h. It come 'round mornin'. There wasn't much to it--he just
seemed tired and peaceful like. 'I'm glad he wrote what he did,' he
said, meanin' the parson. 'She knows, she allus knows,' he whispered,
meanin' you, Poll, and then he was on his way. He'd already give me what
was saved up for you, and I'm sendin' it along with this--" A blue money
order for two hundred and fifty dollars had fluttered from the envelope
when Douglas opened it.

"I got everythin' ready afore I went on the next day, an' I went up and
saw the little spot on the hill where they was goin' to stow him. It
looked kinder nice and the digger's wife said she'd put some flowers on
to it now and then. It was YOU what made me think o' that, Poll, 'cause
it seemed to me what you would a' done; you was always so daffy about
flowers, you and him.

"I guess this letter's too long for me to be a-sayin' much about the
show, but the 'Leap-a-Death' girl got hern last week. She wasn't strong
enough for the job, nohow. I done what I could for her outside the show,
'cause I knowed how you was always a-feelin' 'bout her. I guess the
'Leap-a-Death's' husband is goin' to jump his job soon, if he gets
enough saved up, 'cause him and Barker can't hit it off no more. We got
a good deal o' trouble among the animals, too. None o' the snakes is
sheddin' like they ought to, and Jumbo's a-carryin' a sixteen foot
bandage around that trunk a' hisn, 'cause he got too fresh with Trixy's
grub the other night, and the new giraffe's got the croup in that
seven-foot neck o' his'n. I guess you'll think I got the pip for fair
this time, so I'll just get onto myself now and cut this short. I'll be
writin' you agin when we hit Morgantown.

"Your old Muvver Jim."

Douglas laid the letter gently on the table, his hand still resting upon
it. He looked helplessly at the little, shrunken figure in the opposite
chair. Polly had made no sound, but her head had slipped lower and lower
and she now sat very quietly with her face in her hands. She had been
taught by Toby and Jim never to whimper.

"What a plucky lot they are," thought Douglas, as he considered these
three lonely souls, each accepting whatever fate brought with no
rebellion or even surprise. It was a strange world of stoics in which
these children of the amusement arena fought and lost. They came and
went like phantoms, with as little consciousness of their own best
interests as of the great, moving powers of the world about the