Chapter 10

The old monkey winked both eyes violently, and then showed his teeth to such an extent that Toby thought he was laughing at the prospect, and he said, a little severely, “If you had as many friends as I have got in the circus you wouldn't laugh when you was goin' to leave them. Of course I've got to go, an' I want to go; but it makes me feel bad to leave the skeleton, an' the fat woman, an Old Ben, an' little Ella. But I mustn't stand here. You be ready when I come for you, an' by mornin' we'll be so far off that Mr. Lord nor Mr. Castle can't catch us.”

The old monkey went toward his companions, as if he were in high glee at the trip before him, and Toby went into the dressing tent to prepare for the evening's performance--which was about to commence.

It appeared to the boy as if everyone was unusually kind to him that night, and, feeling sad at leaving those in the circus who had befriended him, Toby was unusually attentive to everyone around him. He ran on some trifling errand for one, helped another in his dressing, and in a dozen kind ways seemed as if trying to atone for leaving them secretly.

When the time came for him to go into the ring and he met Ella, bright and happy at the thought of riding with him and repeating her triumphs of the afternoon, nothing save the thought of how wicked he had been to run away from good old Uncle Daniel, and a desire to right that wrong in some way, prevented him from giving up his plan of going back.

The little girl observed his sadness, and she whispered, “Has anyone been whipping you, Toby?”

Toby shook his head. He had thought that he would tell her what he was about to do just before they went into the ring, but her kind words seemed to make that impossible, and he had said nothing when the blare of the trumpets, the noisy demonstrations of the audience, and the announcement of the clown that the wonderful children riders were now about to appear, ushered them into the ring.

If Toby had performed well in the afternoon, he accomplished wonders on this evening, and they were called back into the ring, not once, but twice; and when finally they were allowed to retire everyone behind the curtain overwhelmed them with praise.

Ella was so profuse with her kind words, her admiration for what Toby had done, and so delighted at the idea that they were to ride together, that even then the boy could not tell her what he was going to do, but went into his dressing room, resolving that he would tell her all when they both had finished dressing.

Toby made as small a parcel as possible of the costume which Mr. and Mrs. Treat had given him--for he determined that he would take it with him--and, putting it under his coat, went out to wait for Ella. As she did not come out as soon as he expected, he asked someone to tell her that he wanted to see her, and he thought to himself that when she did come she would be in a hurry and could not stop long enough to make any very lengthy objections to his leaving.

But she did not come at all--her mother sent out word that Toby could not see her until after the performance was over, owing to the fact that it was now nearly time for her to go into the ring, and she was not dressed yet.

Toby was terribly disappointed. He knew that it would not be safe for him to wait until the close of the performance if he were intending to run away that night, and he felt that he could not go until he had said a few last words to her.

He was in a great perplexity, until the thought came to him that he could write a goodby to her, and by this means any unpleasant discussion would be avoided.

After some little difficulty he procured a small piece of not very clean paper and a very short bit of lead pencil, and, using the top of one of the wagons, as he sat on the seat, for a desk, he indited the following epistle:

deaR ella I Am goin to Run away two night, & i want two say good by to yu & your mother. i am Small & unkle Danil says i dont mount two much, but i am old enuf two know that you have bin good two me, & when i Am a man i will buy you a whole cirkus, and we Will ride together. dont forgit me & i wont yu in haste

Toby Tyler.

Toby had no envelope in which to seal this precious letter, but he felt that it would not be seen by prying eyes and would safely reach its destination if he intrusted it to Old Ben.

It did not take him many moments to find the old driver, and he said, as he handed him the letter, “I didn't see Ella to tell her I was goin', so I wrote this letter, an' I want to know if you will give it to her?”

“Of course I will. But see here, Toby”--and Ben caught him by the sleeve and led him aside where he would not be overheard--“have you got enough money to take you home? for if you haven't I can let you have some.” And Ben plunged his hand into his capacious pocket, as if he was about to withdraw from there the entire United States Treasury.

Toby assured him that he had sufficient for all his wants; but the old man would not be satisfied until he had seen for himself, and then, taking Toby's hand again, he said: “Now, my boy, it won't do for you to stay around here any longer. Buy something to eat before you start, an' go into the woods for a day or two before you take the train or steamboat.

“You're too big a prize for Job or Castle to let you go without a word, an' they'll try their level best to find you. Be careful, now, for if they should catch you, goodby any more chances to get away. There”--and here Ben suddenly lifted him high from the ground and kissed him--“now get away as fast as you can.”

Toby pressed the old man's hand affectionately, and then, without trusting himself to speak, walked swiftly out toward the entrance.

He resolved to take Ben's advice and go into the woods for a short time, and therefore he must buy some provisions before he started.

As he passed the monkeys' cage he saw his pet sitting near the bars, and he stopped long enough to whisper, “I'll be back in ten minutes, Mr. Stubbs, an' you be all ready then.”

Then he went on, and just as he got near the entrance one of the men told him that Mrs. Treat wished to see him.

Toby could hardly afford to spare the time just then, but he would probably have obeyed the summons if he had known that by so doing he would be caught, and he ran as fast as his little legs would carry him toward the skeleton's tent.

The exhibition was open, and both the skeleton, and his wife were on the platform when Toby entered; but he crept around at the back and up behind Mrs. Treat's chair, telling her as he did so that he had just received her message and that he must hurry right back, for every moment was important then to him.

“I put up a nice lunch for you,” she said as she kissed him, “and you'll find it on the top of the biggest trunk. Now go; and if my wishes are of any good to you, you will get to your uncle Daniel's house without any trouble. Goodby again, little one.”

Toby did not dare to trust himself any longer where everyone was so kind to him. He slipped down from the platform as quickly as possible, found the bundle--and a good sized one it was, too--without any difficulty, and went back to the monkeys' cage.

As orders had been given by the proprietor of the circus that the boy should do as he had a mind to with the monkey, he called Mr. Stubbs; and as he was in the custom of taking him with him at night, no one thought that it was anything strange that he should take him from the cage now.

Mr. Lord or Mr. Castle might possibly have thought it queer had either of them seen the two bundles which Toby carried, but, fortunately for the boy's scheme, they both believed that he was in the dressing tent, and consequently thought that he was perfectly safe.

Toby's hand shook so that he could hardly undo the fastening of the cage, and when he attempted to call the monkey to him his voice sounded so strange and husky that it startled him.

The old monkey seemed to prefer sleeping with Toby rather than with those of his kind in the cage; and as the boy took him with him almost every night, he came on this particular occasion as soon as Toby called, regardless of the strange sound of his master's voice.

With his bundles under his arm and the monkey on his shoulder, with both paws tightly clasped around his neck, Toby made his way out of the tent with beating heart and bated breath.

Neither Mr. Lord, Castle, nor Jacobs were in sight, and everything seemed favorable for his flight. During the afternoon he had carefully noted the direction of the woods, and he started swiftly toward them now, stopping only long enough, as he was well clear of the tents, to say, in a whisper:

“Goodby, Mr. Treat, an' Mrs. Treat, an' Ella, an' Ben. Sometime, when I'm a man, I'll come back an' bring you lots of nice things, an' I'll never forget you--never. When I have a chance to be good to some little boy that felt as bad as I did I'll do it, an' tell him that it was you did it. Goodby.”

Then, turning around, he ran toward the woods as swiftly as if his escape had been discovered and the entire company were in pursuit.

XVIII. A DAY OF FREEDOM

Toby ran at the top of his speed over the rough road; and the monkey, jolted from one side to the other, clutched his paws more tightly around the boy's neck, looking around into his face as if to ask what was the meaning of this very singular proceeding.

When he was so very nearly breathless as to be able to run no more, but was forced to walk, Toby looked behind him, and there he could see the bright lights of the circus and hear the strains of the music as he had heard them on the night when he was getting ready to run away from Uncle Daniel; and those very sounds, which reminded him forcibly of how ungrateful he had been to the old man who had cared for him when there was no one else in the world who would do so, made it more easy for him to leave those behind who had been so kind to him when he stood so much in need of kindness.

“We are goin' home, Mr. Stubbs!” he said, exultantly, to the monkey--“home to Uncle Dan'l an' the boys; an' won't you have a good time when we get there! You can run all over the barn, an' up in the trees, an' do just what you want to, an' there'll be plenty of fellows to play with you. You don't know half how good a place Guilford is, Mr. Stubbs.”

The monkey chattered away as if he were anticipating lots of fun on his arrival at Toby's home, and the boy chattered back, his spirits rising at every step which took him farther away from the collection of tents where he had spent so many wretched hours.

A brisk walk of half an hour sufficed to take Toby to the woods, and after some little search he found a thick clump of bushes in which he concluded he could sleep without the risk of being seen by anyone who might pass that way before he should be awake in the morning.

He had not much choice in the way of a bed, for it was so dark in the woods that it was impossible to collect moss or leaves to make a soft resting place, and the few leaves and pine boughs which he did gather made his place for sleeping but very little softer.

But during the ten weeks that Toby had been with the circus his bed had seldom been anything softer than the seat of the wagon, and it troubled him very little that he was to sleep with nothing but a few leaves between himself and the earth.

Using the bundle in which was his riding costume for a pillow, and placing the lunch Mrs. Treat had given him near by, where the monkey could not get at it conveniently, he cuddled Mr. Stubbs up to his bosom and lay down to sleep.

“Mr. Lord won't wake us up in the mornin' an' swear at us for not washin' the tumblers,” said Toby, in a tone of satisfaction, to the monkey; “an' we won't have to go into the tent tomorrow an' sell sick lemonade an' poor peanuts. But”--and here his tone changed to one of sorrow--“there'll be some there that 'll be sorry not to see us in the mornin', Mr. Stubbs, though they'll be glad to know that we got away all right. But won't Mr. Lord swear, an' won't Mr. Castle crack his whip, when they come to look round for us in the mornin' an' find that we hain't there!”

The reply which the monkey made to this was to nestle his head closer under Toby's coat, and to show, in the most decided manner, that he was ready to go to sleep.

And Toby was quite as ready to go to sleep as he was. He had worked hard that day, but the excitement of escaping had prevented him from realizing his fatigue until after he had lain down; and almost before he had got through congratulating himself upon the ease with which he had gotten free both he and the monkey were as sound asleep as if they had been tucked up in the softest bed that was ever made.

Toby's very weariness was a friend to him that night, for it prevented him from waking; which, if he had done so, might have been unpleasant when he fully realized that he was all alone in the forest, and the sounds that are always heard in the woods might have frightened him just the least bit.

The sun was shining directly in his face when Toby awoke on the following morning, and the old monkey was still snugly nestled under his coat. He sat up rather dazed at first, and then, as he fully realized that he was actually free from all that had made his life such a sad and hard one for so many weeks, he shouted aloud, reveling in his freedom.

The monkey, awakened by Toby's cries, started from his sleep in affright and jumped into the nearest tree, only to chatter, jump, and swing from the boughs when he saw that there was nothing very unusual going on, save that he and Toby were out in the woods again, where they could have no end of a good time and do just as they liked.

After a few moments spent in a short jubilee at their escape Toby took the monkey on his shoulder and the bundles under his arm again, and went cautiously out to the edge of the thicket, where he could form some idea as to whether or no they were pursued.

He had entered the woods at the brow of a small hill when he had fled so hastily on the previous evening, and, looking down, he could see the spot whereon the tents of the circus had been pitched, but not a sign of them was now visible. He could see a number of people walking around, and he fancied that they looked up every now and then to where he stood concealed by the foliage.

This gave him no little uneasiness, for he feared that Mr. Lord or Mr. Castle might be among the number, and he believed that they would begin a search for him at once, and that the spot where their attention would first be drawn was exactly where he was then standing.

“This won't do, Mr. Stubbs,” he said, as he pushed the monkey higher up on his shoulder and started into the thickest part of the woods; “we must get out of this place an' go farther down, where we can hide till tomorrow mornin'. Besides, we must find some water where we can wash our faces.”

The old monkey would hardly have been troubled if they had not got their faces washed for the next month to come; but he grinned and talked as Toby trudged along, attempting to catch hold of the leaves as they were passed, and in various other ways impeding his master's progress, until Toby was obliged to give him a most severe scolding in order to make him behave himself in anything like a decent manner.

At last, after fully half an hour's rapid walking, Toby found just the place he wanted in which to pass the time he concluded it would be necessary to spend before he dare venture out to start for home.

It was a little valley entirely filled by trees, which grew so thickly, save in one little spot, as to make it almost impossible to walk through. The one clear spot was not more than ten feet square, but it was just at the edge of a swiftly running brook; and a more beautiful or convenient place for a boy and a monkey to stop who had no tent, nor means to build one, could not well be imagined.

Toby's first act was to wash his face, and he tried to make the monkey do the same; but Mr. Stubbs had no idea of doing any such foolish thing. He would come down close to the edge of the water and look in; but the moment that Toby tried to make him go in he would rush back among the trees, climb out on some slender bough, and then swing himself down by the tail, and chatter away as if making sport of his young master for thinking that he would be so foolish as to soil his face with water.

After Toby had made his toilet he unfastened the bundle which the fat lady had given him, for the purpose of having breakfast. As much of an eater as Toby was, he could not but be surprised at the quantity of food which Mrs. Treat called a lunch. There were two whole pies and half of another, as many as two dozen doughnuts, several large pieces of cheese, six sandwiches, with a plentiful amount of meat, half a dozen biscuits, nicely buttered, and a large piece of cake.

The monkey had come down from the tree as soon as he saw Toby untying the bundle, and there was quite as much pleasure depicted on his face, when he saw the good things that were spread out before him, as there was on Toby's; and he showed his thankfulness at Mrs. Treat's foresight by suddenly snatching one of the doughnuts and running with it up the tree, where he knew Toby could not follow.

“Now look here, Mr. Stubbs!” said Toby, sternly, “you can have all you want to eat, but you must take it in a decent way, an' not go to cuttin' up any such shines as that.”

And after giving this command--which, by the way, was obeyed just about as well as it was understood--Toby devoted his time to his breakfast, and he reduced the amount of eatables very considerably before he had finished.

Toby cleared off his table by gathering the food together and putting it back into the paper as well as possible, and then he sat down to think over the situation and to decide what he had better do.

He felt rather nervous about venturing out when it was possible for Mr. Lord or Mr. Castle to get hold of him again; and as the weather was yet warm during the night, his camping place everything that could be desired, and the stock of food likely to hold out, he concluded that he had better remain there for two days at least, and then he would be reasonably sure that if either of the men whom he so dreaded to see had remained behind for the purpose of catching him, he would have got tired out and gone on.

This point decided upon, the next was to try to fix up something soft for a bed. He had his pocketknife with him, and in his little valley were pine and hemlock trees in abundance. From the tips of their branches he knew that he could make a bed as soft and fragrant as any that could be thought of, and he set to work at once, while Mr. Stubbs continued his antics above his head.

After about two hours' steady work he had cut enough of the tender branches to make himself a bed into which he and the monkey could burrow and sleep as comfortably as if they were in the softest bed in Uncle Daniel's house.

When Toby first began to cut the boughs he had an idea that he might possibly make some sort of a hut; but the two hours' work had blistered his hands, and he was perfectly ready to sit down and rest, without the slightest desire for any other kind of a hut than that formed by the trees themselves.

Toby imagined that in that beautiful place he could, with the monkey, stay contented for any number of days; but after he had rested a time, played with his pet a little, and eaten just a trifle more of the lunch, the time passed so slowly that he soon made up his mind to run the risk of meeting Mr. Lord or Mr. Castle again by going out of the woods the first thing the next morning.

Very many times before the sun set that day was Toby tempted to run the risk that night, for the sake of the change, if no more; but as he thought the matter over he saw how dangerous such a course would be and he forced himself to wait.

That night he did not sleep as soundly as on the previous one, for the very good reason that he was not as tired. He awoke several times; and the noise of the night birds alarmed him to such an extent that he was obliged to awaken the old monkey for company.

But the night passed despite his fears, as all nights will, whether a boy is out in the woods alone or tucked up in his own little bed at home. In the morning Toby made all possible haste to get away, for each moment that he stayed now made him more impatient to be moving toward home.

He washed himself as quickly as possible, ate his breakfast with the most unseemly haste, and, taking up his bundles and the monkey, once more started, as he supposed, in the direction from which he had entered the woods.

Toby walked briskly along, in the best possible spirits, for his running away was now an accomplished fact, and he was going toward Uncle Daniel and home just as fast as possible. He sang “Old Hundred” through five or six times by way of showing his happiness. It is quite likely that he would have sung something a little more lively had he known anything else; but “Old Hundred” was the extent of his musical education, and he kept repeating that, which was quite as satisfactory as if he had been able to go through with every opera that was ever written.

The monkey would jump from his shoulder into the branches above, run along on the trees for a short distance, and then wait until Toby came along, when he would drop down on his shoulder suddenly, and in every other way of displaying monkey delight he showed that he was just as happy as it was possible.

Toby trudged on in this contented way for nearly an hour, and every moment expected to step out to the edge of the woods, where he could see houses and men once more. But instead of doing so the forest seemed to grow more dense, and nothing betokened his approach to the village. There was a great fear came into Toby's heart just then, and for a moment he halted in helpless perplexity. His lips began to quiver, his face grew white, and his hand trembled so that the old monkey took hold of one of his fingers and looked at it wonderingly.

XIX. MR STUBBS'S MISCHIEF, AND HIS SAD FATE

Toby had begun to realize that he was lost in the woods, and the thought was sufficient to cause alarm in the mind of one much older than the boy. He said to himself that he would keep on in the direction he was then traveling for fifteen minutes; and as he had no means of computing the time he sat down on a log, took out the bit of pencil with which he had written the letter to Ella, and multiplied sixty by fifteen. He knew that there were sixty seconds to the minute, and that he could ordinarily count one to each second; therefore, when he learned that there were nine hundred seconds in fifteen minutes he resolved to walk as nearly straight ahead as possible until he should have counted that number.

He walked on, counting as regularly as he could, and thought to himself that he never before realized how long fifteen minutes were.

It really seemed to him that an hour had passed before he finished counting, and then when he stopped there were no more signs that he was near a clearing than there had been before he started.

“Ah, Mr. Stubbs, we're lost! we're lost!” he cried, as he laid his cheek on the monkey's head and gave way to the lonesome grief that came over him. “What shall we do? Perhaps we won't ever find our way out, but will die here, an' then Uncle Dan'l won't ever know how sorry I was that I ran away.”

Then Toby lay right down on the ground and cried so hard that the monkey acted as if it were frightened, and tried to turn the boy's face over, and finally leaned down and licked Toby's ear.

This little act, which seemed so much like a kiss, caused Toby to feel no small amount of comfort, and he sat up again, took the monkey in his arms, and began seriously to discuss some definite plan of action.