Toby Tyler Or Ten Weeks with a Circus Part 21

He walked on, counting as regularly as he could, and thought to himself that he never before realized how long fifteen minutes were. It really seemed to him that an hour had pa.s.sed before he finished counting, and then when he stopped there were no more signs that he was near a clearing than there had been before he started.

"Ah, Mr. Stubbs, we're lost! we're lost!" he cried, as he laid his cheek on the monkey's head and gave way to the lonesome grief that came over him. "What shall we do? Perhaps we won't ever find our way out, but will die here, an' then Uncle Dan'l won't ever know how sorry I was that I run away."

Then Toby lay right down on the ground and cried so hard that the monkey acted as if it were frightened, and tried to turn the boy's face over, and finally leaned down and licked Toby's ear.

This little act, which seemed so much like a kiss, caused Toby to feel no small amount of comfort, and he sat up again, took the monkey in his arms, and began seriously to discuss some definite plan of action.

"It won't do to keep on the way we've been goin', Mr. Stubbs," said Toby, as he looked full in his pet's face--and the old monkey sat as still and looked as grave as it was possible for him to look and sit--"for we must be goin' into the woods deeper. Let's start off this way"--and Toby pointed at right angles with the course they had been pursuing--"an' keep right on that way till we come to something, or till we drop right down an' die."

It is fair to presume that the old monkey agreed to Toby's plan; for although he said nothing in favor of it he certainly made no objections to it, which to Toby was the same as if his companion had a.s.sented to it in the plainest English.

Both the bundles and the monkey were rather a heavy load for a small boy like Toby to carry; but he clung manfully to them, walked resolutely on, without looking to the right or to the left, glad when the old monkey would take a run among the trees, for then he would be relieved of his weight, and glad when he returned, for then he had his company, and that repaid him for any labor which he might have to perform.

Toby was in a hard plight as it was; but without the old monkey for a companion he would have thought his condition was a hundred times worse, and would hardly have had the courage to go on as he was going.

On and on he walked, until it seemed to him that he could really go no farther, and yet he could see no signs which indicated the end of the woods, and at last he sunk upon the ground, too tired to walk another step, saying to the monkey--who was looking as if he would like to know the reason of this pause--"It's no use, Mr. Stubbs, I've got to sit down here an' rest awhile, anyhow; besides, I'm awfully hungry."

Then Toby commenced to eat his dinner, and to give the monkey his, until the thought came to him that he neither had any water nor did he know where to find it, and then, of course, he immediately became so thirsty that it was impossible for him to eat any more.

"We can't stand this," moaned Toby to the monkey; "we've got to have something to drink, or else we can't eat all these sweet things, an' I'm so tired that I can't go any farther. Don't let's eat dinner now, but let's stay here an' rest, an' then we can keep on an' look for water."

Toby's resting spell was a long one, for as soon as he stretched himself out on the ground he was asleep from actual exhaustion, and did not awaken until the sun was just setting, and then he saw that, hard as his troubles had been before, they were about to become, or in fact had become, worse.

He had paid no attention to his bundles when he lay down, and when he awoke he was puzzled to make out what it was that was strewn around the ground so thickly.

He had looked at it but a very short time when he saw that it was what had been the lunch he had carried so far. After having had the sad experience of losing his money he understood very readily that the old monkey had taken the lunch while he slept, and had amused himself by picking it apart into the smallest particles possible, and then strewn them around on the ground where he now saw them.

Toby looked at them in almost speechless surprise, and then he turned to where the old monkey lay, apparently asleep; but as the boy watched him intently, he could see that the cunning animal was really watching him out of one half-closed eye.

"Now you have killed us, Mr. Stubbs," wailed Toby. "We never can find our way out of here; an' now we hain't got anything to eat, and by to-morrow we shall be starved to death. Oh dear! wasn't you bad enough when you threw all the money away, so you had to go an' do this just when we was in awful trouble?"

Mr. Stubbs now looked up as if he had just been awakened by Toby's grief, looked around him leisurely as if to see what could be the matter, and then, apparently seeing for the first time the crumbs that were lying around on the ground, took up some and examined them intently.

"Now don't go to makin' believe that you don't know how they come there," said Toby, showing anger toward his pet for the first time. "You know it was you who did it, for there wasn't any one else here, an' you can't fool me by lookin' so surprised."

It seemed as if the monkey had come to the conclusion that his little plan of ignorance wasn't the most perfect success, for he walked meekly toward his young master, climbed up on his shoulder, and sat there kissing his ear, or looking down into his eyes, until the boy could resist the mute appeal no longer, but took him into his arms and hugged him closely as he said,

"It can't be helped now, I s'pose, an' we shall have to get along the best way we can; but it was awful wicked of you, Mr. Stubbs, an' I don't know what we're going to do for something to eat."

While the destructive fit was on him the old monkey had not spared the smallest bit of food, but had picked everything into such minute shreds that none of it could be gathered up, and everything was surely wasted.

While Toby sat bemoaning his fate, and trying to make out what was to be done for food, the darkness, which had just begun to gather when he first awoke, now commenced to settle around, and he was obliged to seek for some convenient place in which to spend the night before it became so dark as to make the search impossible.

Owing to the fact that he had slept nearly the entire afternoon, and also rendered wakeful by the loss he had just sustained, Toby lay awake on the hard ground, with the monkey on his arm, hour after hour, until all kinds of fancies came to him, and in every sound feared he heard some one from the circus coming to capture him, or some wild beast intent on picking his bones.

The cold sweat of fear stood out on his brow, and he hardly dared to breathe, much more to speak, lest the sound of his voice should betray his whereabouts, and thus bring his enemies down upon him. The minutes seemed like hours, and the hours like days, as he lay there, listening fearfully to every one of the night-sounds of the forest; and it seemed to him that he had been there very many hours when at last he fell asleep, and was thus freed from his fears.

Bright and early on the following morning Toby was awake, and as he came to a realizing sense of all the dangers and trouble that surrounded him he was disposed to give way again to his sorrow; but he said resolutely to himself, "It might be a good deal worse than it is, an' Mr. Stubbs an' I can get along one day without anything to eat; an' perhaps by night we shall be out of the woods, an' then what we get will taste good to us."

He began his walk--which possibly might not end that day--manfully, and his courage was rewarded by soon reaching a number of bushes that were literally loaded down with blackberries. From these he made a hearty meal, and the old monkey fairly revelled in them, for he ate all he possibly could, and then stowed away enough in his cheeks to make a good-sized luncheon when he should be hungry again.

Refreshed very much by his breakfast of fruit, Toby again started on his journey with renewed vigor, and the world began to look very bright to him. He had not thought that he might find berries when the thoughts of starvation came into his mind, and now that his hunger was satisfied he began to believe that he might possibly be able to live, perhaps for weeks, in the woods solely upon what he might find growing there.

Shortly after he had had breakfast he came upon a brook, which he thought was the same upon whose banks he had encamped the first night he spent in the woods, and, pulling off his clothes, he waded into the deepest part, and had a most refres.h.i.+ng bath, although the water was rather cold.

Not having any towels with which to dry himself, he was obliged to sit in the sun until the moisture had been dried from his skin and he could put his clothes on once more. Then he started out on his walk again, feeling that sooner or later he would come out all right.

All this time he had been travelling without any guide to tell him whether he was going straight ahead or around in a circle, and he now concluded to follow the course of the brook, believing that that would lead him out of the forest some time.

During the forenoon he walked steadily, but not so fast that he would get exhausted quickly, and when by the position of the sun he judged that it was noon he lay down on a mossy bank to rest.

He was beginning to feel sad again. He had found no more berries, and the elation which had been caused by his breakfast and his bath was quickly pa.s.sing away. The old monkey was in a tree almost directly above his head, stretched out on one of the limbs in the most contented manner possible; and as Toby watched him, and thought of all the trouble he had caused by wasting the food, thoughts of starvation again came into his mind, and he believed that he should not live to see Uncle Daniel again.

Just when he was feeling the most sad and lonely, and when thoughts of death from starvation were most vivid in his mind, he heard the barking of a dog, which sounded close at hand.

His first thought was that at last he was saved, and he was just starting to his feet to shout for help, when he heard the sharp report of a gun and an agonizing cry from the branches above, and the old monkey fell to the ground with a thud that told he had received his death-wound.

All this had taken place so quickly that Toby did not at first comprehend the extent of the misfortune which had overtaken him; but a groan from the poor monkey, as he placed one little brown paw to his breast, from which the blood was flowing freely, and looked up into his master's face with a most piteous expression, showed the poor little boy what a great trouble it was which had now come.

Poor Toby uttered a loud cry of agony, which could not have been more full of anguish had he received the ball in his own breast, and, flinging himself by the side of the dying monkey, he gathered him close to his breast, regardless of the blood that poured over him, and stroking tenderly the little head that had nestled so often in his bosom, said, over and over again, as the monkey uttered short moans of agony, "Who could have been so cruel?--who could have been so cruel?"

Toby's tears ran like rain down his face, and he kissed his dying pet again and again, as if he would take all the pain to himself.

"Oh, if you could only speak to me!" he cried, as he took one of the poor monkey's paws in his hand, and, finding that it was growing cold with the chill of death, put it on his neck to warm it. "How I love you, Mr. Stubbs! An' now you're goin' to die an' leave me! Oh, if I hadn't spoken cross to you yesterday, an' if I hadn't a'most choked you the day that we went to the skeleton's to dinner! Forgive me for ever bein' bad to you, won't you, Mr. Stubbs?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HOW I LOVE YOU, MR. STUBBS!"]

As the monkey's groans increased in number but diminished in force Toby ran to the brook, filled his hands with water, and held it to the poor animal's mouth.

He lapped the water quickly, and looked up with a human look of grat.i.tude in his eyes, as if thanking his master for that much relief.

Then Toby tried to wash the blood from his breast; but it flowed quite as fast as he could wash it away, and he ceased his efforts in that direction, and paid every attention to making his friend and pet more comfortable. He took off his jacket and laid it on the ground for the monkey to lie upon; picked a quant.i.ty of large green leaves as a cooling rest for his head, and then sat by his side, holding his paws, and talking to him with the most tender words his lips--quivering with sorrow as they were--could fas.h.i.+on.

CHAPTER XX.

HOME AND UNCLE DANIEL.

Meanwhile the author of all this misery had come upon the scene. He was a young man, whose rifle and well-filled game-bag showed that he had been hunting, and his face expressed the liveliest sorrow for what he had so unwittingly done.

"I didn't know I was firing at your pet," he said to Toby as he laid his hand on his shoulder and endeavored to make him look up. "I only saw a little patch of fur through the trees, and, thinking it was some wild animal, I fired. Forgive me, won't you, and let me put the poor brute out of his misery?"

Toby looked up fiercely at the murderer of his pet and asked, savagely, "Why don't you go away? Don't you see that you have killed Mr. Stubbs, an' you'll be hung for murder?"

"I wouldn't have done it under any circ.u.mstances," said the young man, pitying Toby's grief most sincerely. "Come away, and let me put the poor thing out of its agony."