Toby Tyler | Page 2

early in the morning, and the tents were just being erected by the men.
Toby had followed, with eager eyes, everything that looked as if it
belonged to the circus, from the time the first wagon had entered the
town until the street parade had been made and everything was being
prepared for the afternoon's performance.
The man who had made the losing trade in peanuts seemed disposed to
question the boy still further, probably owing to the fact that he had
nothing better to do.
"Who is this Uncle Daniel you say you live with? Is he a farmer?"
"No; he's a deacon, an' he raps me over the head with the hymn book
whenever I go to sleep in meetin', an' he says I eat four times as much
as I earn. I blame him for hittin' so hard when I go to sleep, but I s'pose
he's right about my eatin'. You see," and here his tone grew both
confidential and mournful, "I am an awful eater, an' I can't seem to help
it. Somehow I'm hungry all the time. I don't seem ever to get enough
till carrot time comes, an' then I can get all I want without troublin'
anybody."
"Didn't you ever have enough to eat?"
"I s'pose I did; but you see Uncle Dan'l he found me one mornin' on his
hay, an' he says I was cryin' for something to eat then, an' I've kept it up
ever since. I tried to get him to give me money enough to go into the
circus with; but he said a cent was all he could spare these hard times,
an' I'd better take that an' buy something to eat with it, for the show
wasn't very good, anyway. I wish peanuts wasn't but a cent a bushel."

"Then you would make yourself sick eating them."
"Yes, I s'pose I should; Uncle Dan'l says I'd eat till I was sick, if I got
the chance; but I'd like to try it once."
He was a very small boy, with a round head covered with short red hair,
a face as speckled as any turkey's egg, but thoroughly good natured
looking; and as he sat there on the rather sharp point of the rock,
swaying his body to and fro as he hugged his knees with his hands, and
kept his eyes fastened on the tempting display of good things before
him, it would have been a very hard hearted man who would not have
given him something.
But Mr. Job Lord, the proprietor of the booth, was a hard hearted man,
and he did not make the slightest advance toward offering the little
fellow anything.
Toby rocked himself silently for a moment, and then he said,
hesitatingly, "I don't suppose you'd like to sell me some things, an' let
me pay you when I get older, would you?"
Mr. Lord shook his head decidedly at this proposition.
"I didn't s'pose you would," said Toby, quickly; "but you didn't seem to
be selling anything, an' I thought I'd just see what you'd say about it."
And then he appeared suddenly to see something wonderfully
interesting behind him, which served as an excuse to turn his reddening
face away.
"I suppose your uncle Daniel makes you work for your living, don't
he?" asked Mr. Lord, after he had rearranged his stock of candy and
had added a couple of slices of lemon peel to what was popularly
supposed to be lemonade.
"That's what I think; but he says that all the work I do wouldn't pay for
the meal that one chicken would eat, an' I s'pose it's so, for I don't like
to work as well as a feller without any father and mother ought to. I
don't know why it is, but I guess it's because I take up so much time

eatin' that it kinder tires me out. I s'pose you go into the circus
whenever you want to, don't you?"
"Oh yes; I'm there at every performance, for I keep the stand under the
big canvas as well as this one out here."
There was a great big sigh from out Toby's little round stomach, as he
thought what bliss it must be to own all those good things and to see
the circus wherever it went.
"It must be nice," he said, as he faced the booth and its hard visaged
proprietor once more.
"How would you like it?" asked Mr. Lord, patronizingly, as he looked
Toby over in a business way, very much as if he contemplated
purchasing him.
"Like it!" echoed Toby. "Why, I'd grow fat on it!"
"I don't know as that would be any advantage," continued Mr. Lord,
reflectively, "for it strikes me that you're about as fat now