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Show FICTION COWfl? 1 Wvvl CARNIVAL NIGHT-ln Xsfr By llARY KEMPE CHEATHAM looking at Patty's happy face. It if I who am without the magic. The barkers called from their concessions, drawing the crowds with imperative cries. Girli passed, carrying feathered kew- ! pies, spangled whips, bright birds and monkeys on sticks. There was a blend of hotdog and hamburger odors, coffee aroma, the roasting roast-ing fragrance of peanuts and popcorn. pop-corn. Everywhere were people, eating Ice-cream sandwiches, drinking pink lemonade from sweaty glasses. Patty, high on the merry-go-round, clung lovingly to her horse's bridle and waved to Ellie every time she passed. "That was fun," she beamed, finished fin-ished at last, running to Ellie for new adventure. They joined hands and started over the grounds. "Who's your girl friend. Sis? asked a man's voice. Instantly guarded and alert, Ellie turned to look. She gazed warily, straight into two gray eyes. So gray, she thought I'll always be a pushover push-over for gray eyes. He was not a dressed up young man, but he looked nice with his soft shirt open at the neck, showing his tanned "would you like to go to the carnival car-nival with me?" Ylpes!" uttered the little girl, almost al-most toppling off the step backward. "Would ir "Be careful!" cried Ellie, thrusting an arm about the little shoulders. She laughed in spite of herself to see the change in the young face. There was nothing serious about it now. It was afire with the dazzle of carnival lights themselves. Til go ask Grandma," shouted Patty, bounding across the lawn. "I'll be right back." "Bring a wrap," called Ellie after the swinging pigtails, "It may be cool on the rides." She went inside for her own light coat and to go over her makeup at the dresser. Her face in the mirror was smooth and quiet, showing only in pallor the turmoil of the empty months. It was still quite a good face, the eyes a "Mr. Kenyon already knows you haven't got a boy friend,1" soothed Patty. "I told him when be asked this afternoon. yLL along Elm street to the old park grounds, the carnival was drawing people like a magnet From where Ellie sat, on the top step in front of Mrs. Blodgott's boarding house, she could see them hurrying along in groups and couples, laughing laugh-ing and chatting, their merriment floating back to her on the early summer air. Cars whizzed by, carrying carry-ing otheri, till it seemed the entire population of the little town was rushing In one direction. AIL that is, except Ellie and possibly Mrs. Blodgett, who, now that the supper work was over, sat contentedly in the kitchen, resting her feet There was nothing in the world like carnival music, reflected Ellie, leaning her head wistfully against the porch raiL The nostalgic ripple of tunes, half sad, came to her on sudden bursts of breeze, cutting into her heart with the sharpness of pain. She closed her eyes to shut out the sight of the couples always the couples, passing through tha early dusk, smiling into each other's eyes, murmuring words of which only the tone need be heard. Carnivals are for couples, she thought No, for children, too; for families, even for old people, visiting visit-ing their neighbors and winning lamps and blankets. Bat not for someone alone. Never for someone some-one alone, Tou could walk through the crowded grounds under un-der the blaze of lights, caught In the blare of melody, and become tha loneliest person In all the world. She had been doing fine till the carnival came to Grey-ville. Grey-ville. Why, she thought oh, why, did the carnival have to come? She opened her eyes, at a soft touch on her knee, and saw Patty Brown, a littla neighbor girL sitting on the step below her. "Gee," sighed Patty, on a long, mournful breath. "Isn't It LONESOME?" LONE-SOME?" Ellie imiled, "For you, too?" she asked. Patty nodded, hard, "Yes," she said soberly. "Everybody's gone to the carnival but us. I guess you and me, and Miz Blodgett and my Grandma, we're about the only ones in town that didn't go. Miz Blodgett, she never goes anywhere, anyway, and neither does Grandma since my Grandpa died. My Grandpa was swelll He always took me to carnivals." car-nivals." She shook her head in rapturous rap-turous recollection. "You live with your grandmother?" grandmoth-er?" Ellie asked. She felt suddenly ashamed of how little she knew the neighbors. She had been boarding at Mrs. Blodgett's several months, since first she came to Greyville to work in its dress factory and to work even harder at the serious business of forgetting Bruce. "Ever since I remember," answered an-swered Patty. "My Grandpa loved carnivals like I do. Grandma was always scoldin' him about it, but he'd take me every night and we'd go on the rides and buy cotton candy. My," she breathed, "I sure miss Grandpa." Ellie studied the serious small face, framed by the smooth brown pigtails. Here too was someone adjusting to a loss, and she had not even taken the trouble to find it out She had seen Patty often enough, running errands for Mrs. Blodgett and playing hopscotch or jacks on the wide front sidewalk, but sha had been too absorbed in . her own affairs to ask about tha child. How selfish people are, thought Ellie. "Patty." sha asked humbly. wide, deep blue, the hair a dusky cloud, brushed back from a widow's peak at the forehead. With lipstick lip-stick and rouge and a deliberate turning up of the lips at the corners, it was even an animated face. By concentrating on Patty, Ellie found she could keep the lips curved upward. up-ward. She would forget all other carnivals. "Oh, my goodness," complimented Patty. "You look beautiful!" Ellie laughed. She tucked the child's hand under her arm and they started for the "park grounds. The groups were dwindling now. As Patty had said, most everybody was already there. "It's funny you haven't got a boy friend," Patty mused. "Pretty as you are." "I used to have one," Ellie obliged, out of a long silence. "His name was Bruce." Patty considered gravely, but asked no more questions. "Oh, look!" thrilled Patty. "There it is. Please, please, let's go on everything!" "Most everything," Ellie amended, "not the really rough rides. But the others." She held tight the warm, squirming squirm-ing hand in her own, to fortify herself her-self for the first glimpse of the sprawling tents. "You have to get over this, Ellie, my girl," she told herself, gulping down the lump in her throat "Tonight's as good a time as any." It was like all carnivals before, without the magic. No, she decided. throat His face was tanned too, right up to his straight black hair. MOh,w said Patty, startled. "She's Ellie. She lives at Miz Blodgett's." Yes," agreed the man. "Remember, "Remem-ber, you told me that this afternoon when I got your ball out of, the street" "Uh-huh, I remember," said Patty. "He's Mr. Kenyon," she told Ellie, "the man that was riding around in the loudspeaker car. He told me his name today." "Fun and frolic for all," mimicked the young man, using his hands for a megaphone, "that's me."' "Since Ellie hasn't a boy friend," Patty suggested, "maybe you'd like to take us on the ferris wheel?" Ellie's chill expression warmed to a flush. "Pat!" she exclaimed. "Mr. Kenyon already knows you haven't got a boy friend," soothed Patty. "I told him when he asked this afternoon." "Patl" protested Ellie again, feebly. "She used to have one," Pat continued con-tinued helpfully, "but not any more." "I used to have a girl friend too," offered Mr. Kenyon. "I know how it is. I'd like to take you on the ferris wheeL Take over for a few minutes, will you, Mike?" he called to a man at the shooting gallery. Helplessly, Ellie found herself engineered along. "So you were asking about me," she managed at last "Yes," he answered. In a littla place like this, who wouldn't be? You're an attractive girl, you know. This is a nice town too." "What ever happened to her?" asked Patty, "the girl friend you haven't got any more?" "She didn't like my job," replied Mr. Kenyon. "She said she couldn't see any future in it, but It was tha only work I knew." "Huh!" snorted Pat, "She must bave been silly!" "Oh, no," said Mr. Kenyon, "but she made me mad and we had a quarrel. I told her there was another girl who would like it fine. There wasn't, of course, but my real girl thought so." "Pat's right" agreed Ellie. "She was very foolish. There's no more future to anything, than love." They walked up the ramp and tha carnival man fastened all three into a seat, with Patty in the middle. The wheel started its wonderful backward back-ward swoop, taking them up, up, above the tents, above the trees, above the little trailers where the carnival workers lived. The stars were close, and the people, oh, so small and far below. Ellie shut her eyes, recalling another carnival, another an-other time. She opened them when a hand reached out to clasp her own. "Hello, Ellie," said Mr. Kenyon softly, the gray eyes looking deep into hers. "Hello, Bruce," whispered Ellie with a quiet smile. His arm, to reach her, had also to encircle Patty, who seemed not to notice. They had stopped at the top now, rocking gently in the night Patty stared over the seat edge into space. "Oh, my" she quavered. "THIS MUST BE AXMOST HEAVEN!" |