Chums of the Camp Fire | Page 9

dare let him loose, even with a chain like that holding the
'coon, for fear of losing him.
Even the wildcat seemed to be pretty friendly on this occasion, and
growled in a lower key than usual when Toby was pushing the meat
scraps through the openings between the bars of its cage.
Toby was mentally exulting in the possibility that his collection might
soon be added to by the coming of that partly grown black bear cub,
which Bandy-legs had half promised to let him have.
He even figured out just where he would keep Nicodemus fastened, and
what kind of a cage he would have to construct for him; because he had
never fully liked the one now being used as a place of shelter for the
cub, Bandy-legs not being much of a carpenter, to tell the truth.

It was with his mind filled with future triumphs in this line of collecting
wild animals that Toby sat him down to supper that evening. He was
unusually quiet, because he was thinking, and planning, and seeing
visions of great things to come to pass in the distant future.
When his father asked him how the frog hunt had come out he did
manage to arouse himself sufficiently to narrate some of the particulars,
especially Steve's getting such a monster hermit frog, his falling into
the pond, their making a fire to dry his clothes, and finally how he
stopped the runaway horse under a misunderstanding and never got
even so much as a word of thanks from the pretty inmate of the buggy.
Now at home, when he knew his folks were taking note of his manner
of speech, it was singular how free from stuttering Toby's language
could be. He just gripped himself, and was careful to speak slowly and
distinctly, pronouncing every word as though he were a foreigner trying
to pick up English.
And after all that is the only true way for a stammering boy to cure
himself; if Toby had been as careful when among his chums as he was
at home, he would have undoubtedly thrown the habit away long ago.
But then there were plenty of causes for excitement in a warm baseball
game, or when indulging in a swimming match, which he did not
encounter at home; and this excitement was the main cause for his
failure to speak distinctly.
He sat reading until it was bedtime, for he happened to have an
interesting book, taken from the public library, and all about the
different animals seen by a traveler in the heart of the African forest. It
was highly embellished with colored pictures, supposed to be produced
from photographs which this daring explorer had taken while concealed
near some waterhole, where the animals of the forest were in the habit
of coming to drink nights, and a flashlight camera helped catch them
true to nature.
All of this is told with an object in view. It would serve to explain why
Toby must have dreamed that he too was a bold traveler in this foreign
wilderness, and reveling in the wonderful sights to be met with there.

Once during the night he was awakened by the rush of the wind, as the
storm that Max had told them would come along during the night,
swooped down upon Carson to blow a few trees over, and hit the tall
steeple of the Methodist church again, possibly wrecking it for the
fourth time in as many years.
As Toby crawled sleepily out of bed, to close the shutters belonging to
the two windows in his room that looked out on the back yard where
his pets were snugly housed, he wondered whether the circus had
arrived safely, and if the storm would keep them from erecting the big
round-top. Fortunately they had all of Sunday to prepare for the next
performance; and that would count for considerable, if repairs were
necessary.
Just then, during a temporary lull in the gale, he distinctly heard the
clock in the town hall tower strike three. This told him that the time
fixed for the coming of the circus train had long since passed, and that
they would undoubtedly be caught unprepared by the storm.
"But then they're used to roughing it," Toby thought, without
stammering either, "because circus canvas hands have to rub up against
hard things wherever they go. Haven't I had one boy tell me he never
knew when he was going to get his next meal, and how for a month he
didn't have regular sleep, and then it was on a hard board floor mebbe.
Which makes me feel thankful for such a nice soft bed, though I c'n
stand it sleepin' on the bare ground, when I have to in camp."