Chapter 6. A Tender-Hearted Skeleton
"Now, then, lazybones," was Mr. Lord's warning cry as Toby came out of the tent, "if you've fooled away enough of your time, you can come here an' tend shop for me while I go to supper. You crammed yourself this noon, an' it 'll teach you a good lesson to make you go without anything to eat tonight; it 'll make you move round more lively in future." Instead of becoming accustomed to such treatment as he was receiving from his employers, Toby's heart grew more tender with each brutal word, and this last punishment--that of losing his supper--caused the poor boy more sorrow than blows would. Mr. Lord started for the hotel as he concluded his cruel speech; and poor little Toby, going behind the counter, leaned his head upon the rough boards and cried as if his heart would break.
All the fancied brightness and pleasure of a circus life had vanished, and in its place was the bitterness of remorse that he had repaid Uncle Daniel's kindness by the ingratitude of running away. Toby thought that if he could only nestle his little red head on the pillows of his little bed in that rough room at Uncle Daniel's, he would be the happiest and best boy, in the future, in all the great wide world. While he was still sobbing away at a most furious rate he heard a voice close at his elbow, and, looking up, saw the thinnest man he had ever seen in all his life. The man had flesh colored tights on, and a spangled red velvet garment--that was neither pants, because there were no legs to it, nor a coat, because it did not come above his waist--made up the remainder of his costume.
Because he was so wonderfully thin, because of the costume which he wore, and because of a highly colored painting which was hanging in front of one of the small tents, Toby knew that the Living Skeleton was before him, and his big brown eyes opened all the wider as he gazed at him.
"What is the matter, little fellow?" asked the man, in a kindly tone. "What makes you cry so? Has Job been up to his old tricks again?" "I don't know what his old tricks are--" and Toby sobbed, the tears coming again because of the sympathy which this man's voice expressed for him--"but I know that he's a mean, ugly thing--that's what I know; an' if I could only get back to Uncle Dan'l, there hain't elephants enough in all the circuses in the world to pull me away again." "Oh, you run away from home, did you?" "Yes, I did," sobbed Toby, "an' there hain't any boy in any Sunday School book that ever I read that was half so sorry he'd been bad as I am. It's awful; an' now I can't have any supper, 'cause I stopped to talk with Mr. Stubbs." "Is Mr. Stubbs one of your friends?" asked the skeleton, as he seated himself in Mr. Lord's own private chair. "Yes, he is, an' he's the only one in this whole circus who 'pears to be sorry for me. You'd better not let Mr. Lord see you sittin' in that chair or he'll raise a row." "Job won't raise any row with me," said the skeleton. "But who is this Mr. Stubbs? I don't seem to know anybody by that name." "I don't think that is his name. I only call him so, 'cause he looks so much like a feller I know who is named Stubbs." This satisfied the skeleton that this Mr. Stubbs must be someone attached to the show, and he asked:
"Has Job been whipping you?" "No; Ben, the driver on the wagon where I ride, told him not to do that again; but he hain't going to let me have any supper, 'cause I was so slow about my work--though I wasn't slow; I only talked to Mr. Stubbs when there wasn't anybody round his cage." "Sam! Sam! Sam-u-el!" This name, which was shouted twice in a quick, loud voice, and the third time in a slow manner, ending almost in a screech, did not come from either Toby or the skeleton, but from an enormously large woman, dressed in a gaudy red and black dress, cut very short, and with low neck and an apology for sleeves, who had just come out from the tent whereon the picture of the Living Skeleton hung.
"Samuel," she screamed again, "come inside this minute, or you'll catch your death o' cold, an' I shall have you wheezin' around with the phthisic all night. Come in, Sam-u-el." "That's her," said the skeleton to Toby, as he pointed his thumb in the direction of the fat woman, but paying no attention to the outcry she was making--"that's my wife Lilly, an' she's the Fat Woman of the show. She's always yellin' after me that way the minute I get out for a little fresh air, an' she's always sayin' just the same thing. Bless you, I never have the phthisic, but she does awful; an' I s'pose 'cause she's so large she can't feel all over her, an' thinks it's me that has it." "Is--is all that--is that your wife?" stammered Toby, in astonishment, as he looked at the enormously fat woman who stood in the tent door, and then at the wonderfully thin man who sat beside him.
"Yes, that's her," said the skeleton. "She weighs pretty nigh four hundred, though of course the show cards says it's over six hundred, an' she earns almost as much money as I do. Of course she can't get so much, for skeletons is much scarcer than fat folks; but we make a pretty good thing travelin' together." "Sam-u-el!" again came the cry from the fat woman, "are you never coming in?" "Not yet, my angel," said the skeleton, placidly, as he crossed one thin leg over the other and looked calmly at her. "Come here an' see Job's new boy." "Your imprudence is wearin' me away so that I sha'n't be worth five dollars a week to any circus," she said, impatiently, at the same time coming toward the candy stand quite as rapidly as her very great size would admit. "This is my wife Lilly--Mrs. Treat," said the skeleton, with a proud wave of his hand, as he rose from his seat and gazed admiringly at her. "This is my flower--my queen, Mr.--Mr.--" "Tyler," said Toby, supplying the name which the skeleton--or Mr. Treat, as Toby now learned his name was--did not know; "Tyler is my name--Toby Tyler." "Why, what a little chap you are!" said Mrs. Treat, paying no attention to the awkward little bend of the head which Toby intended for a bow. "How small he is, Samuel!" "Yes," said the skeleton, reflectively, as he looked Toby over from head to foot, as if he were mentally trying to calculate exactly how many inches high he was, "he is small; but he's got all the world before him to grow in, an' if he only eats enough--There, that reminds me. Job isn't going to give him any supper, because he didn't work hard enough." "He won't, won't he?" exclaimed the large lady, savagely. "Oh, he's a precious one, he is! An' some day I shall just give him a good shakin' up, that's what I'll do. I get all out of patience with that man's ugliness." "An' she'll do just what she says," said the skeleton to Toby, with an admiring shake of the head. "That woman hain't afraid of anybody, an' I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she did give Job a pretty rough time." Toby thought, as he looked at her, that she was large enough to give 'most anyone a pretty rough time, but he did not venture to say so. While he was looking first at her, and then at her very thin husband, the skeleton told his wife the little that he had learned regarding the boy's history; and when he had concluded she waddled away toward her tent. "Great woman that," said the skeleton, as he saw her disappear within the tent. "Yes," said Toby, "she's the greatest I ever saw." "I mean that she's got a great head. Now you'll see about how much she cares for what Job says." "If I was as big as her," said Toby, with just a shade of envy in his voice, "I wouldn't be afraid of anybody." "It hain't so much the size," said the skeleton, sagely--"it hain't so much the size, my boy; for I can scare that woman almost to death when I feel like it." Toby looked for a moment at Mr. Treat's thin legs and arms, and then he said, warningly, "I wouldn't feel like it very often if I was you, Mr. Treat, 'cause she might break some of your bones if you didn't happen to scare her enough." "Don't fear for me, my boy--don't fear for me; you'll see how I manage her if you stay with the circus long enough. Now I often --" If Mr. Treat was about to confide a family secret to Toby, it was fated that he should not hear it then, for Mrs. Treat had just come out of her tent, carrying in her hands a large tin plate piled high with a miscellaneous assortment of pie, cake, bread, and meat.
She placed this in front of Toby, and as she did so she handed him two pictures.
"There, little Toby Tyler," she said--"there's something for you to eat, if Mr. Job Lord and his precious partner Jacobs did say you shouldn't have any supper; an' I've brought you a picture of Samuel an' me. We sell 'em for ten cents apiece, but I'm going to give them to you, because I like the looks of you." Toby was quite overcome with the presents, and seemed at a loss how to thank her for them. He attempted to speak, but could not get the words out at first; and then he said, as he put the two photographs in the same pocket with his money: "You're awful good to me, an' when I get to be a man I'll give you lots of things. I wasn't so very hungry, if I am such a big eater, but I did want something." "Bless your dear little heart, and you shall have something to eat," said the Fat Woman, as she seized Toby, squeezed him close up to her, and kissed his freckled face as kindly as if it had been as fair and white as possible. "You shall eat all you want to; an' if you get the stomachache, as Samuel does sometimes when he's been eatin' too much, I'll give you some catnip tea out of the same dipper that I give him his. He's a great eater, Samuel is," she added, in a burst of confidence, "an' it's a wonder to me what he does with it all sometimes." "Is he?" exclaimed Toby, quickly. "How funny that is! for I'm an awful eater. Why, Uncle Dan'l used to say that I ate twice as much as I ought to, an' it never made me any bigger. I wonder what's the reason?" "I declare I don't know," said the Fat Woman, thoughtfully, "an' I've wondered at it time an' time again. Some folks is made that way, an' some folks is made different. Now I don't eat enough to keep a chicken alive, an' yet I grow fatter an' fatter every day -- don't I, Samuel?" "Indeed you do, my love," said the skeleton, with a world of pride in his voice; "but you mustn't feel bad about it, for every pound you gain makes you worth just so much more to the show." "Oh, I wasn't worryin', I was only wonderin'. But we must go, Samuel, for the poor child won't eat a bit while we are here. After you've eaten what there is there, bring the plate in to me," she said to Toby, as she took her lean husband by the arm and walked him off toward their own tent. Toby gazed after them a moment, and then he commenced a vigorous attack upon the eatables which had been so kindly given him. Of the food which he had taken from the dinner table he had eaten some while he was in the tent, and after that he had entirely forgotten that he had any in his pocket; therefore, at the time that Mrs. Treat had brought him such a liberal supply he was really very hungry.
He succeeded in eating nearly all the food which had been brought to him, and the very small quantity which remained he readily found room for in his pockets. Then he washed the plate nicely; and seeing no one in sight, he thought he could leave the booth long enough to return the plate.
He ran with it quickly into the tent occupied by the thin man and fat woman, and handed it to her, with a profusion of thanks for her kindness.
"Did you eat it all?" she asked.
"Well," hesitated Toby, "there was two doughnuts an' a piece of pie left over, an' I put them in my pocket. If you don't care, I'll eat them some time tonight." "You shall eat it whenever you want to; an' any time that you get hungry again you come right to me." "Thank you, marm. I must go now, for I left the store all alone." "Run, then; an' if Job abuses you, just let me know it, an' I'll keep him from cuttin' up any monkeyshines." Toby hardly heard the end of her sentence, so great was his haste to get back to the booth; and just as he emerged from the tent, on a quick run, he received a blow on the ear which sent him sprawling in the dust, and he heard Mr. Job Lord's angry voice as it said, "So, just the moment my back is turned you leave the stand to take care of itself, do you, an' run around tryin' to plot some mischief against me, eh?" And the brute kicked the prostrate boy twice with his heavy boot.
"Please don't kick me again!" pleaded Toby. "I wasn't gone but a minute, an' I wasn't doing anything bad." "You're lying now, an' you know it, you young cub!" exclaimed the angry man as he advanced to kick the boy again. "I'll let you know who you've got to deal with when you get hold of me!" "And I'll let you know who you've got to deal with when you get hold of me!" said a woman's voice; and just as Mr. Lord raised his foot to kick the boy again the fat woman seized him by the collar, jerked him back over one of the tent ropes, and left him quite as prostrate as he had left Toby. "Now, Job Lord," said the angry woman, as she towered above the thoroughly enraged but thoroughly frightened man, "I want you to understand that you can't knock and beat this boy while I'm around. I've seen enough of your capers, an' I'm going to put a stop to them. That boy wasn't in this tent more than two minutes, an' he attends to his work better than anyone you have ever had; so see that you treat him decent. Get up," she said to Toby, who had not dared to rise from the ground; "and if he offers to strike you again, come to me." Toby scrambled to his feet, and ran to the booth in time to attend to one or two customers who had just come up. He could see from out the corner of his eye that Mr. Lord had arisen to his feet also, and was engaged in an angry conversation with Mrs. Treat, the result of which he very much feared would be another and a worse whipping for him.
But in this he was mistaken, for Mr. Lord, after the conversation was ended, came toward the booth, and began to attend to his business without speaking one word to Toby. When Mr. Jacobs returned from his supper, Mr. Lord took him by the arm and walked him out toward the rear of the tents; and Tony was very positive that he was to be the subject of their conversation, which made him not a little uneasy.
It was not until nearly time for the performance to begin that Mr. Lord returned, and he had nothing to say to Toby save to tell him to go into the tent and begin his work there. The boy was only too glad to escape so easily, and he went to his work with as much alacrity as if he were about entering upon some pleasure.
When he met Mr. Jacobs that gentleman spoke to him very sharply about being late, and seemed to think it no excuse at all that he had just been relieved from the outside work by Mr. Lord.
