“How?” asked Neale.
“He tells me in his letter the names of the places where the circus will show in the next month. And one place is not far from a town we pass on the canal.”
“Then I’m going to see him!” cried Neale joyfully. “I’ll be glad to meet him again. He may know something of my father. I wonder if they have any new animals since last summer. They ought to have a pony to take Scalawag’s place.
“He didn’t say,” remarked the lawyer. “But I thought you’d be glad to know that your uncle was in this vicinity.”
“I am,” said the boy. “This trip is going to be better than I thought. Now, if he only has word of my father!”
“We’ll find him, sooner or later,” declared the guardian of the Corner House girls. “But now, since the mules seem to be doing their duty, suppose we take account of stock and see if we need anything. If we do, we ought to stop and get it at one of the places through which we pass, because we may tie up at night near some small village where they don’t keep hair pins and—er—whatever else you young ladies need,” and he smiled quizzically at Ruth.
“Thank you! We brought all the hairpins we need!” Agnes informed him.
“And I think we have enough to eat,” added Ruth. “At least Mrs. Mac is busy in the kitchen, and something smells mighty good.”
Indeed appetizing odors were permeating the interior of the Bluebird, and a little later the company were sitting down to a most delightful meal. Dot and Tess could hardly be induced to come down off the upper deck long enough to eat, so fascinated were they with the things they saw along the canal.
“Isn’t Hank going to eat, and the mules, too?” asked Dot, as she finished and took her “Alice-doll” up, ready to resume her station under the awning.