"Didn't you have anything to eat?" asked Nan softly. She felt very sorry for the boy.

"Well, I had a couple of crackers I had saved from my lunch that day,"

he explained. "Then near the barn was a cow, and I milked her. That and the crackers was all I had for supper. But I slept good in the hay."

"I had a good sleep in some hay!" exclaimed Freddie, as he remembered the time they had played hide-and-go-seek in the barn.

"It makes a good bed when you're tired," said Frank.

"What did you have for breakfast?" asked Flossie. "I like an orange and oatmeal for mine."

"Well, I didn't have anything like that for mine," explained Frank with a smile. "I didn't have much of anything the first morning. I tramped on, and finally I found a place where I could chop some wood, and a lady gave me some bread and milk. It tasted very good."

"How did you get with the circus?" asked Bert. That part interested him more than how Frank got something to eat.

"Well, I just happened to come to the town where the circus was giving a show," explained Frank. "I was around when the men were watering the horses and other animals, and I helped carry water. Then one of the men asked me if I didn't want work, and I said I did. I was hungry then, too, and I could smell the things cooking in the circus kitchen tent. So I went to work for this show, and I've been here ever since.

It's better than working in a lumber office when you get shook up every now and then," he added with a smile.

"And do you still help water the elephants?" asked Uncle Daniel.

"Oh, no, I help take tickets at one of the side shows," explained Frank. "The one where the fat lady and snakes are. I like it, though sometimes I help water the animals when I have nothing else to do. The circus people are good to me. I've earned enough money to get some clothes, and I'm never hungry any more. I was pretty ragged when I came to the circus, for I had been tramping around sleeping in barns, or wherever I could."

"Wouldn't it have been better to have gone back to Mr. Mason, your guardian?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, for she had heard her husband tell of the time he, Bert and Freddie had seen the boy shaken before he ran away.

"Oh, no'm!" Frank exclaimed. "I'm never going back to that lumber office. Mr. Mason accused me of losing twenty dollars for him. Well perhaps I did, but it wasn't my fault that the man gave me bad money that looked like good. I'm never going back!"

"Well, I don't know as I blame you," said Uncle Daniel softly, "but a circus is no place for a young boy. It's a hard life."

"Are you going to stay with this show?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Until I can get something better to do," answered Frank. "I know it isn't a good business, but I'll stay here until I can save some money, and then I'll look for something better. But I'll have to stay here for a while."

"Maybe you could give him work on the farm," suggested Aunt Sarah to her husband in a whisper. "I don't like him to be with a circus. And he was so good to Freddie that we ought to do something for him."

"He's too young to work on a farm," replied Uncle Daniel. "And he might be in a worse place than this circus. But we must be starting back home. It's getting late."

Freddie was hugged and kissed by his sisters, mother and aunt, and Mrs. Bobbsey insisted on making Frank a little present of money, for his kindness to Freddie. Frank did not want to take it, but finally he did.

"I'll buy some new shoes with it," he said.

"I shall tell my husband how good you were to find Freddie," said Mrs.

Bobbsey, "and I am sure he will want to do something for you. I wish you would write to me once in a while. We should like to keep track of you."

"I will," promised the boy, as he put down the Bobbsey address. "I expect to be with this circus all summer," he said, as Freddie and the other children bade him good-bye.

CHAPTER XVII

A WILD ANIMAL SCARE

Back to the shed where they had left the horses, went the Bobbsey party, the children talking on the way of the wonderful things they had seen in the circus, while the older folks spoke of Freddie being lost, and found again, by Frank Kennedy.

"But I wasn't lost!" the little chap insisted. "I knew where I was all the time. Besides, the elephants were with me, and so was Frank, the boy who was shooked. I saw him shooked and so did Bert, didn't you?"

and Freddie looked at his older brother.

"Well, we won't talk about that part of it," said his mother with a smile. "It isn't nice to think about, and I am glad Frank is in a place now where he will be kindly treated. Though perhaps Mr. Mason did not mean to be cruel. He was probably very sorry at losing so much money."

"I like Frank," said Freddie. "He let me, take hold of one of the elephant's tooths."

"Oh, Freddie!" exclaimed Dinah. "It's a wonder he didn't cotch an'

bite yo, honey lamb!"

"Oh, I didn't take hold of one of his tooths away back in his mouth,"

explained Freddie, "it was the long tooth-pick tooth that stuck out under his nose."

"He means the elephant's tusk," explained Bert with a laugh.

"Oh, Freddie! I hope you weren't in any danger!" his mother cried.

"What an escape he had!" sighed Aunt Sarah. "Suppose an elephant had eaten him!"

"Pooh! Elephants don't eat anything but hay," said Freddie, who, of course, did not mean to be impolite, speaking to his aunt that way.

"Frank told me so," he went on, "and I saw them eat hay. They eat a awful lot, and one of them took all my peanuts."

"Well, I'll buy you some more," said Uncle Daniel with a laugh. "You deserve it after the trouble you have had--getting lost and all that."

"I--I wasn't losted!" declared Freddie again. "I knew--"

"Oh, look at the balloons!" cried Flossie, as she saw a man outside the circus grounds selling the red, green and yellow gas-bags. "I want one, mamma!" cried the little girl.

"And so do I!" added Freddie, forgetting what he was going to say about not being lost "I want a balloon!"

They each had one, and then the children and older folks took their places in the wagon, and soon were on their way to Meadow Brook farm again, talking over the wonderful good time they had had.

"I'm coming to the circus to-morrow," announced Freddie, as though going to circuses was all there was to do in this world.

"The circus won't be there," said Bert.

"Won't be there? Where will it go?" asked Freddie, wonderingly.

"It will travel to the next town," Bert went on. "A circus stays in a town only one day, unless it's a very big place. This show will be far away by this time to-morrow."

"And will Frank be away, too?" asked

[Ill.u.s.tration: UP, UP, UP, WENT THE RED AND BLUE BALLOONS]

Flossie. "I like Frank, 'cause he found Freddie."