TOBY TYLER

or

Ten Weeks with a Circus

by James Otis



I: TOBY'S INTRODUCTION TO THE CIRCUS


"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