He helped to carry water for the circus men’s horses, along with the boys who earned their admission that way. He had no need to do it, because his father was going to take him in, anyway; but Jim Leonard said it was the only way to get acquainted with the circus men. Still Pony was afraid to speak to them, and he would not have said a word to any of them if it had not been for one of them speaking to him first, when he saw him come lugging a great pail of water, and bending far over on the right to balance it.
“That’s right,” the circus man said to Pony. “If you ever fell into that bucket you’d drown, sure.”
He was a big fellow, with funny eyes, and he had a white bulldog at his heels; and all the fellows said he was the one who guarded the outside of the tent when the circus began, and kept the boys from hooking in under the curtain.
Even then Pony would not have had the courage to say anything, but Jim Leonard was just behind him with another bucket of water, and he spoke up for him. “He wants to go with the circus.”
They both set down their buckets, and Pony felt himself turning pale when the circus man came towards them. “Wants to go with the circus, heigh? Let’s have a look at you.” He took Pony by the shoulders and turned him slowly round, and looked at his nice clothes, and took him by the chin. “Orphan?” he asked.
Pony did not know what to say, but Jim Leonard nodded; perhaps he did not know what to say, either; but Pony felt as if they had both told a lie.
“Parents living?” The circus man looked at Pony, and Pony had to say that they were.
He gasped out, “Yes,” so that you could scarcely hear him, and the circus man said:
“Well, that’s right. When we take an orphan, we want to have his parents living, so that we can go and ask them what sort of a boy he is.”
He looked at Pony in such a friendly, smiling way that Pony took courage to ask him whether they would want him to drink burnt brandy.