areful of you, Pony dear!" till Pony wriggled himself loose and began
to stone them.

After that they had to let him alone, for when a fellow began to stone
you in the Boy's Town you had to let him alone, unless you were going to
whip him, and the fellows only wanted to have a little fun with Pony.
But what they did made him all the more resolved to run away with the
circus, just to show them.

He helped to carry water for the circus men's horses, along with the
boys who earned their admission that way. He had no need to do it,
because his father was going to take him in, anyway; but Jim Leonard
said it was the only way to get acquainted with the circus men. Still,
Pony was afraid to speak to them, and he would not have said a word to
any of them if it had not been for one of them speaking to him first,
when he saw him come lugging a great pail of water, and bending far over
on the right to balance it.

"That's right," the circus man said to Pony. "If you ever fell into that
bucket you'd drown, sure."

He was a big fellow, with funny eyes, and he had a white bulldog at his
heels; and all the fellows said he was the one who guarded the outside
of the tent when the circus began, and kept the boys from hooking in
under the curtain.

Even then Pony would not have had the courage to say anything, but Jim
Leonard was just behind him with another bucket of water, and he spoke
up for him. "He wants to go with the circus."

They both set down their buckets, and Pony felt himself turning pale
when the circus man came toward them. "Wants to go with the circus,
heigh? Let's have a look at you." He took Pony by the shoulders and
turned him slowly round, and looked at his nice clothes, and took him by
the chin. "Orphan?" he asked.

Pony did not know what to say, but Jim Leonard nodded; perhaps he did
not know what to say, either; but Pony felt as if they had both told a
lie.

"Parents living?" The circus man looked at Pony, and Pony had to say
that they were.

He gasped out, "Yes," so that you could scarcely hear him, and the
circus man said:

"Well, that's right. When we take an orphan, we want to have his parents
living, so that we can go and ask them what sort of a boy he is."

He looked at Pony in such a friendly, smiling way that Pony took courage
to ask him whether they would want him to drink burnt brandy.

"What for?"

"To keep me little."

"Oh, I see." The circus man took off his hat and rubbed his forehea