There was no doubt that Bob Atwood knew Reddy was going to try to induce Toby to help start a circus, and Bob knew, also, that Reddy and Toby would visit him, although he appeared very much surprised when he saw them coming up the hill towards his house. He was at home, evidently waiting for something, at an hour when all the other boys were out playing; and that, in itself, would have made Toby suspicious if he had paid much attention to the matter.
Bob was perfectly willing to talk about a circus—so willing that, almost before Toby was aware of it, he was laying plans with the others for such a show as could be given with the material at hand.
"You see we'd have to get a tent the first thing," said Toby, as he seated himself on the saw-horse as a sort of place of honor, and proceeded to give his companions the benefit of his experience in the circus line. "I s'pose we could get along without a fat woman, or a skeleton; but we'd have to have the tent anyway, so's folks couldn't look right in an' see the show for nothin'."
Reddy had decided some time before how that trifling matter could be arranged; and, as he went industriously to work making shavings out of a portion of a shingle, he said:
"I've got all that settled, Toby; an' when you say you're willin' to go ahead an' fix up the show, I'll be on hand with a tent that'll make your eyes stick out over a foot."
Bob nodded his head to show he was convinced Reddy could do just as he had promised; but Toby was anxious for more particulars, and insisted on knowing where this very necessary portion of a circus was coming from.
"You see a tent is a big thing," he said seriously; "an' it would cost more money than the fellers in this town could raise if they should pick all the strawberries in Uncle Dan'l's pasture."
"Oh, I don't say as the tent Reddy's got his eye on is a reg'lar one like a real circus has," said Bob slowly and candidly, as he began to draw on the side of the wood-shed a picture of what he probably intended should represent a horse; "but he knows how he can rig one up that'll be big enough, an' look stavin'."
With this information Toby was obliged to be satisfied; and with the view of learning more of the details, in case his companions had arranged for them, he asked:
"Where you goin' to get the company—the folks that ride, an' turn hand-springs, an' all them things?"