The carnival had been nothing like that.  Aside from the easy and rather pleasant chore of standing around and looking pretty several times a day from midafternoon to the last bally of the night, she never had anything she actually had to do at any set time.  Mike did not care whether they ate once a day or six times, and whatever housekeeping she chose to do suited him.  They had their own living top and camping equipment; in many towns they had never left the lot from arrival to tear-down.  The carnival was a closed little world, an enclave, where the headlines and troubles of the outside world did not reach.  She had been happy in it.