"The--what?" he stammered.

"The main tent," she explained.

"Well, no; not exactly. It's going to be your room now, Miss Polly."

"My room! Gee! Think a' that!" she gasped, as the possibility of her actually having a room all of her own took hold of her mind. "Much obliged," she said with a nod, feeling that something was expected of her. She knew no other phrase of grat.i.tude than the one "Muvver" Jim and Toby had taught her to say to the manager when she received from him the first stick of red and white striped candy.

"You're very welcome," Douglas answered with a ring of genuine feeling in his voice.

"Awful quiet, ain't it?" she ventured, after a pause. "Guess that's what woke me up."

Douglas laughed good-naturedly at the thought of quiet as a disturber, and added that he feared it might at first be rather dull for her, but that Jim and Toby would send her news of the circus, and that she could write to them as soon as she was better.

"I'll have to be a heap better 'an I ever was 'fore I can write much,"

Polly drawled, with a whimsical little smile.

"I will write for you," the pastor volunteered, understanding her plight.

"You will?" For the first time he saw a show of real pleasure in her eyes.

"Every day," Douglas promised solemnly.

"And you will show me how?"

"Indeed I will."

"How long am I in for?" she asked.

"The doctor can tell better about that when he comes."

"The doctor! So--it's as bad as that, eh?"

"Oh, that need not frighten you," Douglas answered consolingly.

"I ain't frightened," she bridled quickly; "I ain't never scared of nothin.' It's only 'cause they need me in the show that I'm a-kickin'."

"Oh, they will get along all right," he said rea.s.suringly.

"Get along?" Polly flashed with sudden resentment. "Get along WITHOUT MY ACT!" It was apparent from her look of astonishment that Douglas had completely lost whatever ground he had heretofore gained in her respect.

"Say, have you seen that show?" She waited for his answer with pity and contempt.

"No," admitted John, weakly.

"Well I should say you ain't, or you wouldn't make no crack like that. I'm the whole thing in that push," she said with an air of self-complacency; "and with me down and out, that show will be on the b.u.m for fair."

"I beg your pardon," was all Douglas could say, confused by the sudden volley of unfamiliar words.

"You're kiddin' me," she said, turning her head to one side as was her wont when a.s.sailed by suspicion; "you MUST a seen me ride?"

"No, Miss Polly, I have never seen a circus," Douglas told her half-regretfully, a sense of his deep privation stealing upon him.

"What!" cried Polly, incredulously.

"Lordy no, chile; he ain't nebber seed none ob dem tings," Mandy interrupted, as she tried to arrange a few short-stemmed posies in a variegated bouquet.

"Well, what do you think of that!" Polly gasped. "You're the first rube I ever saw that hadn't." She was looking at him as though he were a curiosity.

"So I'm a rube!" Douglas shook his head with a sad, little smile and good-naturedly agreed that he had sometimes feared as much.

"That's what we always calls a guy like you," she explained ingenuously, and added hopefully: "Well, you MUST a' seen our parade--all the pikers see that--IT don't cost nothin'."

"I'm afraid I must also plead guilty to the charge of being a piker,"

Douglas admitted half-sheepishly, "for I did see the parade."

"Well, I was the one on the white horse right behind the lion cage," she began excitedly. "You remember?"

"It's a little confused in my mind--" he caught her look of amazement, "just AT PRESENT," he stammered, feeling her wrath again about to descend upon him.

"Well, I'm the twenty-four sheet stand," she explained.

"Sheet!" Mandy shrieked from her corner.

"Yes--the billboards--the pictures," Polly said, growing impatient at their persistent stupidity.

"She sure am a funny talkin' thing!" mumbled Mandy to herself, as she clipped the withered leaves from a plant near the window.

"You are dead sure they know I ain't comin' on?" Polly asked with a lingering suspicion in her voice.

"Dead sure"; and Douglas smiled to himself as he lapsed into her vernacular.

There was a moment's pause. Polly realised for the first time that she must actually readjust herself to a new order of things. Her eyes again roved about the room. It was a cheerful place in which to be imprisoned--even Polly could not deny that. The broad window at the back with its white and pink chintz curtains on the inside, and its frame of ivy on the outside, spoke of singing birds and sunshine all day long.

Everything from the white ceiling to the sweet-smelling matting that covered the floor was spotlessly clean; the cane-bottomed rocker near the curved window-seat with its pretty pillows told of days when a convalescent might look in comfort at the garden beneath; the counterpane, with its old-fashioned rose pattern, the little white tidies on the back of each chair, and Mandy crooning beside the window, all helped to make a homelike picture.

She wondered what Jim and Toby would say if they could see her now, sitting like a queen in the midst of her soft coverlets, with no need to raise even a finger to wait upon herself.

"Ain't it the limit?" she sighed, and with that Jim and Toby seemed to drift farther away. She began to see their life apart from hers. She could picture Jim with his head in his hands. She could hear his sharp orders to the men. He was always short with the others when anything went wrong with her.

"I'll bet 'Muvver Jim's' in the dumps," she murmured, as a cloud stole across the flower-like face; then the tired muscles relaxed, and she ceased to rebel.

"Muvver Jim"? Douglas repeated, feeling that he must recall her to a knowledge of his presence.

"That's what I calls him," Polly explained, "but the fellows calls him 'Big Jim.' You might not think Jim could be a good mother just to look at him, but he is; only, sometimes, you can't tell him things you could a real mother," she added, half sadly.

"And your real mother went away when you were very young?"

"No, she didn't go AWAY----"

"No?" There was a puzzled note in the pastor's voice.