WHEN DREAMS CAME TRUE
Steve seemed turned into a pillar of stone. He stood there, and just stared as hard as he could at the girl in the buggy. His hand though released its clutch upon the reins, and the girl, plying the whip on old Bill, swept past, giving him one last scornful look as she went; for indeed the usually elegant Steve must have impressed her as having taken to the life of a tramp, he was so soiled and streaked.
Max and Toby and Bandy-legs had listened, and also stared. They grinned of course when they realized how their brave companion's efforts were wasted on the desert air; but did not say a single word as they walked on, and overtook the dazed Steve, still standing there as though hardly able as yet to figure it out.
He managed to grin a little himself, even while rubbing his elbow, where it may have been knocked by the shaft of the vehicle at the time he made that gallant upward jump.
"Huh! seemed like it wasn't a runaway after all!" he told them; "but how was anybody to know about that, when it had all the earmarks of one? I never waited to ask, but saw my duty and did it. Lots of thanks I got, didn't I? It'll likely be some time before Steve Dowdy bothers himself to stop horses again at the risk of his own life. Why, she looked like she could eat me when she drove off. A fellow's a fool to think a girl could appreciate a job like that. Huh!"
"Never mind, Steve," said Max, throwing an arm over the shoulder of his friend; "we know that if it had been a sure-enough runaway you'd have covered yourself with glory, and saved her life in the bargain. Who'd ever expect girls to be wagering candy pulls about an old nag making time? And anybody to see old Bill tearing along would say he was running away. It's all right, Steve; forget it now. You made a great stop, there's no getting around that."
"I should say he did!" added Bandy-legs; "and when Bessie comes to think of how you risked your precious life, just because you thought she was in danger, why, I don't see how she can help but feel sorry for being so sharp with her tongue. But then all girls think of is candy-pulls, dancin' and such things as dress. Nope, it don't pay for a feller to play the hero any more. You wouldn't ketch me adoin' it, for a fact."
Toby started to say something that may have had to do with his opinion concerning the impossibility of any one built like Bandy-legs being agile enough to run alongside a racing horse; but he made such a mess of it, or else on second thought felt it would be mean to say it, for he stopped short, gulped several times, and relapsed into silence.
Sometimes that affliction of Toby's saved him from getting into trouble and controversies, which proved that it was after all not an unmixed evil.
After that they went on toward home, chattering like a lot of magpies about the glorious times they expected having in the following week, should the weather permit of their going off to the woods, on their first outing of the season.
Before separating they divided the spoils of the frog hunt. After due consideration Bandy-legs concluded that it would be best for him not to bother his folks with any of the proceeds of the expedition to the big pond.
"I'll drop over to your house to-morrow, Toby," he said, as he handed the other his share of the trophies in the shape of five saddles, "and p'raps you'd be kind enough to save me a couple of these, no matter if they are cold. I don't dare upset our cook. She's the boss of the kitchen in our house, and if you rub her the right way you c'n get whatever you want; but she does everlastingly hate the looks of frogs' legs, and vowed the last time I fetched some home she'd leave before she cooked 'em again. Besides, mebbe next week we'll run across our fill of the same when we're campin' out, and then I can have all I want."
Toby readily agreed to this, for he was a most accommodating fellow. He even made Bandy-legs promise to eat dinner with him when the wonderful dish of frogs' legs would be served.
"I'll have the s-s-same, even if I have to c-c-cook 'em m-m-myself!" Toby promised, in parting.
"If you look over there," remarked Max, casually, "you'll notice that bank of dark clouds has climbed up a little now. Seems like it might be going to whoop things up some before morning comes along."
"Well, it's Sunday, and all we could do would be to hang around the house, or walk down to see how the old circus was coming on," Steve observed, with the calm philosophy of a boy.
"It's going to clear the air for next week, and give us the greatest time ever," Max went on to say, in his optimistic way, for he was ever ready to see the bright side of things, and no trouble could come along but what Max quickly discovered that the gloomy cloud had a silver lining.
In this spirit the boys separated, each one heading for his particular home, for it was close on supper time; and Steve wanted to change his clothes before he allowed his folks to see him.
Toby too knew that he would have certain chores to look after connected with the feeding of his pets. He was too tender-hearted a boy to let them go hungry when it could be helped; and besides, his mother always insisted that if he must keep such a little menagerie in the back yard he should always have the place tidied up, and under no circumstances allow his captives to suffer from lack of attention on his part.
The 'coon was glad to see him, and even allowed Toby to pat his sleek back, although the boy could remember many occasions in the past when he had been nipped by those sharp teeth, or else felt the angry animal's claws.
His red fox was also very tame, and would eat out of his hand, though Toby did not dare let him loose, even with a chain like that holding the 'coon, for fear of losing him.
Even the wildcat seemed to be pretty friendly on this occasion, and growled in a lower key than usual when Toby was pushing the meat scraps through the openings between the bars of its cage.
Toby was mentally exulting in the possibility that his collection might soon be added to by the coming of that partly grown black bear cub, which Bandy-legs had half promised to let him have.
He even figured out just where he would keep Nicodemus fastened, and what kind of a cage he would have to construct for him; because he had never fully liked the one now being used as a place of shelter for the cub, Bandy-legs not being much of a carpenter, to tell the truth.
It was with his mind filled with future triumphs in this line of collecting wild animals that Toby sat him down to supper that evening. He was unusually quiet, because he was thinking, and planning, and seeing visions of great things to come to pass in the distant future.
When his father asked him how the frog hunt had come out he did manage to arouse himself sufficiently to narrate some of the particulars, especially Steve's getting such a monster hermit frog, his falling into the pond, their making a fire to dry his clothes, and finally how he stopped the runaway horse under a misunderstanding and never got even so much as a word of thanks from the pretty inmate of the buggy.
Now at home, when he knew his folks were taking note of his manner of speech, it was singular how free from stuttering Toby's language could be. He just gripped himself, and was careful to speak slowly and distinctly, pronouncing every word as though he were a foreigner trying to pick up English.
And after all that is the only true way for a stammering boy to cure himself; if Toby had been as careful when among his chums as he was at home, he would have undoubtedly thrown the habit away long ago. But then there were plenty of causes for excitement in a warm baseball game, or when indulging in a swimming match, which he did not encounter at home; and this excitement was the main cause for his failure to speak distinctly.
He sat reading until it was bedtime, for he happened to have an interesting book, taken from the public library, and all about the different animals seen by a traveler in the heart of the African forest. It was highly embellished with colored pictures, supposed to be produced from photographs which this daring explorer had taken while concealed near some waterhole, where the animals of the forest were in the habit of coming to drink nights, and a flashlight camera helped catch them true to nature.
All of this is told with an object in view. It would serve to explain why Toby must have dreamed that he too was a bold traveler in this foreign wilderness, and reveling in the wonderful sights to be met with there.
Once during the night he was awakened by the rush of the wind, as the storm that Max had told them would come along during the night, swooped down upon Carson to blow a few trees over, and hit the tall steeple of the Methodist church again, possibly wrecking it for the fourth time in as many years.
As Toby crawled sleepily out of bed, to close the shutters belonging to the two windows in his room that looked out on the back yard where his pets were snugly housed, he wondered whether the circus had arrived safely, and if the storm would keep them from erecting the big round-top. Fortunately they had all of Sunday to prepare for the next performance; and that would count for considerable, if repairs were necessary.
Just then, during a temporary lull in the gale, he distinctly heard the clock in the town hall tower strike three. This told him that the time fixed for the coming of the circus train had long since passed, and that they would undoubtedly be caught unprepared by the storm.
"But then they're used to roughing it," Toby thought, without stammering either, "because circus canvas hands have to rub up against hard things wherever they go. Haven't I had one boy tell me he never knew when he was going to get his next meal, and how for a month he didn't have regular sleep, and then it was on a hard board floor mebbe. Which makes me feel thankful for such a nice soft bed, though I c'n stand it sleepin' on the bare ground, when I have to in camp."
Yawning as he told himself this, Toby stood there by the open window for a minute trying to ascertain whether he could hear a lion roar or an elephant trumpet, for that would have made his ambitious blood leap through his veins. But the noise of the storm prevented him from hearing anything else, as the rain was beating down on a tin roof near by, while the wind howled through the trees as though pursued by a legion of demons.
So presently, when Toby found himself beginning to shiver, he crawled back again between the sheets, and snuggled down, glad that he had such a comfortable nook in which to lie while things were so unpleasant without.
Once Toby managed to get to sleep and he minded nothing else that occurred. Had that furious gale whipped the roof off the house he might have aroused sufficiently to ask if the danger were very great, and upon being reassured would have again dropped off on his voyage to slumberland.
It was daylight when Toby sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes.
"Gee!" he was saying to himself, "that was a corker of a dream, all right. Why, seemed like I could see everything the animals were adoing at that same waterhole where that man took his flashlight pictures; and it was so much like the real thing I could even hear 'em carryin' on when the flash scared the bunch."
Just then he started, and sat upright, staring hard toward the nearer window, through which it seemed a queer sound had come.
Toby could not ever remember having heard such a sound in all his life; it was different from everything he had ever come across, and seemed fraught with the most alarming potentialities.
Could one of his pets be choking to death, and was that cry meant for a signal to summon him to the rescue? The thought flashed into his excited mind, causing Toby to spring from his bed like a flash, and rush over to where the closed shutters prevented a view of the back yard.
If Toby did have an impediment in his speech there was certainly nothing of that kind connected with his movements. He was known to be one of the smartest players on the high school nine; though tongue-tied, he could equal the swiftest player on the football eleven, and had more than once claimed a share in carrying victory to the colors of Carson High.
He reached the window, and with trembling fingers fumbled at the catch, intending to throw the shutters wide open. As he was doing so he became aware of the fact that a confused jumble of mysterious sounds seemed to come floating up to him.
Toby gave his head a shake, as he again took himself to task.
"It's the old dream ahangin' on to me," he thought. "Chances are now that's only a door aswingin' in the breeze, and groanin' to beat the band; yet I'm so filled chuck full of things, because of that book, and my dream, that I'm silly enough to think I'm ahearin' wild animals asnortin' and agruntin'. Bah! get your eyes wide open, Toby Jucklin, and let up with this nonsense."
He flung open the shutters as he came to this part of hauling himself over the coals. Then he crouched there as though transfixed, hardly even drawing in a single breath. All Toby could do was to remain as though changed into a statue, and take it out in staring; though he did want to rub his eyes the worst kind, and see if the magical vision would vanish.
Indeed, there was enough reason for him to stare as though his eyes would pop out of his head. What he gazed upon might make the most sensible person believe he had been taken with a very bad case of nightmare, and was seeing things that could exist only in dreams.
There, right in the same back yard where he had his own private little menagerie Toby was looking down upon the most remarkable collection of wild animals any boy could imagine would drop down from the clouds of a stormy night—two big elephants, and a cunning baby one in the bargain; three dromedaries, with their double humps all in place; an ostrich; a striped zebra, and last but far from least, a cowering tawny form with a shaggy mane in which Toby could recognize the king of the African forest, a male lion!
Who could blame Toby for believing that he was still dreaming as he stared out of the window of his own little second story room, and saw this wonderful array of wild beasts camped in the back yard, where up to then the fiercest captive had been his snarling wildcat, and undersized at that?