"Oh, please stop! please stop!" shrieked the poor boy in his agony. "I'll do everything you tell me to, if you won't strike me again."
This piteous appeal seemed to have no effect upon the cruel man, and he continued to whip the boy, despite his cries and entreaties, until his arm fairly ached from the exertion, and Toby's body was crossed and recrossed with the livid marks of the cane.
"Now let's see whether you'll 'tend to your work or not," said the man, as he flung Toby from him with such force that the boy staggered, reeled, and nearly fell into the little brook that flowed by the road-side. "I'll make you understand that all the friends you've whined around in this show can't save you from a lickin' when I get ready to give you one. Now go an' do your work that ought to have been done an hour ago."
Mr. Lord walked away with the proud consciousness of a man who has achieved some great victory, and Toby was limping painfully along toward the cart that was used in conveying Mr. Lord's stock in trade, when he felt a tiny hand slip into his, and heard a childish voice say:
"Don't cry, Toby. Some time, when I get big enough, I'll make Mr. Lord sorry that he whipped you as he did; and I'm big enough now to tell him just what kind of a man I think he is."
Looking around, Toby saw his little acquaintance of the evening previous, and he tried to force back the big tears that were rolling down his cheeks, as he said, in a voice choked with grief, "You're awful good, an' I don't mind the lickin' when you say you're sorry for me. I s'pose I deserve it for runnin' away from Uncle Dan'l."
"Did it hurt you much?" she asked, feelingly.
"It did when he was doin' it," replied Toby, manfully, "but it don't a bit now that you've come."
"Then I'll go and talk to that Mr. Lord, and I'll come and see you again after we get into town," said the little miss, as she hurried away to tell the candy vender what she thought of him.
That day, as on all others since he had been with the circus, Toby went to his work with a heavy heart, and time and time again did he count the money which had been given him by kind-hearted strangers, to see whether he had enough to warrant his attempting to run away. Three dollars and twenty-five cents was the total amount of his treasure, and large as that sum appeared to him, he could not satisfy himself that he had sufficient to enable him to get back to the home which he had so wickedly left. Whenever he thought of this home, of the Uncle Daniel who had, in charity, cared for him—a motherless, fatherless boy—and of returning to it, with not even as much right as the Prodigal Son, of whom he had heard Uncle Daniel tell, his heart sank within him, and he doubted whether he would be allowed to remain if he should be so fortunate as ever to reach Guilford again.