Excerpt
THE SCHEME
"Why, we could start a circus jest as easy as a wink, Toby, 'cause you know all about one an' all you'd have to do would be to tell us fellers what to do, an' we'd 'tend to the rest."
"Yes; but you see we hain't got a tent, or bosses, or wagons, or nothin', an' I don't see how you could get a circus up that way;" and the speaker hugged his knees as he rocked himself to and fro in a musing way on the rather sharp point of a large rock, on which he had seated himself in order to hear what his companions had to say that was so important.
"Will you come down with me to Bob Atwood's, an' see what he says about it?"
"Yes, I'll do that if you'll come out afterwards for a game of I-spy 'round the meetin'-house."
"All right; if we can find enough of the other fellers, I will."
Then the boys slipped down from the rocks, found the cows, and drove them home as the preface to their visit to Bob Atwood's.
The boy who was so anxious to start a circus was a little fellow with such a wonderful amount of remarkably red hair that he was seldom called anything but Reddy, although his name was known—by his parents, at least—to be Walter Grant. His companion was Toby Tyler, a boy who, a year before, had thought it would be a very pleasant thing to run away from his Uncle Daniel and the town of Guilford in order to be with a circus, and who, in ten weeks, was only too glad to run back home as rapidly as possible.
During the first few months of his return, very many brilliant offers had been made Toby by his companions to induce him to aid them in starting an amateur circus; but he had refused to have anything to do with the schemes, and for several reasons. During the ten weeks he had been away, he had seen quite as much of a circus life as he cared to see, without even such a mild dose as would be this amateur show; and, again, whenever he thought of the matter, the remembrance of the death of his monkey, Mr. Stubbs, would come upon him so vividly, and cause him so much sorrow, that he resolutely put the matter from his mind.
Now, however, it had been a year since the monkey was killed; school had closed during the summer season; and he was rather more disposed to listen to the requests of his friends.
On this particular night, Reddy Grant had offered to go with him for the cows—an act of generosity which Toby accounted for only on the theory that Reddy wanted some of the strawberries which grew so plentifully in Uncle Daniel's pasture. But when they arrived there the strawberries were neglected for the circus question, and Toby then showed he was at least willing to talk about it.
There was no doubt that Bob Atwood knew Reddy was going to try to induce Toby to help start a circus, and Bob knew, also, that Reddy and Toby would visit him, although he appeared very much surprised when he saw them coming up the hill towards his house. He was at home, evidently waiting for something, at an hour when all the other boys were out playing; and that, in itself, would have made Toby suspicious if he had paid much attention to the matter....