That's my boy who's at the fair, the one so many pay to see. The one with four arms. And the beautiful face.

He does have a beautiful face, you know, if you take the trouble to look.

The doctor wouldn't let me see him, when he was born. “He's a monster, Pierrette. A sport of Nature.” Then he leaned close, and whispered in my ear, “I can do for him in a minute,” he said, “No one will know the cause.” At that I rose on my elbows, exhausted as I was, and I commanded him – I, so mild, commanded him, the doctor! with his black robe, and his Latin, and his powders that give or take Life – I commanded him to bring me my child. And he backed away from me as if from a demon, then went at once, and got me my boy, my little four-armed boy, and I stroked him and I kissed him, and I held him to my breast and let him drink, saying softly, “This is Life you are drinking, and you will never taste anything so sweet”; and I felt his four little hands on my breast and I wished they were eight, or twice as many again.

But I was always known, too, for my plain good sense, and so I kissed his pretty little head, and I told him, “They will call you a monster, you know, and me the monster's mother, and we will need your four arms all the more – to cling to me while you are little, and to defend me when you are grown.”

And that is how it has been. We would starve, the two of us, without the fair. He hates it there when people are cruel, but many are kind, as well, when they see his smile, the smile I taught him from his first days. And after the show is done, he comes to me and clings to me, clings with his four little arms, four arms full of trust and love.