h 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 pea-nuts 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
troubling 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 go 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 pea-nuts 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'p