up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard
Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were
left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said
the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his
restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce
repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself.

"And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't
ever speak to a girl like that!"

Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the
circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day.

"It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open
early in the morning."

Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions.
His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember
whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by
the road.

"Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'."

"What you goin' to do?"

"I'm goin' to school."

If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and
being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more
astonished.