It was another Saturday. Neale had driven out into the country for a neighbor, but had promised to come to the old Corner House about four o'clock. Almost always he took supper Saturday evening with the girls. Mrs. MacCall usually had fishcakes and baked beans, and Neale was extravagantly fond of that homely New England combination.
As it chanced, none of the four Kenways but Ruth went shopping that afternoon. It was warm enough for Tess and Dot to have their dolls out in the summer-house. They had set up house-keeping there for the season and were very busy.
Agnes had found a book that she enjoyed immensely, and she was wrapped up in an old coat and hidden in a crotch of the Baldwin appletree behind the woodshed. She was so deeply absorbed that she did not wake to the click of the gate-latch and did not realize there was a stranger in the yard until she heard a heavy boot on the brick walk.
"Hello, my gal!" said a rough voice. "Ain't none of the folks to home?"
Agnes dropped the book and sprang down from the appletree in a hurry. There at the corner of the shed stood a man in varnished top boots, with spurs in the heels—great, cruel looking spurs—velveteen breeches, a short, dirty white flannel coat, and a hard hat—something between a stovepipe and a derby. Agnes realized that it was some kind of a riding costume that he wore, and he lashed his bootleg with his riding whip as he talked.
He was such a red-faced man, and he was so stout and rough looking, that Agnes scarcely knew how to speak to him. She noted, too, that he had a big seal ring on one finger and that a heavy gold watchchain showed against his waistcoat where the short jacket was cut away.
"Who—who are you?" Agnes managed to stammer at last. "And what do you want?"
"Why, I'm Sorber, I am," said the man. "Sorber, of Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. And my errand here is to git hold of a chap that's run away from me and my partner. I hear he's in Milton, and I come over from our winter quarters, out o' which we're going to git instanter, Miss; and they tells me down to that newspaper office that I kin find him here.
"Now, Miss, where is that 'circus boy' as they call him? Neale Sorber—that's his name. And I'm goin' to take him away with me."