Lily! Pa burst with delighted pride to
see her treated like that; and Ma scolded her a bit, for the little flirt
that she was, while fondly tying the two satin bows over her ears.

Lily was a regular tomboy, with pranks invented by herself, from ideas
which she picked up in traveling: for instance, she would choose her
moment and chuck a piece of bacon among the Mohammedans sitting under her
window; and she would revel in her own fright at those furious faces
suddenly glaring up at her from below! And she would stand with drooping
head, one finger in her mouth:

"Oh, _so_ sorry!"

What fun! And as an artiste she was spoiled and petted everywhere. Goa,
Bangalore, Tanjore and then Colombo, and a ship with elephants, tigers,
camels, children, men, women, wagons, one great mix-up, a circus and
menagerie in one, steaming toward South Africa; and Miss Lily of the
Clifton Troupe paraded her well-brushed, neatly-parted curls in the midst
of it all, gazed open-mouthed at the blue expanse of water until, her eyes
drunk and dazed with light, she went and lay in her cabin.... And more and
more blue water. And thud, thud, thud. And Cape Town in the mountains.
Africa behind it: a country all yellow, where the trains wound in and out
of the rocks; villages, up, up, up, or else right low down, on the yellow
veldt; and, at night, on the benches, crowds and crowds. Immediately after
the show came sleep, troubled by the jolting of the train; and the circus
was always there next day, on the right or on the left, with its Chinamen
and its niggers driving stakes or tugging at ropes. A bell for dinner, a
whistle for the show; and, as soon as the show was over, to bed,--and off
again.

Pa made her practice harder now, wanted to make a great artiste of her.
And there was a class, too, kept by a "marm" who traveled with the circus
and taught spelling and arithmetic and the art of letter-writing, from
"Yours to hand with thanks" down to "Believe me to be." Lily would have
been bored to death but for the accidents of travel: sometimes the engine
broke down, bringing the train to a dead stop amid the great African
silence, near a field of Indian corn, in which the children played
hide-and-seek. Or else there were locusts, locusts "that thick," right
inside the carriages. Lily would tie them by the leg and:

"Flip! Flap! Lively now! Jump!"

But funniest of all was the caravan--she couldn't remember where, in Natal
or thereabouts--wagons with