gan!" she
says. "Something awful has happened!"

"Not Jim?" I gasps, my heart nearly stopping, for he is always the first
thing I think of.

"Jim, nothing!" says Ma. "It's poor Kiskoff!"

"Oh, him!" I says, relieved. "What of it?"

"They arrested him this morning!" says Ma, all broken up, the poor fish!
"Arrested him just before the meeting!"

"Good!" I says. "I knew they would. The hound, he couldn't go around
forever talking Bolshevism!"

"It wasn't for that," says Ma.

"Then for what?" I says, blankly.

"For back alimony!" says Ma, almost in tears. "It seems he married a
girl out in Kansas several years ago, and they parted when the circus
left, and it wasn't Russian he was talking, but Yiddish! He speaks
English as well as me."

"And I suppose you'll tell me next that he wasn't talking Bolshevism,"
says I.

"He wasn't--he was only asking them to join the circus-workers' union
Local 21--" says Ma. "He explained it all to the cops!"

"Ma!" I demanded solemnly, a light coming over me. "Ma, have you
honestly got any idea what this Bolshevism _is?_ Come on, own up!"

"Certainly!" she says. "It's something like Spiritualism or
devil-worship, ain't it? A sort of fancy religion!"

"Nothing so respectable!" I says very sharp, yet awful relieved that I
had guessed the truth. "No such thing. Bolshevism is Russian for
sore-head. Religion my eye! It's about as much a religion as small-pox
is!"

Oh! the handicap of having no education! I certainly felt sorry for Ma.
But I needn't of because she give me one of them looks of hers which
always turns my dress to plaid calico and pulls my hair down my back
again.

"Well, daughter, why didn't you say so in the first place?" she says,
just as if she'd caught _me_ in a lie. But I let it pass and
apologized, I was so glad to find she was a fake. And Ma promised to
leave them low circus people alone for a spell and come back to the
White Kittens again. I then announced I was going out and fire Anna. At
that a look of terror came over Ma's face, and she restrained me by the
sleeve.

"Be careful how you go near that kitchen!" she says warningly.

"For heaven's sakes, Ma!" I says. "What's wronger than usual out there?"

"I dunno, but I think something is!" she says. "I believe it's a bomb!"

"A bomb!" I says. "Whatter you mean?"

"Anna is out to market," says Ma, "and the one with the black beard like
poor Kiskoff's brought it. 'For Anna,' says he, and shoved it at