Sally found the miniature book, small enough to fit the midget's hand, and gave it to her, then stooped and kissed the little faded, wrinkled cheek and set about the difficult and unaccustomed task of removing her make-up. Beside her cot bed she found a small tin steamer trunk, stencilled in red paint with the magic name, "Princess Lalla." She stared at it incredulously for a long minute, then untwisted the wire holding duplicate keys.
When she threw back the lid she found a shiny black tin make-up box, containing the burnt-sienna powder Mrs. Bybee had used in making her up for the first day's performances; a big can of theatrical cold cream; squares of soft cheesecloth for removing make-up; two new towels; mascara, lip rouge, white face powder, a utilitarian black comb and brush; tooth paste and tooth brush.
"Oh, these kind people!" she whispered to herself, and bent her head upon the make-up box and wept grateful tears. Then, smiling at herself and humming a little tune below her breath, she lifted the tray and found--not the tell-tale dresses which Pearl Carson had given her and which had been minutely described by the police in the newspaper account of the near-tragedy on the Carson farm--but two new dresses, cheap but pretty, the little paper ticket stitched into the neck of each showing the size to be correct--fourteen.
She was still kneeling before her trunk, blinded with tears of gratitude, when a coarse, nasal voice slashed across the dress tent:
"Well, strike me dumb, if it ain't the Princess Lalla in person, not a movie! Don't tell me you're gonna bunk with us, your highness! I thought you'd be sawing wood in Pop Bybee's stateroom by this time! What's the matter he ain't rocking you to sleep and giving you your nice little bottle?"
Sally rose slowly, the new dresses slithering to the floor in stiff folds. She batted the tears from her eyes with quick flutters of her eyelids and then stared at the girl who stood at the tent flap, taunting her.
She saw a thin, tall girl, naked to the waist except for breastplates made of tarnished metal studded with imitation jewels. About her lean hips and to her knees hung a skirt of dried grass, the regulation "hula dancer" skirt.