and ladies, the surging crowds; but the crowning glory, the pictures which lingered longest in her mind were the splendid and beautiful men, whose naked majesty appealed to her pure wholesome awakening womanhood, with the power of beauty and strength combined, with s.e.x and art both included.

These glorious, glittering graceful beings with their marvelous strength and bravery filled her with a deep sad hunger, which she could not understand. They came out of the unknown, led by her chosen one, like knights in Ivanhoe.

She fell asleep thinking of the one in blue and silver, and in her sleep she grew braver and went closer to him, and he turned and spoke to her, and his voice was like waters running, and his eyes shone some way into her eyes like a light.