Toby Tyler Or Ten Weeks with a Circus Part 23

"I'll go home; an' if Uncle Dan'l forgives me for bein' so wicked I'll sit down this afternoon an' tell you all you want to know about the circus."

Then, far more rapidly than he had run away from it, Toby ran toward the home which he had called his ever since he could remember, and his heart was full almost to bursting as he thought that perhaps he would be told that he had forfeited all claim to it, and that he could never more call it "home" again.

When he entered the old familiar sitting-room Uncle Daniel was seated near the window, alone, looking out wistfully--as Toby thought--across the fields of yellow waving grain.

Toby crept softly in, and, going up to the old man, knelt down and said, very humbly, and with his whole soul in the words, "Oh, Uncle Dan'l! if you'll only forgive me for bein' so wicked an' runnin' away, an' let me stay here again--for it's all the home I ever had--I'll do everything you tell me to, an' never whisper in meetin' or do anything bad."

And then he waited for the words which would seal his fate. They were not long in coming.

"My poor boy," said Uncle Daniel, softly, as he stroked Toby's refractory red hair, "my love for you was greater than I knew, and when you left me I cried aloud to the Lord as if it had been my own flesh and blood that had gone afar from me. Stay here, Toby, my son, and help to support this poor old body as it goes down into the dark valley of the shadow of death; and then, in the bright light of that glorious future, Uncle Daniel will wait to go with you into the presence of Him who is ever a father to the fatherless."

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNCLE DANIEL'S BLESSING.]

And in Uncle Daniel's kindly care we may safely leave Toby Tyler.