AN ACCIDENT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
Toby's experience in the evening was very similar to that of the
afternoon, save that he was so fortunate as not to take any more bad
money in payment for his goods. Mr. Jacobs scolded and swore
alternately, and the boy really surprised him by his way of selling
goods, though he was very careful not to say anything about it, but made
Toby believe that he was doing only about half as much work as he ought
to do. Toby's private hoard of money was increased that evening, by
presents, ninety cents, and he began to look upon himself as almost a
rich man.
When the performance was nearly over Mr. Jacobs called to him to help in
packing up; and by the time the last spectator had left the tent the
worldly possessions of Messrs. Lord and Jacobs were ready for removal,
and Toby allowed to do as he had a mind to, so long as he was careful to
be on hand when Old Ben was ready to start.
Toby thought that he would have time to pay a visit to his friends the
skeleton and the Fat Woman, and to that end started toward the place
where their tent had been standing; but to his sorrow he found that it
was already being taken down, and he had only time to thank Mrs. Treat
and to press the fleshless hand of her shadowy husband as they entered
their wagon to drive away.
He was disappointed, for he had hoped to be able to speak with his
new-made friends a few moments before the weary night's ride commenced;
but, failing in that, he went hastily back to the monkeys' cage. Old Ben
was there, getting things ready for a start; but the wooden sides of the
cage had not been put up, and Toby had no difficulty in calling the aged
monkey up to the bars. He held one of the Fat Woman's doughnuts in his
hand, and said, as he passed it through to the animal,
"I thought perhaps you might be hungry, Mr. Stubbs, and this is some of
what the skeleton's wife give me. I hain't got very much time to talk
with you now; but the first chance I can get away to-morrow, an' when
there hain't anybody 'round, I want to tell you something."
The monkey had taken the doughnut in his hand-like paws, and was tearing
it to pieces, eating small portions of it very rapidly.
"Don't hurry yourself," said Toby, warningly, "for Uncle Dan'l always
told me the worst thing a feller could do was to eat fast. If you want
any more, after we start, just put your hand through the little hole up
there near the seat, an' I'll give you all you want."
From the look on his face Toby confidently believed the monkey was about
to make some reply; but just then Ben shut up the sides, separating Toby
and Mr. Stubbs, and the order was given to start.
Toby clambered up on to the high seat, Ben followed him, and in another
instant the team was moving along slowly down the dusty road, preceded
and followed by the many wagons, with their tiny swinging lights.
"Well," said Ben, when he had got his team well under way, and felt that
he could indulge in a little conversation, "how did you get along
to-day?"
Toby related all of his movements, and gave the driver a faithful
account of all that had happened to him, concluding his story by saying,
"That was one of Mrs. Treat's doughnuts that I just gave to Mr. Stubbs."
"To whom?" asked Ben, in surprise.
"To Mr. Stubbs--the old fellow here in the cart, you know, that's been
so good to me."
Toby heard a sort of gurgling sound, saw the driver's body sway back and
forth in a trembling way, and was just becoming thoroughly alarmed, when
he thought of the previous night, and understood that Ben was only
laughing in his own peculiar way.
"How did you know his name was Stubbs?" asked Ben, after he had
recovered his breath.
"Oh, I don't know that that is his real name," was the quick reply; "I
only call him that because he looks so much like a feller with that name
that I knew at home. He don't seem to mind because I call him Stubbs."
Ben looked at Toby earnestly for a moment, acting all the time as if he
wanted to laugh again, but didn't dare to, for fear he might burst a
blood-vessel; and then he said, as he patted him on the shoulder, "Well,
you are the queerest little fish that I ever saw in all my travels. You
seem to think that that monkey knows all you say to him."
"I'm sure he does," said Toby, positively. "He don't say anything right
out to me, but he knows everything I tell him. Do you suppose he could
talk if he tried to?"
"Look here, Mr. Toby Tyler"--and Ben turned half around in his seat and
looked Toby full in the face, so as to give more emphasis to his
words--"are you heathen enough to think that that monkey could talk if
he wanted to?"
"I know I hain't a heathen," said Toby, thoughtfully, "for if I had been
some of the missionaries would have found me out a good while ago; but I
never saw anybody like this old Mr. Stubbs before, an' I thought he
could talk if he wanted to, just as the Living Skeleton does, or his
wife. Anyhow, Mr. Stubbs winks at me; an' how could he do that if he
didn't know what I've been sayin' to him?"
"Look here, my son," said Ben, in a most fatherly fashion, "monkeys
hain't anything but beasts, an' they don't know how to talk any more
than they know what you say to 'em."
"Didn't you ever hear any of them speak a word?"
"Never. I've been in a circus, man an' boy, nigh on to forty years, an'
I never seen nothin' in a monkey more'n any other beast, except their
awful mischiefness."
"Well," said Toby, still unconvinced, "I believe Mr. Stubbs knows what I
say to him, anyway."
"Now don't be foolish, Toby," pleaded Ben. "You can't show me one thing
that a monkey ever did because you told him to."
Just at that moment Toby felt some one pulling at the back of his coat,
and looking round he saw it was a little brown hand, reaching through
the bars of the air-hole of the cage, that was tugging away at his coat.
"There!" he said, triumphantly, to Ben. "Look there! I told Mr. Stubbs
if he wanted anything more to eat, to tell me, an' I would give it to
him. Now you can see for yourself that he's come for it." And Toby took
a doughnut from his pocket and put it into the tiny hand, which was
immediately withdrawn. "Now what do you think of Mr. Stubbs knowing what
I say to him?"
"They often stick their paws up through there," said Ben, in a
matter-of-fact tone. "I've had 'em pull my coat in the night till they
made me as nervous as ever any old woman was. You see, Toby, my boy,
monkeys is monkeys; an' you mustn't go to gettin' the idea that they're
anything else, for it's a mistake. You think this old monkey in here
knows what you say? Why, that's just the cuteness of the old fellow: he
watches you to see if he can't do just as you do, an' that's all there
is about it."
Toby was more than half convinced that Ben was putting the matter in its
proper light, and he would have believed all that had been said if, just
at that moment, he had not seen that brown hand reaching through the
hole to clutch him again by the coat.
The action seemed so natural, so like a hungry boy who gropes in the
dark pantry for something to eat, that it would have taken more
arguments than Ben had at his disposal to persuade Toby that his Mr.
Stubbs could not understand all that was said to him. Toby put another
doughnut in the outstretched hand, and then sat silently, as if in a
brown-study over some difficult problem.
For some time the ride was continued in silence. Ben was going through
all the motions of whistling without uttering a sound--a favorite
amusement of his--and Toby's thoughts were far away in the humble home
he had scorned, with Uncle Daniel, whose virtues had increased in his
esteem with every mile of distance which had been put between them, and
whose faults had decreased in a corresponding ratio.
Toby's thoughtfulness had made him sleepy, and his eyes were almost
closed in slumber, when he was startled by a crashing sound, was
conscious of a feeling of being hurled from his seat by some great
force, and then he lay senseless by the side of the road, while the
wagon became a perfect wreck, from out of which a small army of monkeys
was escaping. Ben's experienced ear had told him at the first crash that
his wagon was breaking down, and, without having time to warn Toby of
his peril, he had leaped clear of the wreck, keeping his horses under
perfect control, and thus averting more trouble. It was the breaking of
one of the axles which Toby had heard just before he was thrown from his
seat, and when the body of the wagon came down upon the hard road.
[Illustration: THE BREAK-DOWN, AND ESCAPE OF THE MONKEYS.]
The monkeys, thus suddenly released from confinement, had scampered off
in every direction, and by a singular chance Toby's aged friend started
for the woods in such a direction as to bring him directly before the
boy's insensible form. The monkey, on coming up to Toby, stopped, urged
by the well-known curiosity of its race, and began to examine the boy's
person carefully, prying into pockets and trying to open the boy's
half-closed eyelids. Fortunately for Toby, he had fallen upon a
mud-bank, and was only stunned for the moment, having received no
serious bruises. The attentions bestowed upon him by the monkey served
the purpose of bringing him to his senses; and, after he had looked
around him in the gray light of the coming morning, it would have taken
far more of a philosopher than Old Ben was to persuade the boy that
monkeys did not possess reasoning faculties.
The monkey was busy at Toby's ears, nose, and mouth, as monkeys will do
when they get an opportunity, and the expression of its face was as
grave as possible. Toby firmly believed that the monkey's face showed
sorrow at his fall, and he imagined that the attentions which were
bestowed upon him were for the purpose of learning whether he had been
injured or not.
"Don't worry, Mr. Stubbs," said Toby, anxious to reassure his friend, as
he sat upright and looked about him. "I didn't get hurt any; but I would
like to know how I got 'way over here."
It really seemed as if the monkey was pleased to know that his little
friend was not hurt, for he seated himself on his haunches, and his face
expressed the liveliest pleasure that Toby was well again--or at least
that was how the boy interpreted the look.
By this time the news of the accident had been shouted ahead from one
team to the other, and all hands were hurrying to the scene for the
purpose of rendering aid. As Toby saw them coming he also saw a number
of small forms, looking something like diminutive men, hurrying past
him, and for the first time he understood how it was that the aged
monkey was at liberty, and knew that those little dusky forms were the
other occupants of the cage escaping to the woods.
"See there, Mr. Stubbs! see there!" he exclaimed, pointing toward the
fugitives; "they're all going off into the woods! What shall we do?"
The sight of the runaways seemed to excite the old monkey quite as much
as it did the boy. He sprung to his feet, chattering in the most excited
way, screamed two or three times, as if he were calling them back, and
then started off in vigorous pursuit.
"Now he's gone too!" said Toby, disconsolately, believing the old fellow
had run away from him. "I didn't think Mr. Stubbs would treat me this
way!"