The balloon was a long time in coming down; but Pollio found it at last sticking fast to the top of the fence on the other side of the street, quarter of a mile from home. It was entirely ruined, of course.
“Well, I never!” sighed he, surveying it mournfully.
In climbing back over the sharp-pointed fence, he tore his new clothes badly; but by that time bugles and tin horns were sounding in the distance, and he could see a moving black mass, which he knew must be the Fantastics.
“Guess I’ll stay here and watch ’em come up,” thought he, rubbing the dirt off his knees. “Oh, but mamma said I mustn’t!” was his next thought.
“There! God spoke to me then!” whispered he to himself with a look of awe; for he had never forgotten Nunky’s talk about “God’s voice.” “He spoke to me then: I felt him speak!”
Pollio stood for a moment with his hand on his “jag-knife pocket.” So far, he had not meant to do wrong. He had run out of the yard and down the street without once thinking of his mother’s warning, and, if he would go back now, she was sure to forgive him. But would he go back?
He looked down the street. The Fantastics were so near by this time, that he could discern the horses. Wouldn’t it be fun to wait till they came in sight, and then throw up his cap and shout!
“Poh! anybody must be a baby to be afraid of the ‘Finny-castics’! Mamma fought I’d better stay side of her!” Then he remembered Mr. Littlefield’s words: “The child that won’t mind its mother won’t mind its God;” and there was another thump under the “jag-knife pocket.”
He knew very well he ought to run back to the house before the “Finny-castics” got any nearer; but the noise of the trumpets and tin pans was so lively, that it set his feet dancing, and his arms flying. He could see his mother and all the rest of the family in the front-yard; though they could not see him, for he was hidden by a clump of trees and a bend in the road.