To emphasize his desolation, Bud left the room, and sat down by a tree in the yard, with his back to the kitchen door and window.  There Miss Morgan saw him playing mumble-peg in a desultory fashion.  When the courtiers of Boyville came home from the parade they found him; and because he sat playing a silent, sullen, solitary game, and responded to their banter only with melancholy grunts, they knew that the worst had befallen him.  Much confab followed, in which the pronoun “she” and “her” were spoken.  Otherwise Miss Morgan was unidentified.  For the conversation ran thus, over and over:—­

“You ask her.”

“Naw, I’ve done ast ’er.”

“’T won’t do no good for me to ast ’er.  She don’t like me.”

“I ain’t ’fraid to ast ’er.”

“Well, then, why don’t you?”

“Why don’t you?”

“Let’s all ast ’er.”

“S’pose she will, Bud?”

“I dunno.”

Then Piggy and Abe and Jimmy and Mealy came trapesing up to Miss Morgan’s kitchen door.  Bud sat by the tree twirling his knife at his game.  Piggy, being the spokesman, stood in the doorway.  “Miss Morgan,” he said, as he slapped his leg with his hat.

“Well, Winfield?” replied the little woman, divining his mission, and hardening her heart against his purpose.

“Miss Morgan,” he repeated, and then coaxed sheepishly, “can’t Bud go to the show with us, Miss Morgan?”

“I’m afraid not to-day,” smiled back Miss Morgan, as she went about her work.  A whisper from the doorstep prompted Piggy to “ask her why;” whereat Piggy echoed:  “Why can’t he, Miss Morgan?”

“Henry misbehaved in church last night, and we’ve agreed that he shall stay home from the circus.”

Piggy advanced a step or two inside the door, laughing diplomatically:  “O—­no, Miss Morgan; don’t you think he’s agreed.  He’s just dyin’ to go.”

Miss Morgan smiled, but did not join in Piggy’s hilarity—­a bad sign.  Piggy tried again:  “They got six elephants, and one’s a trick elephant.  You’d die a-laughin’ if you saw him.”  And Piggy went into a spasm of laughter.

[Illustration:  “One’s a trick elephant.  You’d die a-laughing if you saw him.”]

But it left Miss Morgan high and dry upon the island of her determination.

Piggy prepared for an heroic measure, and stepped over to the kitchen table, leaning upon it as he pleaded:  “This is the last circus this year, Miss Morgan, and it’s an awful good one.  Can’t he go just this once?”

[Illustration:  “It’s an awful good one.  Can’t he go just this once?”]

The debate lasted ten minutes, and at the end four boys walked slowly, with much manifestation of feeling, back to the tree where the fifth sat.  There was woe and lamentation after the manner of boy-kind.  When the boys left the yard it seemed to Miss Morgan that she could not look from her work without seeing the lonesome figure of Bud.  In the afternoon the patter of feet by her house grew slower, and then ceased.  Occasionally a belated wayfarer sped by.  The music of the circus band outside of the tent came to Miss Morgan’s ears on gusts of wind, and died away as the wind ebbed.  She dropped the dish-cloth three times in five minutes, and washed her cup and saucer twice.  She struggled bravely in the Slough of Despond for awhile, and then turned back with Pliable.