Piggy advanced a step or two inside the door, laughing diplomatically: "O—no, Miss Morgan; don't you think he's agreed. He's just dyin' to go."
Miss Morgan smiled, but did not join in Piggy's hilarity—a bad sign. Piggy tried again: "They got six elephants, and one's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughin' if you saw him." And Piggy went into a spasm of laughter.
But it left Miss Morgan high and dry upon the island of her determination.
Piggy prepared for an heroic measure, and stepped over to the kitchen table, leaning upon it as he pleaded: "This is the last circus this year, Miss Morgan, and it's an awful good one. Can't he go just this once?"
The debate lasted ten minutes, and at the end four boys walked slowly, with much manifestation of feeling, back to the tree where the fifth sat. There was woe and lamentation after the manner of boy-kind. When the boys left the yard it seemed to Miss Morgan that she could not look from her work without seeing the lonesome figure of Bud. In the afternoon the patter of feet by her house grew slower, and then ceased. Occasionally a belated wayfarer sped by. The music of the circus band outside of the tent came to Miss Morgan's ears on gusts of wind, and died away as the wind ebbed. She dropped the dish-cloth three times in five minutes, and washed her cup and saucer twice. She struggled bravely in the Slough of Despond for awhile, and then turned back with Pliable.
"Henry," she said, as the boy walked past her carrying peppergrass to the bird, "Henry, what made you act so last night?"
The boy dropped his head and answered: "I dunno."
"But, Henry, didn't you know it was wrong?"
"I dunno."