Toby Tyler; Or, Ten Weeks with a CircusOtis, James
General
Toby Tyler; Or, Ten Weeks with a Circus
Otis, James
Circus -- Fiction; Runaways -- Fiction
But the night passed despite his fears, as all nights will, whether a
boy is out in the woods alone or tucked up in his own little bed at
home. In the morning Toby made all possible haste to get away, for each
moment that he stayed now made him more impatient to be moving toward
home.
He washed himself as quickly as possible, ate his breakfast with the
most unseemly haste, and, taking up his bundles and the monkey, once
more started, as he supposed, in the direction from which he had entered
the woods.
Toby walked briskly along, in the best possible spirits, for his
running away was now an accomplished fact, and he was going toward Uncle
Daniel and home just as fast as possible. He sung "Old Hundred" through
five or six times by way of showing his happiness. It is quite likely
that he would have sung something a little more lively had he known
anything else; but "Old Hundred" was the extent of his musical
education, and he kept repeating that, which was quite as satisfactory
as if he had been able to go through with every opera that was ever
written.
The monkey would jump from his shoulder into the branches above, run
along on the trees for a short distance, and then wait until Toby came
along, when he would drop down on his shoulder suddenly, and in every
other way of displaying monkey delight he showed that he was just as
happy as it was possible.
Toby trudged on in this contented way for nearly an hour, and every
moment expected to step out to the edge of the woods, where he could see
houses and men once more. But instead of doing so the forest seemed to
grow more dense, and nothing betokened his approach to the village.
There was a great fear came into Toby's heart just then, and for a
moment he halted in helpless perplexity. His lips began to quiver, his
face grew white, and his hand trembled so that the old monkey took hold
of one of his fingers and looked at it wonderingly.
CHAPTER XIX.
MR. STUBBS'S MISCHIEF, AND HIS SAD FATE.
Toby had begun to realize that he was lost in the woods, and the thought
was sufficient to cause alarm in the mind of one much older than the
boy. He said to himself that he would keep on in the direction he was
then travelling for fifteen minutes; and as he had no means of computing
the time he sat down on a log, took out the bit of pencil with which he
had written the letter to Ella, and multiplied sixty by fifteen. He knew
that there were sixty seconds to the minute, and that he could
ordinarily count one to each second; therefore, when he learned that
there were nine hundred seconds in fifteen minutes, he resolved to walk
as nearly straight ahead as possible until he should have counted that
number.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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