“If I keep on hearing that, I shall go!” he said to himself.
He could not pick blackberries and stop his ears at the same time. The music swelled louder and louder. Then came a cheer from the audience. Johnny looked round for the other children. They were all standing together; Pep was holding down a branch for Polly, and he and Tiny were laughing as the little lady stained her pretty fingers and lips with the ripe berries.
“She’s all safe with them; they’ll take her home,” he whispered to himself, as he slipped into the wood, unseen by the other children.
“Suppose you had your thinkephone now, Johnny Leslie!” somebody seemed to say inside of his head, “you’d like your mother to know what you’re thinking now, wouldn’t you?”
“Papa would have let me go—mamma’s never been a boy, and she don’t know anything about it!” said Johnny, stubbornly, and speaking quite aloud. He ran fast as soon as he was through the wood, and, never stopping, handed his half dollar to the doorkeeper, and went in. The vast crowd bewildered him; he could not see a vacant seat anywhere, nor a single boy that he knew, but a good-natured countryman pushed him forward, saying:—
“Here, little fellow, there’s a seat on the front bench for a boy of your size.”
He struggled past the people into the place pointed out to him, and leaned eagerly over the rope. The clown was in the ring performing with the “trick donkey,” and everybody was roaring with laughter.
The donkey wheeled around suddenly, and flashed out his heels, just as Johnny, recognizing a boy on the other side of the tent, leaned still farther forward and nodded.