Torches were stuck in the earth at regular intervals, the lights that had shone so brilliantly in and around the ring had been extinguished, the canvas sides had been taken off, and the boards that had formed the seats were being packed into one of the carts with a rattling sound that seemed as if a regular fusillade of musketry was being indulged in. Men were shouting; horses were being driven hither and thither, harnessed to the wagons, or drawing the huge carts away as soon as they were loaded; and everything seemed in the greatest state of confusion, while really the work was being done in the most systematic manner possible.
Toby had not long to wait before the driver informed him that the time for starting had arrived, and assisted him to climb up to the narrow seat whereon he was to ride that night.
The scene was so exciting, and his efforts to stick to the narrow seat so great, that he really had no time to attend to the homesick feeling that had crept over him during the first part of the evening.
The long procession of carts and wagons drove slowly out of the town, and when the last familiar house had been passed the driver spoke to Toby for the first time, since they started.
“Pretty hard work to keep on—eh, sonny?”
“Yes,” replied the boy, as the wagon jolted over a rock, bouncing him high in air, and he, by strenuous efforts, barely succeeded in alighting on the seat again, “it is pretty hard work; an' my name's Toby Tyler.”
Toby heard a queer sound that seemed to come from the man's throat, and for a few moments he feared that his companion was choking. But he soon understood that this was simply an attempt to laugh, and he at once decided that it was a very poor style of laughing.
“So you object to being called sonny, do you?”
“Well, I'd rather be called Toby, for, you see, that's my name.”
“All right, my boy; we'll call you Toby. I suppose you thought it was a mighty fine thing to run away an' jine a circus, didn't you?”