Chapter 7

It required some little exertion and active movement on Toby's part to enable him to get hold of that paw, in order to discover what it was which Mr. Stubbs had captured; but the instant he did succeed, there went up from his heart such a cry of sorrow as caused Old Ben to start up in alarm and the monkey to cower and whimper like a whipped dog.

“What is it, Toby? What's the matter?” asked the old driver, as he peered out into the darkness ahead, as if he feared some danger threatened them from that quarter. “I don't see anything. What is it?”

“Mr. Stubbs has thrown all my money away,” cried Toby, holding up the almost empty bag, which a short time previous had been so well filled with silver.

“Stubbs--thrown--the--money--away?” repeated Ben, with a pause between each word, as if he could not understand that which he himself was saying.

“Yes,” sobbed Toby, as he shook out the remaining contents of the bag, “there's only half a dollar, an' all the rest is gone.”

“The rest gone!” again repeated Ben. “But how come the monkey to have the money?”

“He tried to get at it out in the woods, an' I s'pose the moment I got asleep he felt for it in my pockets. This is all there is left, an' he threw away some just as I woke up.”

Again Toby held the bag up where Ben could see it, and again his grief broke out anew.

Ben could say nothing; he realized the whole situation--that the monkey had got the moneybag while Toby was sleeping; that in his play he had thrown it away piece by piece; and he knew that that small amount of silver represented liberty in the boy's eyes. He felt that there was nothing he could say which would assuage Toby's grief, and he remained silent.

“Don't you s'pose we could go back an' get it?” asked the boy, after the intensity of his grief had somewhat subsided.

“No, Toby, it's gone,” replied Ben, sorrowfully. “You couldn't find it if it was daylight, an' you don't stand a ghost of a chance now in the dark. Don't take on so, my boy. I'll see if we can't make it up to you in some way.”

Toby gave no heed to this last remark of Ben's. He hugged the monkey convulsively to his breast, as if he would seek consolation from the very one who had wrought the ruin, and, rocking himself to and fro, he said, in a voice full of tears and sorrow:

“Oh, Mr. Stubbs, why did you do it?--why did you do it? That money would have got us away from this hateful place, an' we'd have gone back to Uncle Dan'l's, where we'd have been so happy, you an' me. An' now it's all gone--all gone. What made you, Mr. Stubbs--what made you do such a bad, cruel thing? Oh, what made you?”

“Don't, Toby--don't take on so,” said Ben, soothingly. “There wasn't so very much money there, after all, an' you'll soon get as much more.”

“But it won't be for a good while, an' we could have been in the good old home long before I can get so much again.”

“That's true, my boy; but you must kinder brace up an' not give way so about it. Perhaps I can fix it so the fellers will make it up to you. Give Stubbs a good poundin', an' perhaps that 'll make you feel better.”

“That won't bring back my money an' I don't want to whip him,” cried Toby, hugging his pet the closer because of this suggestion. “I know what it is to get a whippin', an' I wouldn't whip a dog, much less Mr. Stubbs, who didn't know any better.”

“Then you must try to take it like a man,” said Ben, who could think of no other plan by which the boy might soothe his feelings. “It hain't half so bad as it might be, an' you must try to keep a stiff upper lip, even if it does seem hard at first.”

This keeping a stiff upper lip in the face of all the trouble he was having was all very well to talk about, but Toby could not reduce it to practice, or, at least, not so soon after he knew of his loss, and he continued to rock the monkey back and forth, to whisper in his ear now and then, and to cry as if his heart was breaking, for nearly an hour.

Ben tried, in his rough, honest way, to comfort him, but without success; and it was not until the boy's grief had spent itself that he would listen to any reasoning.

All this time the monkey had remained perfectly quiet, submitting to Toby's squeezing without making any effort to get away, and behaving as if he knew he had done wrong, and was trying to atone for it. He looked up into the boy's face every now and then with such a penitent expression that Toby finally assured him of forgiveness and begged him not to feel so badly.

XIII. TOBY ATTEMPTS TO RESIGN HIS SITUATION

At last it was possible for Toby to speak of his loss with some degree of calmness, and then he immediately began to reckon up what he could have done with the money if he had not lost it.

“Now see here, Toby,” said Ben, earnestly, “don't go to doin' anything of that kind. The money's lost, an' you can't get it back by talkin'; so the very best thing for you is to stop thinkin' what you could do if you had it, an' just to look at it as a goner.”

“But--” persisted Toby.

“I tell you there's no buts about it,” said Ben, rather sharply. “Stop talkin' about what's gone, an' just go to thinkin' how you'll get more. Do what you've a mind to the monkey, but don't keep broodin' over what you can't help.”

Toby knew that the advice was good and he struggled manfully to carry it into execution, but it was very hard work. At all events, there was no sleep for his eyes that night; and when, just about daylight, the train halted to wait a more seasonable hour in which to enter the town, the thought of what he might have done with his lost money was still in Toby's mind.

Only once did he speak crossly to the monkey, and that was when he put him into the cage preparatory to commencing his morning's work. Then he said:

“You wouldn't had to go into this place many times more if you hadn't been so wicked, for by tomorrow night we'd been away from this circus an' on the way to home an' Uncle Dan'l. Now you've spoiled my chance an' your own for a good while to come, an' I hope before the day is over you'll feel as bad about it as I do.”

It seemed to Toby as if the monkey understood just what he said to him, for he sneaked over into one corner, away from the other monkeys, and sat there looking very penitent and very dejected.

Then, with a heavy heart, Toby began his day's work.

Hard as had been Toby's lot previous to losing his money, and difficult as it had been to bear the cruelty of Mr. Job Lord and his precious partner, Mr. Jacobs, it was doubly hard now while this sorrow was fresh upon him.

Previous to this, when he had been kicked or cursed by one or the other of the partners, Toby thought exultantly that the time was not very far distant when he should be beyond the reach of his brutal taskmasters, and that thought had given him strength to bear all that had been put upon him.

Now the time of his deliverance from this bondage seemed very far off, and each cruel word or blow caused him the greater sorrow, because of the thought that but for the monkey's wickedness he would have been nearly free from that which made his life so very miserable.

If he had looked sad and mournful before, he looked doubly so now, as he went his dreary round of the tent, crying, “Here's your cold lemonade,” or “Fresh baked peanuts, ten cents a quart”; and each day there were some in the audience who pitied the boy because of the misery which showed so plainly in his face, and they gave him a few cents more than his price for what he was selling, or gave him money without buying anything at all, thereby aiding him to lay up something again toward making his escape.

Those few belonging to the circus who knew of Toby's intention to escape tried their best to console him for the loss of his money, and that kind hearted couple, the skeleton and his fat wife, tried to force him to take a portion of their scanty earnings in the place of that which the monkey had thrown away. But this Toby positively refused to do; and to the arguments which they advanced as reasons why they should help him along he only replied that until he could get the money by his own exertions he would remain with Messrs. Lord and Jacobs and get along as best he could.

Every hour in the day the thought of what might have been if he had not lost his money so haunted his mind that finally he resolved to make one bold stroke and tell Mr. Job Lord that he did not want to travel with the circus any longer.

As yet he had not received the two dollars which had been promised him for his two weeks' work, and another one was nearly due. If he could get this money it might, with what he had saved again, suffice to pay his railroad fare to Guilford; and if it would not, he resolved to accept from the skeleton sufficient to make up the amount needed.

He naturally shrank from the task; but the hope that he might possibly succeed gave him the necessary amount of courage, and when he had gotten his work done, on the third morning after he had lost his money, and Mr. Lord appeared to be in an unusually good temper, he resolved to try the plan.

It was just before the dinner hour. Trade had been exceptionally good, and Mr. Lord had even spoken in a pleasant tone to Toby when he told him to fill up the lemonade pail with water, so that the stock might not be disposed of too quickly and with too little profit.

Toby poured in quite as much water as he thought the already weak mixture could receive and retain any flavor of lemon; and then, as his employer motioned him to add more, he mixed another quart in, secretly wondering what it would taste like.

“When you're mixin' lemonade for circus trade,” said Mr. Lord, in such a benign, fatherly tone that one would have found it difficult to believe that he ever spoke harshly, “don't be afraid of water, for there's where the profit comes in. Always have a piece of lemon peel floatin' on the top of every glass, an' it tastes just as good to people as if it cost twice as much.”

Toby could not agree exactly with that opinion, neither did he think it wise to disagree, more especially since he was going to ask the very great favor of being discharged; therefore he nodded his head gravely, and began to stir up what it pleased Mr. Lord to call lemonade, so that the last addition might be more thoroughly mixed with the others.

Two or three times he attempted to ask the favor which seemed such a great one, and each time the words stuck in his throat, until it seemed to him that he should never succeed in getting them out.

Finally, in his despair, he stammered out: “Don't you think you could find another boy in this town, Mr. Lord?”

Mr. Lord moved round sideways, in order to bring his crooked eye to bear squarely on Toby, and then there was a long interval of silence, during which time the boy's color rapidly came and went and his heart beat very fast with suspense and fear.

“Well, what if I could?” he said, at length. “Do you think that trade is so good I could afford to keep two boys, when there isn't half work enough for one?”

Toby stirred the lemonade with renewed activity, as if by this process he was making both it and his courage stronger, and said, in a low voice, which Mr. Lord could scarcely hear:

“I didn't think that; but you see I ought to go home, for Uncle Dan'l will worry about me; an', besides, I don't like a circus very well.”

Again there was silence on Mr. Lord's part, and again the crooked eye glowered down on Toby.

“So,” he said--and Toby could see that his anger was rising very fast--“you don't like a circus very well, an' you begin to think that your uncle Daniel will worry about you, eh? Well, I want you to understand that it don't make any difference to me whether you like a circus or not, and I don't care how much your uncle Daniel worries. You mean that you want to get away from me, after I've been to all the trouble and expense of teaching you the business?”

Toby bent his head over the pail and stirred away as if for dear life.

“If you think you're going to get away from here until you've paid me for all you've eat, an' all the time I've spent on you, you're mistaken, that's all. You've had an easy time with me--too easy, in fact--and that's what ails you. Now you just let me hear two words more out of your head about going away--only two more--an' I'll show you what a whipping is. I've only been playing with you before when you thought you were getting a whipping; but you'll find out what it means if I so much as see a thought in your eyes about goin' away. An' don't you dare to try to give me the slip in the night an run away; for if you do I'll follow you an' have you arrested. Now you mind your eye in the future.”

It is impossible to say how much longer Mr. Lord might have continued this tirade had not a member of the company--one of the principal riders--called him to one side to speak with him.

Poor Toby was so much confused by the angry words which had followed his very natural and certainly very reasonable suggestion that he paid no attention to anything around him until he heard his own name mentioned; and then, fearing lest some new misfortune was about to befall him, he listened intently.

“I'm afraid you couldn't do much of anything with him,” he heard Mr. Lord say. “He's had enough of this kind of life already, so he says, an' I expect the next thing he does will be to try and run away.”

“I'll risk his getting away from you, Job,” he heard the other say; “but of course I've got to take my chances. I'll take him in hand from eleven to twelve each day--just your slack time of trade--and I'll not only give you half of what he can earn in the next two years, but I'll pay you for his time, if he gives you the slip before the season is out.”

Toby knew that they were speaking of him, but what it all meant he could not imagine.

“What are you going to do with him first?” Job asked.

“Just put him right in the ring and teach him what riding is. I tell you, Job, the boy's smart enough, and before the season's over I'll have him so that he can do some of the bareback acts, and perhaps we'll get some money out of him before we go into winter quarters.”

Toby understood the meaning of their conversation only too well, and he knew that his lot, which before seemed harder than he could bear, was about to be intensified through this Mr. Castle, of whom he had frequently heard, and who was said to be a rival of Mr. Lord's so far as brutality went. The two men now walked toward the large tent, and Toby was left alone with his thoughts and two or three little boy customers, who looked at him wonderingly and envied him because he belonged to the circus.

During the ride that night he told Old Ben what he had heard, confidently expecting that that friend at least would console him; but Ben was not the champion which he had expected. The old man, who had been with a circus, “man and boy, nigh to forty years,” did not seem to think it any calamity that he was to be taught to ride.

“That Mr. Castle is a little rough on boys,” Old Ben said, thoughtfully; “but it'll be a good thing for you, Toby. Just so long as you stay with Job you won't be nothin' more 'n a candy boy; but after you know how to ride it 'll be another thing, an' you can earn a good deal of money an' be your own boss.”

“But I don't want to stay with the circus,” whined Toby; “I don't want to learn to ride, an' I do want to get back to Uncle Dan'l.”

“That may all be true, an' I don't dispute it,” said Ben; “but you see you didn't stay with your uncle Daniel when you had the chance, an' you did come with the circus. You've told Job you wanted to leave, an' he 'll be watchin' you all the time to see that you don't give him the slip. Now what's the consequence? Why, you can't get away for a while, anyhow, an' you'd better try to amount to something while you are here. Perhaps after you've got so you can ride you may want to stay; an' I'll see to it that you get all of your wages, except enough to pay Castle for learnin' of you.”

“I sha'n't want to stay,” said Toby. “I wouldn't stay if I could ride all the horses at once an' was gettin' a hundred dollars a day.”

“But you can't ride one horse, an' you hain't gettin' but a dollar a week, an' still I don't see any chance of your gettin' away yet awhile,” said Ben, in a matter of fact tone, as he devoted his attention again to his horses, leaving Toby to his own sad reflections and the positive conviction that boys who run away from home do not have a good time, except in stories.

The next forenoon, while Toby was deep in the excitement of selling to a boy no larger than himself, and with just as red hair, three cents' worth of peanuts and two sticks of candy, and while the boy was trying to induce him to “throw in” a piece of gum, because of the quantity purchased, Job Lord called him aside, and Toby knew that his troubles had begun.

“I want you to go in an' see Mr. Castle; he's goin' to show you how to ride,” said Mr. Lord, in as kindly a tone as if he were conferring some favor on the boy.

If Toby had dared to, he would have rebelled then and there and refused to go; but, as he hadn't the courage for such proceeding, he walked meekly into the tent and toward the ring.

XIV. MR. CASTLE TEACHES TOBY TO RIDE

When Toby got within sight of the ring he was astonished at what he saw. A horse, with a broad wooden saddle, was being led slowly around the ring; Mr. Castle was standing on one side, with a long whip in his hand; and on the tent pole, which stood in the center of the ring, was a long arm, from which dangled a leathern belt attached to a long rope that was carried through the end of the arm and run down to the base of the pole.

Toby knew well enough why the horse, the whip, and the man were there, but the wooden projection from the tent pole, which looked so much like a gallows, he could not understand at all.

“Come, now,” said Mr. Castle, cracking his whip ominously as Toby came in sight, “why weren't you here before?”

“Mr. Lord just sent me in,” said Toby, not expecting that his excuse would be received, for they never had been since he had arrived at the height of his ambition by joining the circus.

“Then I'll make Mr. Job understand that I am to have my full hour of your time; and if I don't get it there 'll be trouble between us.”

It would have pleased Toby very well to have had Mr. Castle go out with his long whip just then and make trouble for Mr. Lord; but Mr. Castle had not the time to spare, because of the trouble which he was about to make for Toby, and that he commenced on at once.

“Well, get in here and don't waste any more time,” he said, sharply.

Toby looked around curiously for a moment, and, not understanding exactly what he was expected to get in and do, asked, “What shall I do?”

“Pull off your boots, coat, and vest.”

Since there was no other course than to learn to ride, Toby wisely concluded that the best thing he could do would be to obey his new master without question; so he began to take off his clothes with as much alacrity as if learning to ride was the one thing upon which he had long set his heart.

Mr. Castle was evidently accustomed to prompt obedience, for he not only took it as a matter of course, but endeavored to hurry Toby in the work of undressing.

With his desire to please, and urged by Mr. Castle's words and the ominous shaking of his whip, Toby's preparations were soon made, and he stood before his instructor clad only in his shirt, trousers, and stockings.

The horse was led around to where he stood, and when Mr. Castle held out his hand to help him to mount Toby jumped up quickly without aid, thereby making a good impression at the start as a willing lad.

“Now,” said the instructor, as he pulled down the leathern belt which hung from the rope and fastened it around Toby's waist, “stand up in the saddle, and try to keep there. You can't fall, because the rope will hold you up, even if the horse goes out from under you; but it isn't hard work to keep on if you mind what you are about; and if you don't this whip will help you. Now stand up.”

Toby did as he was bid; and as the horse was led at a walk, and as he had the long bridle to aid him in keeping his footing, he had no difficulty in standing during the time that the horse went once around the ring; but that was all.

Mr. Castle seemed to think that this was preparation enough for the boy to be able to understand how to ride, and he started the horse into a canter. As might have been expected, Toby lost his balance, the horse went on ahead, and he was left dangling at the end of the rope, very much like a crab that has just been caught by the means of a pole and line.

Toby kicked, waved his hands, and floundered about generally, but all to no purpose, until the horse came round again, and then he made frantic efforts to regain his footing, which efforts were aided--or perhaps it would be more proper to say retarded--by the long lash of Mr. Castle's whip, that played around his legs with merciless severity.

“Stand up! stand up!” cried his instructor, as Toby reeled first to one side and then to the other, now standing erect in the saddle and now dangling at the end of the rope, with the horse almost out from under him.

This command seemed needless, as it was exactly what Toby was trying to do; but as it was given he struggled all the harder, until it seemed to him that the more he tried the less did he succeed.

And this first lesson progressed in about the same way until the hour was over, save that now and then Mr. Castle would give him some good advice, but oftener he would twist the long lash of the whip around the boy's legs with such force that Toby believed the skin had been taken entirely off.

It may have been a relief to Mr. Castle when this first lesson was concluded, and it certainly was to Toby, for he had had all the teaching in horsemanship that he wanted, and he thought, with deepest sorrow, that this would be of daily occurrence during all the time that he remained with the circus.

As he went out of the tent he stopped to speak with his friend the old monkey, and his troubles seemed to have increased when he stood in front of the cage calling, “Mr. Stubbs! Mr. Stubbs!” and the old fellow would not even come down from off the lofty perch where he was engaged in monkey gymnastics with several younger companions. It seemed to him, as he afterward told Ben, “as if Mr. Stubbs had gone back on him because he knew that he was in trouble.”

When he went toward the booth Mr. Lord looked at him around the corner of the canvas--for it seemed to Toby that his employer could look around a square corner with much greater ease than he could straight ahead--with a disagreeable leer in his eye, as though he enjoyed the misery which he knew his little clerk had just undergone.

“Can you ride yet?” he asked, mockingly, as Toby stepped behind the counter to attend to his regular line of business.

Toby made no reply, for he knew that the question was only asked sarcastically and not through any desire for information. In a few moments Mr. Lord left him to attend to the booth alone and went into the tent, where Toby rightly conjectured he had gone to question Mr. Castle upon the result of the lesson just given.

That night Old Ben asked him how he had got on while under the teaching of Mr. Castle; and Toby, knowing that the question was asked because of the real interest which Ben had in his welfare, replied:

“If I was tryin' to learn how to swing round the ring, strapped to a rope, I should say that I got along first rate; but I don't know much about the horse, for I was only on his back a little while at a time.”