One said, “You Denny Cahill’s daughter?” Molly said yes. He said, “I got some mighty tough news for you, kid. It’s about your dad.” That was when Molly felt her feet slip on glass, like the world had suddenly tilted and it was slippery glass and she was falling off it into the dark and would fall and fall forever because there was no end to the place where she was falling.
She just stood there and she said, “Tell me.”
The cop said, “Your dad’s been hurt, girlie. He’s hurt real bad.” He wasn’t like a shamus now; he was more like the sort of man who might have a daughter himself. She went up close to him because she was afraid of falling.
She said, “Is Dad dead?” and he nodded and put his arm around her and she didn’t remember anything more for a while, only she was in the hospital when she came to and somehow she was all groggy and sleepy and she thought she had been hurt and kept asking for Dad and a cross nurse said she had better keep quiet and then she remembered and Dad was dead and she started to scream and it was like laughing, only it felt horrible and she couldn’t stop and then they came and stuck her arm with a hype gun and she went out again and it was that way for a couple of times and finally she could stop crying and they told her she would have to get out because other people needed the bed.
Molly’s grandfather, “Judge” Kincaid, said she could live with him and her aunt if she would take a business course and get a job in a year and Molly tried but she couldn’t ever get it into her head somehow, although she could remember past performances of horses swell. The Judge had a funny way of looking at her and several times he seemed about to get friendly and then he would chill up. Molly tried being nice to him and calling him Granddad but he didn’t like that and once, just to see what would happen, she ran up to him when he came in and threw her arms around his neck. He got terribly mad that time and told her aunt to get her out of the house, he wouldn’t stand having her around.
It was terrible without Dad to tell her things and talk to and Molly wished she had died along with Dad. Finally she got a scholarship to the dancing school and she worked part time there with the young kids and Miss La Verne, who ran the school, let her stay with her. Miss La Verne was very nice at first and so was her boy friend, Charlie, who was a funny-looking man, kind of fat, who used to sit and look at Molly and he reminded her of a frog, the way he used to spread his fingers out on his knees, pointing in, and pop his eyes.
Then Miss La Verne got cross and said Molly better get a job, but Molly didn’t quite know how to begin and finally Miss La Verne said, “If I get you a job will you stick with it?” Molly promised.
It was a job with a carny. There was a Hawaiian dance show, what they called a kooch show-two other girls and Molly. The fellow who ran it and did the talking was called Doc Abernathy. Molly didn’t like him a bit and he was always trying to make the girls. Only Jeannette, one of the dancers, and Doc were steady and Jeannette was crazy-mad jealous of the other two. Doc used to devil her by horsing around with them.
Molly always liked Zeena, who ran the mental act in the Ten-in-One show across the midway. Zeena was awfully nice and she knew more about life and people than anybody Molly had ever met except Dad. Zeena had Molly bunk in with her, when she stayed in hotels, for company, because Zeena’s husband slept in the tent to watch the props, he said. Really it was because he was a souse and he couldn’t make love to Zeena any more. Zeena and Molly got to be real good friends and Molly didn’t wish she was dead any more.
Then Jeannette got nastier and nastier about Doc’s paying so much attention to Molly and she wouldn’t believe that Molly didn’t encourage him. The other girl told her, “With a chassis like that Cahill kid’s got you don’t have to do no encouraging.” But Jeannette thought Molly was a stinker. One day Doc whispered something to her about Molly and Jeannette started for her looking like a wild animal with her lips pulled back over her teeth. She smacked Molly in the face and before Molly knew what was going on she had pulled off her shoe and was swinging at her, beating her in the face with it. Doc came rushing over and he and Jeannette had a terrible battle. She was cursing and screaming and Doc told her to shut up or he would smash her in the tits. Molly ran out and went over to the Ten-in-One and the boss fired Doc out of the carny and the kooch show went back to New York.
“Fifteen thousand volts of electricity pass through her body without hurting a hair of the little lady’s head. Ladies and gentlemen, Mamzelle Electra, the girl who, like Ajax of Holy Writ, defies the lightning…”
Glory be to God, I hope nothing happens to that wiring. I want Dad. God, how I want him here. I’ve got to remember to smile…
“Stand over here, Teddy, and hold onto Ma’s hand. So’s you won’t git tromped on and kin see. That there’s a ’lectric chair, same’s they got in the penitentiary. No, they ain’t going to hurt the lady none, leastways I hope not. See? They strap her in that chair-only there’s something about her body that don’t take ’lectricity. Same’s rain rolls right off the old gander’s back. Don’t be scared, Teddy. Ain’t nothing going to happen to her. See how the ’lectricity makes her hair stand out stiff? Lightning’ll do the same thing I heard tell. There. See? She’s holding a ’lectric bulb in one hand and grabbing the wire with the other. See the bulb light? That means the ’lectricity is passing right through her ’thout hurting her none. I wisht your pa was that way with ’lectricity. He got a powerful bad burn last winter, time the wires blowed down and he was helping Jim Harness get his road cleared. Come along, Teddy. That’s all they’re going to do over here.”
Now I can get up. Sailor Martin’s looking at me again. I can’t keep saying no to him every time he asks me to go out with him. But he can always think faster than I can. Only I mustn’t let him, ever. I mustn’t be a tramp; I don’t want it this way, the first time. Dad…
Stanton Carlisle: The great Stanton stood up and smiled, running his glance over the field of upturned faces. He took a deep breath. “Well, folks, first of all I’m going to show you how to make money. Is there anybody in the crowd who’s willing to trust me with the loan of a dollar bill? You’ll get it back-if you can run fast. Thanks, bud. Now then-nothing in either hand, nothing up the sleeves.”
Showing his hands empty, save for the borrowed bill, Stan gave a hitch to his sleeves. In the folds of his left sleeve was a roll of bills which he acquired deftly. “Now then, one dollar- Wait a minute, bud. Are you sure you gave me only one? You’re sure. Maybe that’s all you got with you, eh? But here are two- one and two. Count ’em. It’s a good trick, especially along toward the end of the week.”
Which one will smile at the oldest gag? One out of every five. Remember that. One in five is a born chump.
He produced the bills one after another, until he had a green fan of them. He returned the bill to the lad. In doing so he turned his left side from the crowd, got a metal cup in his hand. It hung by an elastic from his left hip.
“Now then, out of nowhere they came. Let’s see what happens to them when we roll them up. One, two, three, four, five, six. All present and accounted for. Into a roll-” He placed the bills in his left hand, slipping them into the vanisher. “Blow on the hand-” The vanisher, released, thudded softly against his hip under his coat. “Lo and behold! Gone!”