The crackers were weighed out and distributed, the cheese cut into small pieces and laid on the counters; and the hungry lads helped themselves so liberally that it was not a great while before a fresh supply was called for. Brede paid for the lunch with an important air, and the storekeeper, who had hitherto appeared as if fearful that he was contracting a bad debt, suddenly relaxed into good humor, and put on a more hospitable manner.
[“Anything else I can git for ye, young gentlemen?”] he asked.
Plumpy responded. “We’d like a little after-dinner coffee,” he said soberly, “and some nuts and fruit; and I desire to remind you, as delicately as possible, that you have forgotten to furnish us with napkins and finger-bowls.”
For a moment the storekeeper looked puzzled, but the shouts and laughter of the other boys soon convinced him that nothing more was really required.
A straw hat was voted to Patchy, and purchased with money from the common fund; then the question arose again: What should be done next? Some of the boys, Brightly among the number, were in favor of turning back up the road toward Riverpark. They calculated that it would be almost time for retreat before they could reach there, if they should start immediately. This plan might have prevailed had not the storekeeper, anxious to find favor in the eyes of his customers, made a suggestion which met with their immediate and hearty approval.
“Mebbe,” he said reflectively, “mebbe you young gentlemen’d like to go on down to New Hornbury an’ see the circus. ’Taint but a few mile below here. Them’s the advertisements up there,” pointing to the highly-colored show-bills hanging from the beams at the back of the store.
The thought of a circus is always a pleasant one to boys, but to these boys on this day it presented a suggestive attractiveness that was wholly irresistible. They shouted as with one voice: “The circus! the circus! hurrah for the circus!”
In two minutes the store at the country cross-roads was empty of human beings, and the storekeeper was standing on his porch watching the shouting and hurrying crowd of boys as they moved along the highway, their faces still turned toward the south. The road was broad and smooth, and the anticipation of unusual pleasure so nerved their limbs and refreshed their spirits that they made very good time toward their new destination for the first few miles of the way.
But weariness overtook them, and their steps lagged before they were able to discern the flags floating from the tent-tops, before even the outskirts of the town came upon their view. Finally Brede, who was in the lead, threw himself at full length on a shady bank, exclaiming, “I’m going to take a rest!”
The other boys were not long in following his example. They were all tired, dusty, and perspiring, and glad enough to get a minute’s respite from their toilsome march, even at the risk of being late at the circus.