Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/52

 corn, was a girl of sixteen whose travel-stained and sunburnt face wore a look of utter weariness.

"Do you reckon that's Violer Allen in there?" Mr. Poth's voice had a sarcastic edge. He added confidentially: "If this here gamut they aims to run ain't all they crack it up to be, they're takin' long chances showin' in Hopedale. The town's still feelin' tolerable peeved over the six bits they was buncoed out of by the last All-Star Troupe. Julia Marlowe and her pardner lit out between two suns, but I got Lillian Russel's trunk—they wan't anything in it only two bricks wrapped up in a petticoat. I orter made 'em pay in advance."

"But the audience wouldn't really do anything to these people if it didn't like them, would it?"

"Don't know as it would lynch 'em," admitted Poth, "and aigs, even spiled ones, is too scarce to waste. But they's turnips and this town never were stingy with the vegetables onct it set out to break up a show."

It was again Saturday, and every Saturday was a gala day, as Nan had learned, and