“Wouldn't you give more 'n six peanuts for a cent?” was a question asked
by a very small boy, with big, staring eyes, of a candy vender at a
circus booth. And as he spoke he looked wistfully at the quantity of
nuts piled high up on the basket, and then at the six, each of which now
looked so small as he held them in his hand.
“Couldn't do it,” was the reply of the proprietor of the booth, as he
put the boy's penny carefully away in the drawer.
The little fellow looked for another moment at his purchase, and then
carefully cracked the largest one.
A shade--and a very deep shade it was--of disappointment passed over his
face, and then, looking up anxiously, he asked, “Don't you swap 'em when
they're bad?”
The man's face looked as if a smile had been a stranger to it for a long
time; but one did pay it a visit just then, and he tossed the boy two
nuts, and asked him a question at the same time. “What is your name?”
The big brown eyes looked up for an instant, as if to learn whether
the question was asked in good faith, and then their owner said, as he
carefully picked apart another nut, “Toby Tyler.”
“Well, that's a queer name.”
“Yes, I s'pose so, myself; but, you see, I don't expect that's the
name that belongs to me. But the fellers call me so, an' so does Uncle
Dan'l.”
“Who is Uncle Daniel?” was the next question. In the absence of other
customers the man seemed disposed to get as much amusement out of the
boy as possible.
“He hain't my uncle at all; I only call him so because all the boys do,
an' I live with him.”
“Where's your father and mother?”
“I don't know,” said Toby, rather carelessly. “I don't know much about
'em, an' Uncle Dan'l says they don't know much about me. Here's another
bad nut; goin' to give me two more?”
The two nuts were given him, and he said, as he put them in his pocket
and turned over and over again those which he held in his hand: “I
shouldn't wonder if all of these was bad. S'posen you give me two for
each one of 'em before I crack 'em, an' then they won't be spoiled so
you can't sell 'em again.”
As this offer of barter was made, the man looked amused, and he asked,
as he counted out the number which Toby desired, “If I give you these,
I suppose you'll want me to give you two more for each one, and you'll
keep that kind of a trade going until you get my whole stock?”
“I won't open my head if every one of em's bad.”
“All right; you can keep what you've got, and I'll give you these
besides; but I don't want you to buy any more, for I don't want to do
that kind of business.”
Toby took the nuts offered, not in the least abashed, and seated himself
on a convenient stone to eat them, and at the same time to see all that
was going on around him. The coming of a circus to the little town of
Guilford was an event, and Toby had hardly thought of anything else
since the highly colored posters had first been put up. It was yet quite
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 as a boy
of your age ought to be. But I've a great mind to give you a chance.”
“What!” cried Toby, in amazement, and his eyes opened to their widest
extent as this possible opportunity of leading a delightful life
presented itself.
“Yes, I've a great mind to give you the chance. You see,” and now it
was Mr. Lord's turn to grow confidential, “I've had a boy with me
this season, but he cleared out at the last town, and I'm running the
business alone now.”
Toby's face expressed all the contempt he felt for the boy who would run
away from such a glorious life as Mr. Lord's assistant must lead; but he
said not a word, waiting in breathless expectation for the offer which
he now felt certain would be made him.
“Now I ain't hard on a boy,” continued Mr. Lord, still confidentially,
“and yet that one seemed to think that he was treated worse and made to
work harder than any boy in the world.”
“He ought to live with Uncle Dan'l a week,” said Toby, eagerly.
“Here I was just like a father to him,” said Mr. Lord, paying no
attention to the interruption, “and I gave him his board and lodging,
and a dollar a week besides.”
“Could he do what he wanted to with the dollar?”
“Of course he could. I never checked him, no matter how extravagant he
was, an' yet I've seen him spend his whole week's wages at this very
stand in one afternoon. And even after his money had all gone that way,
I've paid for peppermint and ginger out of my own pocket just to cure
his stomach ache.”
Toby shook his head mournfully, as if deploring that depravity which
could cause a boy to run away from such a tender hearted employer and
from such a desirable position. But even as he shook his head so sadly
he looked wistfully at the peanuts, and Mr. Lord observed the look.
It may have been that Mr. Job Lord was the tender hearted man he prided
himself upon being, or it may have been that he wished to purchase
Toby's sympathy; but, at all events, he gave him a large handful of
nuts, and Toby never bothered his little round head as to what motive
prompted the gift. Now he could listen to the story of the boy's
treachery and eat at the same time; therefore he was an attentive
listener.
“All in the world that boy had to do,” continued Mr. Lord, in the same
injured tone he had previously used, “was to help me set things to
rights when we struck a town in the morning, and then tend to the
counter till we left the town at night, and all the rest of the time he
had to himself. Yet that boy was ungrateful enough to run away.”
Mr. Lord paused, as if expecting some expression of sympathy from his
listener; but Toby was so busily engaged with his unexpected feast, and
his mouth was so full, that it did not seem even possible for him to
shake his head.
“Now what should you say if I told you that you looked to me like a boy
that was made especially to help run a candy counter at a circus, and if
I offered the place to you?”
Toby made one frantic effort to swallow the very large mouthful, and in
a choking voice he answered, quickly, “I should say I'd go with you, an'
be mighty glad of the chance.”
“Then it's a bargain, my boy, and you shall leave town with me tonight.”