the first time she had ever seen a place where people ate that was so very large. At least sixty people could be seated here at once! This was where the aroma of stew had been coming from.
At one end of the tent were men in aprons ladling tin bowls full of stew and handing them over to the performers and workers. Cody led her to the queue, and she got a bowl full of stew that smelled so rich and good her stomach began complaining that she wasn’t eating it right then, plus a huge chunk of bread and butter and a wedge of pie on a second tin plate and an empty tin mug. She got settled at a table, her tin cup poured full of coffee, and then Cody stood up and whistled shrilly, bringing all conversation to a halt.
He gestured grandly at her and launched into a speech. She recognized her name in it and that was about all. Then there was a pause, and Cody made a little beckoning motion with his hand, so she stood up and gave a little bow, feeling suddenly very shy. I had better get over that, and quickly! she told herself. I am going to be a performer, I cannot be shy!
That elicited a round of enthusiastic, but brief, applause. It looked to her as if many people were glad to hear what Cody had to say, but also were in a hurry to get their suppers. She was glad the applause was brief; she wanted to eat.
The stew was delicious, just as good as anything Mother had made, and that was high praise indeed. The bread, she thought, was probably local, since it would be difficult to transport bread ovens. The coffee was very strong and bitter, but after her first taste—and wry face—Kellerman went over to the end of the table and brought back a tin full of sugar lumps, which made it quite good. Mother had never made coffee, but she decided that she quite liked it. The pie was nothing like anything Mother made, but it was excellent, nevertheless. On the whole, when she finished her meal and brought the dishes to the front to go in a dry washing tub with the rest, she was more than content.
But her day was not yet complete, it seemed. Cody said something and bowed a little, and then left, taking Leading Fox with him. Kellerman took her elbow and she allowed him to guide her out of the mess tent. As she paused, confronted by the mass of tents of differing kinds, their sides moving slightly in the evening breeze, he let go of her and gestured toward a sort of path between the tents.
“As you heard, we have an evening performance that I must get to, but first I will show you to your new wagon,” he told her. “We’ve had all your personal belongings brought there, and by now I am sure at least some, if not all, of your costumes are there as well. Cody also left orders that some spare American garb be altered and given to you. Some of us—Leading Fox at least, and I—will be back after the show.”
“This is more than kind,” she said, and would have added more, but he would hear none of it.
“You are one of us, now, fraulein,” he said, with one of his courteous little bows. “We are a family, now more than ever, and you are doing us a great favor by joining us.”
They threaded their way across the camp to an area set aside for wagons. It appeared that the members of the show, on the whole, preferred a tent to a wagon, for there were only half a dozen living wagons lined up in a neat row. Kellerman took her to a small bow-topped wagon of a uniform brown color, quite plain, unlike the beautifully painted and carved Romany vardos that had camped beside the abbey several times (with Mother’s blessing). It was also a bit smaller than the vardos, which were, after all, intended to serve an entire family. There was a green door with a glass window in it at the front, and a glass bow window at the rear. It, like the others, had been parked so that the evening light fell upon the blank side, and not through either window. Kellerman opened the door for her with a flourish, and she went up the steps to survey her