small; but he's got all the world before
him to grow in, an' if he only eats enough--There, that reminds me. Job
isn't going to give him any supper, because he didn't work hard enough."
"He won't, won't he?" exclaimed the large lady, savagely. "Oh, he's a
precious one, he is! An' some day I shall just give him a good shakin'
up, that's what I'll do. I get all out of patience with that man's
ugliness."
"An' she'll do just what she says," said the skeleton to Toby, with an
admiring shake of the head. "That woman hain't afraid of anybody, an' I
wouldn't be a bit surprised if she did give Job a pretty rough time."
Toby thought, as he looked at her, that she was large enough to give
'most anyone a pretty rough time, but he did not venture to say so.
While he was looking first at her, and then at her very thin husband,
the skeleton told his wife the little that he had learned regarding the
boy's history; and when he had concluded she waddled away toward her
tent.
"Great woman that," said the skeleton, as he saw her disappear within
the tent.
"Yes," said Toby, "she's the greatest I ever saw."
"I mean that she's got a great head. Now you'll see about how much she
cares for what Job says."
"If I was as big as her," said Toby, with just a shade of envy in his
voice, "I wouldn't be afraid of anybody."
"It hain't so much the size," said the skeleton, sagely--"it hain't so
much the size, my boy; for I can scare that woman almost to death when I
feel like it."
Toby looked for a moment at Mr. Treat's thin legs and arms, and then he
said, warningly, "I wouldn't feel like it very often if I was you, Mr.
Treat, 'cause she might break some of your bones if you didn't happen to
scare her enough."
"Don't fear for me, my boy--don't fear for me; you'll see how I manage
her if you stay with the circus long enough. Now I often--"
If Mr. Treat was about to confide a family secret to Toby, it was fated
that he should not hear it then, for Mrs. Treat had just come out of
her tent, carrying in her hands a large tin plate piled high with a
miscellaneous assortment of pie, cake, bread, and meat.
She placed this in front of Toby, and as she did so she handed him two
pictures.
"There, little Toby Tyler," she said--"there's something for you to eat,
if Mr. Job Lord and his precious partner Jacobs did say you shouldn't
have any supper; an' I've brought you a picture of Samuel an' me.
We sell 'em for ten cents apiece, but I'm
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