No Promises in the Wind by Irene Hunt Page B

at us as if he didn’t quite know what to say. When he spoke, his voice didn’t sound natural. “I’ll have you two fellows on my mind. If you ever get into a real jam, you let me know. I’ll be ready to help you best lean.”
    We shook hands, and he climbed up behind the wheel. As the truck moved away, he waved to us and Joey put into words what I secretly felt myself. He said, “If I was a little kid, I’d start bawlin’ and run right after that truck.”
    I couldn’t say much of anything. It didn’t occur to me to tell Joey that he was still a little kid. Somehow I knew better.
    We didn’t feel any interest in the sights of the carnival after Lonnie left. It had been a long day, and the hard cots Pete Harris had assigned to us felt comfortable and good to our tired bodies. I lay awake for a long time trying to make myself realize that I was very lucky. Five dollars a week with food for Joey and me and a sheltered place to sleep meant a streak of luck that would have seemed impossible only a week before. It didn’t matter that the carnival was a strange and bewildering place or that I was scared. It was nothing, I told myself, compared to the fear of cold and hunger which Joey and I had just experienced in Nebraska. That was true, certainly, but a fear of strange people was different. I couldn’t explain it, but somehow I had felt more confidence alone with Joey as we scrounged for survival than I did that night in the midst of a crowd of people busy with the business of providing pleasure. “You don’t make good sense,” I told myself as sleep began to close in on me. I dreamed in what must have been the early hours of the night because I was aware of the monotonous music ground out by the merry-go-round, music that gradually receded and became the hum of big tires on a concrete road.
    The dwarf men woke us the next morning. They were strange little people with old faces and bodies no larger than a five-year-old child’s. One of them clambered up on Joey’s bed and began to beat him with tiny wrinkled hands. The other, a much quieter and more dignified little man with a great hump on his back, stood at a distance and looked at us with grave interest.
    â€œGet up if you want breakfast, you new guys,” the noisy one squeaked at us. He wanted to know our names, where we were from, what our act was. His questions rattled out, one after the other, and yet I don’t think he was really interested in any answers. He did, however, seize upon my statement that I played the piano.
    â€œOh, great,” he yelled shrilly. “Pete Harris needs a piano player like we need another cut in wages. Pete Harris is a fool, a crazy old fool, and you are a crazy young fool. You’d better find another job. You won’t be playin’ a piano here very long—not with box office receipts slidin’ off to nothing.”
    â€œWhy can’t you behave yourself, Blegan?” the second little man asked sharply. “Pete asked us to bring these boys to breakfast—he didn’t say anything about giving them a lecture.” He extended his hand to me. “My name is Edward C. Kensington. Don’t pay any attention to Blegan; he’ll be a pest for a while and then lose all interest in you. I’ve seen it happen before.”
    Blegan was, in fact, something of a pest, much like a chattering, irresponsible monkey and apparently having little in common with Edward C. Kensington except for the matter of size. He pattered after Joey, plaguing him with insistent questions. “Why aren’t you home with your mama, little sweet child?” he asked.
    â€œI’m an orphan,” Joey answered shortly, and he very pointedly ignored Blegan’s further questions. When we were dressed, we walked with Edward C. Kensington to the breakfast tent while Blegan scampered ahead of us, turning occasionally to come back and ask a