And Tip's face, as he walked towards the village ten minutes after that, was a study, it looked so full of trouble.
Kitty wanted to go to that circus,—wanted to go so very much that she had coaxed and begged him in a way that she had never done before. Besides, if the truth be told, Tip wanted to go himself; every time the wind wafted back to him a swell of the distant music, it made his heart fairly jump. It was true, as Kitty had said, he always managed to slip in some way; and the oftener he went, the oftener he wanted to go.
Well, then, what was the matter with Tip? What he had done so many times before, he could surely find a way to do again. Oh yes! But Tip Lewis to-day was different from any Tip Lewis there had ever been before on circus day. Wasn't he trying to do right? But then, what had circuses to do with that? He tried to think what were his reasons for being troubled! Why did a small voice down in his heart keep telling him that the circus was no place for him now?
Looking at the matter steadily, the only reason Tip knew was, that Ellis Holbrook and Howard Minturn never went; their fathers had taught them differently. Ellis, he knew, rather looked down on people who did go,—called them low. This had never troubled Tip before, because he had always known himself to be low; but now, wasn't he trying to climb? Didn't respectable people generally think that circuses were bad things?
No, poor Tip, they didn't; there was Mr. Bailey, a rich man,—so rich and so respectable that his son wouldn't stoop to lend Tip his spelling-book at school,—yet Mr. Bailey went to the circus last year and took all his children. So did Mr. Anderson and Mr. Stone, and oh! dozens of others, rich, great men. Well, did good people go? and Tip's thoughts strayed back to Mr. Holbrook, and Mr. Parker, and Mr. Minturn, yea, and others, whose voices he had heard on the streets and in stores, condemning the circus.
But then, after all, where was the harm? There was Kitty, how much she wanted to go; if he could manage to take her, how glad she would be! At this point Satan thought there was a chance for him to speak; so he walked along with Tip, talking like this:
"Kitty has never asked you to do anything for her before. You want to help her; you want to get her to go to Sunday school and to read the Bible. Now's your time: if you take her to the circus, very likely she will do what you want her to."
This was a little too absurd, even for Tip, who wanted to believe it all so badly; but who ever heard of taking any one to a circus in order to get them to love Jesus? Tip knew altogether too well for his comfort, that day, that Mr. Holbrook's example was the safe one. At last he drew a little sigh of relief; he needn't think about it any more, for he had no money: he had never owned fifty cents at one time in his life; so the question, after all, would settle itself.
No, it wouldn't. Mr. Dewey stood in the door of his market, looking up and down the street.
"Hallo, Tip!" he called, as Tip turned the corner; "you're the boy I must have been looking for, I guess. If you'll carry home packages for me for an hour, and not steal one of them, I'll give you two tickets for the circus."