Ward silently handed him the bag of peanuts, and he took a handful.
"I should think you'd like to travel around," said Artie. "It must be fun to see all the different places and people."
"Do you have to go to school?" Ward asked.
"Can't—I'm too fat," said the boy. "I'd break down all the benches. My mother teaches me. And let me tell you, it isn't such fun going around, especially in hot weather. I'd like to spend a summer at the beach and just have a good time."
"Why don't you?" Margy asked.
"Because I have to work," the fat boy replied. "This is work, though you may not know it. I have to sit up here and have people look at me and the lights make it awful hot at night. Then going on trains and boats is tiresome. You don't know how lucky you are, to stay in one place all summer."
"How did you get fat?" asked Jess, determined to prevent Ward from gaining another pound.
"I was born fat," was the answer. "And then I eat lots of food and don't exercise. Now I try not to get thin, because I expect to earn my living this way, and if I was thin, I couldn't be an exhibit."
He ate three more peanuts as though he feared he might have lost some weight through the exertion of talking.
"I don't think he is very bright," commented Jess, as they left the tent. "First he says it is no fun to be fat and then he says he wants to stay fat so he can be an exhibit."