Sunday, on the show train, was a happy day, the happiest that Sally had ever known in her life. Freaks and dancers, barkers and concessionaires, all the members of that weirdly assorted family, the carnival, mingled in a joyous freedom from work and worry, singing together, reminiscing, gambling, gossiping.
The last week, except for the storm, had been an excellent one; money was free, spirits high. Even Mrs. Bybee, hovering like a mother hen over David, was good-natured, inclined to reminisce and give advice. Sally, whose talent for exquisite darning had been discovered by the women and girls, sat on the edge of David's berth, her lap full of flesh and beige and gun metal silk stockings, her needle flying busily, her lips curved with a smile of pure delight, as she listened to the surge of laughter and song and talk. The midget, "Pitty Sing," perched on the window ledge of David's berth, a comical pair of spectacles across her infinitesimal nose, was reading aloud to David from one of her own tiny books, and David was listening, but his eyes were fixed worshipfully upon Sally, and now and again his left hand reached out and patted her busy fingers or twirled the hanging braid of her hair.
Oh, it was a happy day, and Sally was sorry to have it end. But the show had to go on. The train wheels could not click forever over the rails. Monday, with its bustle and confusion and ballyhoo and inevitable performances, lay ahead. But they were far out of the state which held Clem Carson, the orphanage, Enid Barr, Arthur Van Horne and all other menaces to freedom when the train did stop at last, on the outskirts of a town of 10,000 inhabitants.
Carnival routine had already become an old story to Sally; she no longer minded the curious stares of villagers, the crude advances of dressed-up young male "rubes." The glamor had worn off, but in its place had come a deep contentment and a sympathetic understanding, born on that happy Sunday when the relaxed carnival family had shown her its heart and hopes. She was glad to be one of them, to be earning her living by giving entertainment and happiness--fake though her crystal-gazing was--to thousands of people whose lives were blighted with monotony.