s half-a-hundred table cloths
were already hanging out on wire clothes lines to dry.

Some men were washing small tents with paraffin to season them against
the weather. Finally the great forty-horse team lumbered up with its
mighty load. The boss canvasman with half-a-hundred assistants began the
construction of "the main top," or performing tent, holding fifteen
thousand people.

Andy, absorbed in every maneuver displayed, was completely lost in the
deepest interest when a voice at his side aroused him.

"Tired waiting?" asked Billy Blow.

"Oh, no," answered Andy, "I could watch this forever, I think."

"It would soon get stale," declared the clown, with a faint smile. "Give
us a hand, partner--one at a time, and we'll get my togs and ourselves
under cover."

Andy took one handle of the box, the clown the other. They carried it to
the door of one of twenty small tents near the cook's quarters. They
brought the wicker trunk also, and then carried box and trunk inside
the tent.

Andy looked about it curiously. A candle burned on a bench. Beyond it
was a mattress. Near one side, and boxed in by platform sections as if
to keep off draughts, was a second smaller mattress.

On a stool near it sat a thin-faced, lady-like woman. She was smiling
down at a little boy lying huddled up in shawls and a comforter.

"This is my boy, Wildwood," spoke Billy Blow. "New hand, Midge--if he
makes good."

The little fellow nodded in a grave, mature way at Andy. According to
his size, he resembled a child of four. That was why they called him
Midget. Andy learned later that he was ten years old. He had an act with
the circus, going around the ring perched on the shoulders of a
bare-back rider. He also sometimes had a part with "the Tom Thumb
acrobats," doing some clever hoop-jumping with a trick Shetland pony.

He seemed to be just recovering from a fit of sickness. His face,
prematurely old, was pinched and colorless.

"Our Columbine in the Humpty Dumpty afterpiece," was the way the clown
introduced the lady. "I don't know how to thank you for all your
trouble, Miss Nellis."

"Don't mention it, Billy," responded the woman. "Any of us would fight
for it to help you or the kid, wouldn't we, Midge?"

"I don't know why," answered the lad in a weary way. "I ain't much good
any more."

"Now hear that ungrateful boy!" rallied Miss Nellis. "Billy, the doctor
says his whole trouble was poisoned canned stuff, bad water and a cold.