"Don't go, Abner, but come and set down here where it's cool, an' perhaps we can fix it for you."
The cripple turned as Toby spoke, and the look which came into his face went right to the heart of the boy, who for ten long weeks had known what it was to be almost entirely without a friend.
"I don't see what you want him 'round here for," said Bob, petulantly, as Abner seated himself by Toby's side, thoroughly exhausted by his long walk. "He can't do nothin'; an' if he could, we don't want no fellers from the poor-farm mixed up with the show."
"It don't make any difference if he does live to the poor-farm," said Toby, as he put his little brown hand on Abner's thin fingers. "He has to stay there 'cause his father and mother's dead, an' perhaps I'd been there, 'cept for Uncle Dan'l. If I'd thought before about his bein' lonesome an' not bein' able to play like the rest of us, I'd gone out to see him; an' now we do know it we'll let him stay with us, an' perhaps he can do something in the circus."
"The fellers will laugh at us, an' say we're runnin' a poorhouse show," replied Bob, sulkily.
"Well, let 'em laugh; we'll feel a good deal better'n they do, 'cause we'll know we're tryin' to let a little feller have some fun what don't get many chances;" and, in his excitement, Toby spoke so loudly that Joe came running up to see what was the matter.
"Let him stay 'round here to-day, 'cause we've got all through practisin', an' then tell him to keep away," said Ben, thinking this idea a very generous one.
"He can belong to the show jest as well as not; an' if you fellers will let him, I'll give you my part of all the money we make."
This proposition of Toby's put the matter on a very different basis, and both Ben and Bob now looked favorably inclined towards it.