“Why didn’t you walk right in and speak to us instead of snoopin’?”
“You’d have ‘snooped’,” flashed back Agnes, with some heat. “I was alone, and I was afraid of tramps—”
“Well, we’re tramps,” said the boy, stooping and picking up the dropped stick.
“Not the kind I am afraid of,” Agnes replied, trying to smile.
The boy would not be pacified, but the man said, shakingly, from his seat on the log:
“We wouldn’t hurt you, girl. Put down that stick, Barney. This is my son, Barney, and I’m Asa Scruggs. I’m a joey when I’m in luck, and Barney—he’s a trapeze artist. He’s good.”
“Oh, Pop!” shrilled the youthful trapeze artist, “might’s well tell the truth this time. She’s nothing but a girl herself.”
“And that’s what you are!” cried Agnes, with excitement.
“Yes. I’m Barnabetta, not Barney, Scruggs. Nice name, isn’t it?” scoffed the strange girl. “My mother was Pennsylvania Dutch; that’s where I got my name, Barnabetta. But it’s safer to travel as a boy, so I’m Barney on the road. Besides, skirts would be in the way, climbing in and out of ‘rattlers.’”
“Oh, what fun!” gasped Agnes. “Do you and your father always travel this way?”