The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-06-19
EOening Story
A Synthetic Lover.
BY WILL T. AMES

A4AINAC A(e4SS AAGAhBnAA1 ASRC
circus in the least. You look for her
kind behind the soda fountain of
village drug store and think of pink
and white checked Bingham as having
been inspirationally created for just
her variety of prettiness. Nevertheless
there was SO very deep a strain of it
in her blood that the night which wit
messed the tragic derailment of the
IIardenburg performers train took
away both her parents in one awful
moment.
The All America show was already
in winter quarters. Madame Felice
Hebert, who had known the Empillo
duo. premier double bareback act
ever since Daisy was a child, and who
had lived more than one winter in the
sunny back room of their cottage in
the All Americas home town, threw
up both arms and Shrieked when Bob
Sloan, boss of the paint shop, brought
the terrible news into the wardrobe
loft. Then she grabbed her hat, tore
down two flights of steps, raced the
entire 200 yards of trackage and ex-
ercise ground to the back gate, hailed
a passing taxi and in six minutes was
at Daisy's boarding house, holding the
grief shaken orphan in her arms
The only thing about Felice Hebert
that was not utterly French was her
accent-which simply didn't exist The
circus is a school of thrift. and there
are few dull pupils among the tam
bark folk; but the thrift of Nine.
Hebert was an All American axiom.
Yet, when the first dreadful days were
over and Daisy came to the facing of
the future a kinless~ orphan, it was
only her own inherent sense of justice
that prevented the hard working
wardrobe woman from taking upon
herself the place of both father and
mother and maintaining Daisy thru
the final year of ner high school
course.
But look here, child" expostulated
Nine. Felice. haven't I been your
mothers best friend for a dozen years,
ever since she first came to our show
and whether she's been with it or with
some other? Haven't 1 watched you
grow up from a little bit of a kid?
Who's got a better right? OF course
the side, but you're simply not going
to eat that up-you're going to have
something to start life on"
But I'm not going to do that,
argued Daisy. I'm not going to
school any more. I'm going to work
And to this arrangement Nine, Fee
lice was eventually compelled to ac-
quiesce. But she had her way about
one thing. IF you're going to earn
your cwn living. Daisy" she said.
you're coming into my loft with me-
simply won't have you knocking
around any old place"
And that's how it came that Daisy
HenPhill, who didn't type circus IL lit
L,
stitching vari-colored jewels in huge
designs on mammoth elephant blank
cts of black velvet. And Daisy's job
was a very much more responsible one
than it sounds.
For, be it known, to the surprise no
doubt of the uninitiate, that the bush
els of gems employed by a big cir
Gus in bedizening the traRpings of its
beasts are no ordinary fabrications of
glass. If they were, week of the
nd fao Of tho xEn111d IaaZa
no single CLEAN in them. Instead
they are truly synthetic jewels of
parts, and come from overseas, and
cost a pack of money in the total.
Now it happens that just at the time
when Daisy, under the kindly tutelage
of the wardrobe chieftainess, became
a seamstress to elephants, camelS and
Arab chargers, these highly essential
gems had become very hard to get
and extremely high in price The
country where they were made hav-
ing with traffic folly permitted itself
to become involved on the wrong side
of the great war, the market of the
world were closed to it-and Enoch
Prout, the All-America's purchasing
agent, had made haste to gather in all
the wardrobe jewels in sight. They
cost thousa nds where formerly they
had cost hundreds, but inasmuch as it
would be able to rival the magnifi-
cence of the All Americas trappings
next season-for Enoch had cleaned
out the market-it was regarded as
excellent business.
Nine. Felice as a department head, |
was a highly trusted and responsible
executive, as well as an artist. All the
store of cunningly fabricated jewels
was left in her care, and was kept.
along With a fortune in costly stuffs, |
in great strong box in the loft. And
presently Nine. Felice turned the care
and accounting of this over to Daisy.
Now there were a dozen girls at
work in the wardrobe loft But for
eleven of the dozen Bob Sloan, the
paint shop foreman, had no eyes at
all, tho the personnel of a great circus
in winter Qurters is a community. Bob, |
from the day of his first catching
glimpse of Daisy, and aside from as
siduous attention to his job, became |
man of one idea. And that idea was
Daisy.
Bob might have done well along the |
of that idea, for he was
a clean looking young man of a some
what rugged type, and enjoyed the re- /
spect of Nine. Felice, VIII ch was i'm |
portant-, But it transpired that there |
came t0 the quarters just at that time |
a winsome youth named Joe Taggart. |
Joe had been candy butcher with the |
Mcclure show, but declared he had |
had enough of that outfit of crooks |
and proposed to join up with real /
people even If he did have to take a |
kind of 'errand boy job with the quar-
ters' superintendent to start with. He
dressed well and gave the impression |
of being in the circus business from |
choice rather than necessity.
And he hadn't been in evidence a !
week before he had discovered Daisy /
and laid such siege to her that steady /
going Bob Sloan was nowhere. The 1
Bob Sloans in this world have a fool /
ish weakness for sulkily giving way
before the demonstrations in force of |
the Joe Taggarts. They expect too /
much of the girl in the case.
A girl who has lately been tragica11y /
orphaned and who sews for elephants
all day in a vast bare loft needs other
in her leisure than that |
of an almost elderly French woman
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