Phil straightened up slowly, his axe falling to the ground, an expression of surprise appeared in his eyes.

"My mother left money--for me, you say?" he wondered.

"No, Phil, I haven't said so. I asked you if Abner had ever said anything of the sort?"

"No. Do you think she did?"

"I'm not saying what I think. I wish I was a man; I'd read old Abner Adams a lecture that he wouldn't forget as long as he lives."

Phil smiled indulgently.

"He's an old man, Mrs. Cahill. He's all crippled up with rheumatism, and maybe he's got a right to be cranky--"

"And to turn his own sister's child outdoors, eh? Not by a long shot. Rheumatics don't give anybody any call to do any such a thing as that. He ought to have his nose twisted, and it's me, a good church member, as says so."

The lad picked up his axe and resumed his occupation, while Mrs.

Cahill turned up a chunk of wood and sat down on it, keeping up a running fire of comment, mostly directed at Abner Adams, and which must have made his ears burn.

Shortly after eight o'clock Phil gathered his books, strapped them and announced that he would be off for school.

"I'll finish the woodpile after school," he called back, as he was leaving the gate.

"You'll do nothing of the sort," retorted the Widow Cahill.

Darting out of the yard, Phil ran plump into someone, and halted sharply with an earnest apology.

"Seems to me you're in a terrible rush about something. Where you going?"

"h.e.l.lo, Teddy, that you?"

"It's me," answered Teddy ungrammatically.

"I'm on my way to school."

"Never could understand why anybody should want to run when he's going to school. Now, I always run when I start off after school's out. What you doing here?" demanded the boy, drawing his eyelids down into a squint.

"I've been chopping some wood for Mrs. Cahill."

"Huh! What's the matter with the bear this morning?"

"The bear?"

Teddy jerked a significant thumb in the direction of Phil's former home.

"Bear's got a grouch on a rod wide this morning."

"Oh, you mean Uncle Abner," answered Phil, his face clouding.

"Yep."

"Why?"

"I just dropped in to see if you were ready to go to school. He yelled at me like he'd gone crazy."

"That all?" grinned the other boy.

"No. He chased me down the road till his game knee gave out; then he fell down."

Phil could not repress a broad grin at this news.

"Good thing for me that I could run. He'd have given me a walloping for sure if he'd caught me. I'll bet that stick hurts when it comes down on a fellow. Don't it, Phil?"

"I should think it would. I have never felt it, but I have had some pretty narrow escapes. What did the folks you are living with say when you got home all mud last night?"

Teddy grinned a sheepish sort of grin.

"Told me I'd better go out in the horse barn--said my particular style of beauty was better suited to the stable than to the kitchen."

"Did you?"

"Well, no, not so as you might notice it. I went down to the creek and went in swimming, clothes and all. That was the easiest way. You see, I could wash the mud off my clothes and myself all at the same time."

"It's a wonder they let you in at all, then."

"They didn't; at least not until I had wrung the water out of my trousers and twisted my hair up into a regular top-knot. Then I crawled in behind the kitchen stove and got dried out after a while. But I got my supper. I always do."

"Yes; I never knew you to go without meals."

"Sorry you ain't going to the circus tomorrow, Phil."

"I am. Teddy, I'm free. I can do as I like now. Yes, I'll go to the circus with you, and maybe if I can earn some money tonight I'll treat you to red lemonade and peanuts."

"Hooray!" shouted Teddy, tossing his hat high in the air.

CHAPTER IV

THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN

The Sparling Combined Shows came rumbling into Edmeston at about three o'clock the next morning. But, early as was the hour, two boys sat on the Widow Cahill's door-yard fence watching the wagons go by.

The circus was one of the few road shows that are now traveling through the country, as distinguished from the great modern organizations that travel by rail with from one to half a dozen ma.s.sive trains. The Sparling people drove from town to town.

They carried twenty-five wagons, besides a band wagon, a wild-west coach and a calliope.

"Phil! Phil! Look!" exclaimed Teddy, clutching at his companion's coat sleeve, as two hulking, swaying figures appeared out of the shadows of the early morning.

"Where?"