92CHAPTER XSENT TO THE OFFICE
The next morning Bobby trudged off to school with Meg feeling, for the first time in his life, that he would rather do anything except go to school.
“You stay out and play,” he directed Meg when they reached the yard. “I’ll go up and see Miss Mason.”
He found the teacher at her desk. She looked neat and cool and self-possessed, and Bobby did not have any of those qualities at that moment.
“I’m sorry––I acted like that––yesterday at ’rithmetic,” faltered Bobby jerkily. “My mother says I musn’t be a poor loser.”
“All right, Robert, we’ll overlook that,” rejoined Miss Mason graciously. “I could see you were piqued because you failed. But is that all you have to tell me?”
Bobby stared at her.
“Have you nothing to say about the book?” urged Miss Mason.93
“I didn’t do it,” insisted Bobby. “You don’t think I would lie, do you––not really?” he asked, amazed.
“I don’t know what to think,” sighed Miss Mason. “I am heartily sorry I ever brought the book to school. And, Robert, I thought it my duty to speak to Mr. Carter about this. You are to go to the office direct from assembly without coming back here.”
Poor Bobby came as near to fainting as a boy ever does. Mr. Carter! He shared all the awe and fear of the other boys for the principal of whom little was known, he spending most of his time at the grammar school. Evidently Miss Mason must think him very bad indeed if she had sent for Mr. Carter.
All through assembly Bobby’s thoughts were on the coming interview, and though he usually loved to sing the opening song, this morning he did not sing a note. He looked so solemn and serious that Tim Roon, watching him, decided his father must have whipped him.
The exercises were over too soon for Bobby, who would have had them last the rest of the94day if he had been consulted, and the long lines of marching children went back to their classrooms.
“I wonder where Bobby is,” thought Meg uneasily, when Miss Mason’s classes had rustled into place and Bobby’s seat was still vacant.
Bobby, if she had known it, was at that moment making his reluctant way to the office. Just the mere letters printed on the door were enough to make his heart sink down into his shoes, and, as he told his mother afterward, he wished he could “die on the little mat you’re supposed to wipe your feet on.”
He wiped his feet carefully, took a last desperate look up and down the empty hall, and tapped on the door.
“Come in,” called a deep, pleasant voice, not at all the kind of voice you would expect a stern, cross principal to use.
Bobby opened the door and went in. Mr. Carter was writing at Miss Wright’s desk and there was no one else in the room. Bobby knew the principal by sight, for he had seen him once95or twice in the corridors. It seemed that Mr. Carter also knew the pupils.
“Well, Bobby,” he said cheerfully. “You are Bobby Blossom, aren’t you?”
Bobby nodded miserably. He was thankful for the “Bobby,” for he detested the unfamiliar “Robert” Miss Mason invariably used.
Mr. Carter took off his glasses and laid them on the desk. He turned his chair slightly to face another chair drawn up at the side.
“Come sit down, Bobby, and don’t be afraid,” he said quietly. “I want you to tell me what happened in class yesterday, and why Miss Mason should think that you defaced her book.”
Bobby slid timidly into the chair and began to answer Mr. Carter’s quick questions. And then a strange thing happened. Bobby forgot to be afraid. As he told about the arithmetic lesson, where he had been a “poor loser,” and about the beautiful book that had been destroyed, and explained why he went back to the room at recess time, he forgot that he was speaking to the principal. He stood up straight beside the desk and talked to Mr. Carter as he would to Daddy Blossom.96And the principal’s kind, earnest eyes, his ready smile, and deep, pleasant voice, all told Bobby that he was speaking to a friend.
“And I didn’t touch the book, honest I didn’t,” finished Bobby.
Mr. Carter put a big, firm hand over the little one resting on his desk top.
“All right, I believe you,” he said earnestly. “Some day we’ll find the boy who did it, never fear.”
“But Miss Mason thinks––she thinks I did it,” protested Bobby.
“I’ll see Miss Mason,” promised Mr. Carter briefly. “The thing for you to do is to forget this and go on as though nothing had happened. You’ll find Miss Mason fair-minded and ready to own a mistake has been made when once she is convinced. As long as you know you didn’t do it you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
The principal put on his glasses and stood up.
“Next time you come to see me, let’s hope we have something pleasanter to discuss,” he said smilingly, holding out his hand to Bobby. “By97the way, didn’t I see a little sister of yours yesterday and two other young people rather anxious to go to school?”
“That was Meg,” Bobby informed him. “She had to take the twins home. They’re crazy to come to school.” Then he backed out of the room.
“He was just as nice!” Bobby kept saying over and over to himself on his way upstairs. “Just as nice! And he doesn’t b’lieve I hurt the book.”
Tim Roon glanced at Bobby curiously as he came quietly into the room and took his seat. The class was having a reading lesson, and Tim could keep his book open and pretend to be very busy while he did several other things. He had not known that Miss Mason would make such a “fuss,” as Tim called it, over the book, and he was mean enough to be glad that Bobby was getting all the punishment. Tim had a wholesome fear of Mr. Carter, having met the principal on several occasions when his bent for mischief had brought Miss Mason’s wrath down on98him. He wondered what Mr. Carter had said to Bobby.
The weather was clear and crisp now, and the grammar and high-school boys could talk of nothing but football. The primary grades, of course, were considered too little to have a team, but nevertheless they knew a good deal about the game and secretly thought they had just as fine players among them as the older boys.
“Let’s go round and watch ’em practice,” suggested Palmer Davis to Bobby after school, the afternoon of the day he had seen Mr. Carter. “Meg will tell your mother. Won’t you, Meg?”
“Yes, of course,” agreed Meg sunnily. “Go on, Bobby, she won’t care.”
“I’ll be back by five,” called Bobby after her.
Meg wanted to see the football teams practice, but she was attending to her music very diligently and practiced her hour after school faithfully. She meant to be able to play a march for assembly as soon as she was asked.
Bertrand Ashe joined Palmer and Bobby at the corner.
“Stop at my house a minute,” he urged, “and99I’ll get my football. We can have a little game.”
Bertrand had a cousin at boarding school who always sent him the nicest presents for Christmas. He had a knack of knowing what a boy wanted, and this football was a gift from him.
The football under Bertrand’s arm, the three boys walked on to the large vacant lot back of the grammar-high-school building, which was used by the teams as a football field.
“Get some more of the fellows,” directed Palmer. “My, it’s kind of muddy, isn’t it?”
The field was a little soft, but the two teams were out practicing, and a crowd of enthusiastic followers, in small groups about the lot, were watching them. Palmer, who was a leader among the younger boys, succeeded in rounding up more of their class to complete his team, among them Tim Roon and his inseparable friend, Charlie Black.
“Come on over in this corner,” said Palmer, beckoning them to follow him. “Old Hornbeck’s down to watch the high-school squad, and100like as not he’ll order us off if he sees us. Those high-school boys think they own the earth.”
There was a ruling, as Palmer knew, that the smaller boys should keep off the field while the others were playing football. The rule was made to keep them from getting in the way and possibly hurt. But the primary lads were sure they were being treated unfairly.
“Line up,” ordered Palmer, trying to read a crumpled paper he had taken from his pocket. “Here’s a signal I copied for us to try.”
The boys had only a hazy notion of the way a real game of football was played, but they kept their eyes desperately on the ball. They had no team to play against, as Palmer said it was hard enough to get boys for one team, let alone two, but they had often had great fun knocking the ball around among their own eleven.
“Six-ten-nine-nought,” read Palmer.
He dashed forward, Bobby after him. Together they fell on the ball and rolled over. Then Bobby rose with it tucked neatly under his arm, and began to run. Tim Roon and Charlie101Black tried to head him off, slipped, and tripped him.
Bobby had fallen on the ball and he meant to keep it under him. He managed to shake off Charlie Black and half rose, watching his chance to run. Just as he was ready for a dash, a stout, heavy shoe struck him in the side and knocked him down again.
“Foul!” shrieked Bertrand excitedly. “Tim Roon, you’re a cheat!”
Bobby struggled to his feet, blind with anger.
“You––you–––” he sputtered, and rushed at Tim fiercely.
102CHAPTER XIOLD HORNBECK’S PICTURE
Tim met Bobby half way, and they grappled. The other boys closed in around them.
“Pound him good, Bobby!” advised Palmer excitedly. “The sneak! Kicking a player like that!”
“Sit on his head,” squeaked Bertrand in a funny little voice excitement always gave him. “Sit on his head, the big coward!”
Bobby did not even hear these. He was hitting wherever he could, and grunting like a small pig as Tim rained blows upon him. Tim was so much older and stronger that all the advantage was on his side. Charlie Black was hovering around the outside of the circle, not daring to say anything for Tim, but hoping his chum would win.
“Hornbeck!” suddenly cried Charlie in wild alarm. “Hey, fellows, here comes old Hornbeck. If he catches us–––”
Charlie never finished his sentence, but took103to his heels, followed by the rest of the boys. Only Tim and Bobby, rolling over and over on the ground, had not heard the warning.
“Quit this this instant, I tell you!” roared a hard voice, and some one grasped Bobby by his collar, jerking him to his feet. “Fighting like two wildcats! What do you mean by such performances on the school grounds?”
It was Mr. Hornbeck, and he had Bobby in one hand and Tim in the other, and as he spoke he shook each boy violently.
“What do you call it you’re doing?” he roared again.
Tim ran out an impudent tongue, but said nothing. The committeeman’s eyes under his high silk hat glared at Bobby.
“We were just playing football,” stammered Bobby hastily.
“Football!” cried Mr. Hornbeck, giving each of them a tremendous shake. “Football! You young imps! Don’t tell me you don’t know of the rule that primary-grade boys are to stay off the field during football practice. If I ever catch you around here again I’ll have you up104before Mr. Carter. He’ll teach you to remember.”
Still retaining his grip on their collars, Mr. Hornbeck marched them across the lot to the street.
“Now scoot,” he ordered.
They needed no second command. Tim fled up the street and Bobby ran down, each as fast as he could go.
“My stars and stripes!” ejaculated Sam Layton, meeting Bobby as the boy came running in the driveway, “is that what they do to you at school? Learning must be rather hard work.”
No wonder Sam was surprised. Bobby’s coat was torn, his blouse grimed with mud. A great bruise was on one cheek, and his cap was crushed and dirty. His hands and face looked as though he had been rolling in the mud, which, as we know, he had.
“I had a fight,” explained Bobby coolly. “I guess I do look a little dirty.”
“Come on out to the garage and I’ll brush you off. No sense in scaring your mother stiff,” said Sam. “Who won the fight?”105
“I guess old Hornbeck did,” answered Bobby thoughtfully, rubbing a finger that was sore from handling the ball. “Anyway, he had a lot to say about it.” And then he gave Sam a few particulars as he cleaned himself.
A few days later Meg and Bobby were going home from school when Meg suddenly remembered that she had forgotten her books.
“Well, I suppose we can go back and get ’em,” grumbled Bobby, “but why won’t to-morrow do? What do you want them for to-night?”
“I told you,” said Meg patiently. “Mother is going to cover them with calico, the way she had her books when she was little. Some of the covers are so torn I hate to have to use them.”
“All right,” sighed Bobby. “We’ll go back. I think girls have the worst memories!”
By the time they reached the school––they had been half way home––all the other children had gone. The janitor was sweeping out the lower hall and grinned cheerfully at them without stopping his work. Then they passed on to their own room.
“Doesn’t it seem funny without anybody106here?” asked Meg, beginning to take the books out of her desk.
“Suppose I was the teacher!” Bobby seated himself in Miss Mason’s chair and rapped on the desk with her ruler. “First grade, go to the board!”
“Oh, don’t,” giggled Meg, half frightened. “She might come in and catch you. Bobby, stop it!”
Bobby jumped from the chair and scrambled off the platform as the door opened.
“Hello!” said a cheerful, chirping voice, and Dot and Twaddles marched into the room.
“We thought we’d come after you,” announced Dot serenely. “Mother said it was time for you to be coming. But we didn’t meet you.”
“I had to come back and get my books for Mother to cover,” explained Meg. “Don’t touch anything, Twaddles. You can carry my reading book. Come on, Bobby, don’t let’s stay.”
But the twins had no intention of leaving that minute.
“Isn’t it nice in school?” beamed Twaddles, eyeing the bowl of goldfish on the window sill107with interest. “Oh, Bobby, won’t you draw us a picture?”
Twaddles had spied the chalk and the blackboard.
“All right, just one,” promised Bobby. “What’ll I draw?”
“Old Hornbeck,” snickered Twaddles, who had never seen the head of the school committee, but who never missed a word of anything the older children brought home.
Meg and Dot and Twaddles watched with absorbing interest as Bobby took up a piece of chalk and began to draw.
“These are his whiskers,” explained Bobby, making a lot of curly marks. “Here’s his chin. This is his coat collar. And now I’ll make his high silk hat.”
Bobby had to stand on his tiptoes to draw this, and the chalk screeched piercingly as he bore on it heavily. But the high hat really did look like the one Mr. Hornbeck wore.
“Now some funny little legs, and he’s done,” announced Bobby, drawing two wavering lines that had to serve the figure for legs.108
“Come on now,” urged Meg. “Mother will be looking for us. Rub it out, Bobby. Suppose Miss Mason found it in the morning?”
“The janitor cleans the boards every night,” replied Bobby indifferently.
“Rub it out,” insisted Meg. “It would be mean if some one found it and blamed you.”
The spirit of mischief seized Bobby. He picked up the eraser as if to do what Meg asked, then dropped it and took up a piece of chalk.
“This is Old Hornbeck,” he scrawled under the picture, the words running downhill across the board.
A noise at the door caused them all to look around. There stood Mr. Hornbeck!
Luckily Bobby stood before the drawing he had made, and quick as a flash Meg darted forward. Slipping in behind her brother, she managed to rub the sleeve of her dress over the writing and smudged the greater part of the picture. Bobby, who had stood as if paralyzed, the chalk in his fingers, turned and with a sweep of the eraser blotted out the rest.109
“What are you children doing here?” demanded Mr. Hornbeck severely.
He had not noticed the blackboard at all, for Twaddles had fixed him with such a fascinating stare the moment he entered the room that he had not been able to see any one else at first.
“Do these small children come to school?” he asked. “Why are they here, then? And aren’t you the boy I stopped from fighting only last week?”
“Ye-s, sir,” answered Bobby. “We’re going now. My sister had to come back for her books.”
“There must be no loitering about the building after school hours,” said the committeeman sternly. “I’ll speak to Miss Wright. When you have finished your school work, you are to go home immediately. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” murmured the four little Blossoms, the twins joining in.
“Then go,” ordered Mr. Hornbeck majestically.
The four were very glad to go, and they lost no time in getting out of the building.
“My, I’m glad you rubbed that out, Meg!”110said Bobby gratefully. “Just suppose he had seen it!”
“What would he do?” clamored Twaddles. “Keep you in?”
“He might expel me,” Bobby informed him gloomily. “Going to school is no joke, Twaddles. Is it, Meg?”
“No, it isn’t,” returned Meg absently, her eyes and thoughts on something else. “What does that big poster say, Bobby?”
She pointed to a large poster pasted on a pole across the street.
“Let’s go over and read it,” suggested Bobby.
They crossed over, and Bobby spelled out the large black and red letters for them.
“Goody,” he announced, “it’s a circus! With a p’rade, and everything! We’ll ask Daddy if we can go.”111
CHAPTER XII
AT THE CIRCUS
Although a cold wind was blowing, the four little Blossoms stayed till Bobby had read aloud every word on the poster.
“It’s next Wednesday,” he announced. “I guess they’ll let us out of school for the parade. Oh, here are some more pictures. Look at the monkeys!”
The board fence surrounding the corner lot was plastered with gorgeous circus posters of prancing yellow lions, ladies in gauzy skirts riding on pretty ponies, and mischievous monkeys climbing up ropes and doing the most wonderful tricks.
“I wish we had a monkey,” said Meg, who did her best to keep a menagerie.
“What’s that man doing?” demanded Twaddles, pulling at Bobby’s sleeve and pointing to a trapeze performer.
“He does things like that,” answered Bobby. “You didn’t go to the circus when it was here112two years ago, did you, Twaddles? You and Dot were too little. But I guess maybe you can go this time.”
The four little Blossoms talked of nothing but the circus after this, and Norah said she knew that Meg dreamed of lions and tigers every night. All but one of the Blossoms were going, the children with Father Blossom in the afternoon, and Norah with Sam at night. Mother Blossom had planned to spend the night with a friend in the city, and as she didn’t care much about circuses anyway, she thought she wouldn’t postpone her trip.
“What about school?” asked Father Blossom, coming home one evening to find Twaddles wrapped up in the fur rug and playing he was a polar bear, while Meg and Bobby, each under a chair, growled like panthers, and Dot swung from the curtain pole pretending that she was a trapeze performer. “What do you do about getting excused, Bobby? Really, Dot, you’ll have that curtain pole down in a minute.”
Flushed and smiling, Dot dropped to the floor, and Twaddles came out of his rug.113
“School lets us out at eleven o’clock, so we can see the parade,” announced Bobby. “Then there isn’t any more after that. Some of the school committee said it was nonsense to close the school for a circus, but Mr. Carter said he wasn’t going to give us a chance to play hooky. Everybody’s going, Daddy.”
“Dot and Twaddles want to meet the children up town to see the parade. So you think that is safe, Ralph?” asked Mother Blossom, coming into the room to tell them that supper was ready. “There will be such a crowd.”
“They mustn’t go alone,” said Father Blossom quickly. “Let Sam take them. They can all sit in Steve Broadwell’s window. He asked me to-day if they didn’t want to come. And as soon as the parade is over, come home to lunch. I’ll meet you here and we’ll get an early start.”
The Wednesday morning, circus day, came at last. Very little work was done in school, and the teachers were as glad as the boys and girls when the dismissal bell rang, for trying to keep the minds of restless little mortals on geography and arithmetic when they are thinking only of114monkeys and bears and lions is not an easy task.
“Going to see the parade?” asked Palmer Davis, as Miss Mason’s class poured down the stairway.
“Going to see the parade?” the girls asked Meg.
“Sure,” Bobby answered for both. “We’re going to sit in Mr. Steve Broadwell’s window. You can see fine from there.”
Stephen Broadwell was a druggist, and his window upstairs over his drugstore was a coveted place for parades of all kinds in Oak Hill. Everything paraded up the main street past the drugstore.
Meg and Bobby found Sam and the twins already waiting for them when they hurried up the steep dark stairs that led to the storeroom over the drugstore.
“Been here half an hour,” grinned Sam. “Dot was so afraid she’d miss the start that she wanted me to bring her in the car.”
The four little Blossoms squeezed into the window and Sam looked over their shoulders.115
“Music!” cried Dot. “I hear it! They’re coming!”
“I see ’em!” shouted Bobby, leaning out to look. “My, see the horses, Meg!”
Sam pulled him in again, and in another minute the parade was marching by in full swing. You know how wonderful a circus parade is; that is, if you have ever seen one. And if you haven’t, goodness! we couldn’t begin to do it justice. Of course the very largest circuses didn’t come to Oak Hill; but still this one had many things to see. There were cream-colored horses and black ones, with girls dressed in pink and blue and white fluffy dresses and gorgeous long red coats, riding them. There were cages of animals, some of them sleeping and some switching their tails angrily and showing their teeth. There was a whole wagon load of monkeys, two bands, and even an elephant and a camel.
“Wouldn’t it be awful if we couldn’t go to the circus?” said Bobby solemnly, as the last of the procession, the clown driving his own cunning pony and cart, went up the street. “After116seeing that parade I never could be happy ’less I saw them at the circus.”
“Well, we are going,” Meg reminded him practically.
“Let’s hurry,” urged Twaddles. “Maybe all the seats will be gone.”
“Daddy bought tickets,” said Dot dreamily. “Wasn’t the first pony pretty? And did you see the little dog riding on him? Do you suppose Philip could ride a pony, Meg?”
Meg was sure Philip could, if he had a pony to ride and some one to teach him.
As the four little Blossoms and Sam went downstairs whom should they meet but Doctor Maynard, an old friend of the whole Blossom family, and the doctor who had helped them set Philip’s leg when he had broken it.
“Well, well,” said the doctor, smiling, “I think I know what you have been doing upstairs––watching the circus parade. And now where to?”
“Home,” replied Meg. “We have to hurry, ’cause Daddy is going to take us to the circus this afternoon.”117
“Do you suppose you would have time to have a soda?” asked the doctor.
The children thought they would, and Doctor Maynard lined them up before the fountain and let each one choose. Meg and Bobby, who always liked the same things, took chocolate, and Dot asked for strawberry, while Twaddles said he would have orange. Doctor Maynard and Sam had ginger-ale, which Meg privately thought unpleasant stuff, it tickled one’s throat so.
“Have a good time at the circus,” said the doctor, as they said good-by. “Don’t tease the elephant, and don’t let the monkeys tease you.”
“I should think the monkeys would be cold in the winter,” mused Meg, as they walked home. “Bears and lions have warm furry skins, but monkeys don’t.”
“Oh, the circus rests up in winter,” Sam assured her. “This is about the last stop they’ll make this season. When it gets too cold for folks to sit out in tents, you know, a circus goes into winter quarters. They are just as cozy then as you are. All the circus people mend their118clothes and rest and plan out new tricks for the spring. And the animals rest and sleep and get their coats into good condition, and have all they want to eat.”
At home the four little Blossoms found Father Blossom, and as soon as they had finished lunch they started for the big tent. It was pitched in the same place every time the circus came to Oak Hill, a wide open space just outside the town limits, and Bobby remembered it very well.
“See all the people!” cried Dot, jumping up and down with delight. “There’s Nina and Mary and Freddy, and oh, everybody!”
It did seem as if all Oak Hill had turned out to go to the circus, and Bobby wondered if there would be any left to see it that night when Sam and Norah went.
“Tickets,” said the man at the gate. “All right, five of you.”
They went into the big tent and found their seats down near the ring. The clown was already driving around and around in his pony119cart, and he waved to Dot quite as if he knew her.
“I guess he remembers me from this morning,” she said with satisfaction.
More people kept coming in, and soon the tent was crowded. Then the matinée began, with a grand parade all around the ring, horses prancing, whips cracking, the monkeys shrieking shrilly. For three hours the four little Blossoms were enthralled by the antics of the clever beasts and the men and women performers, and they could hardly believe it when Father Blossom said they must put on their hats, for the performance was over.
“Won’t there be any more?” begged Dot, putting on her hat backward in her excitement. “Just a little more, Daddy?”
“Why, we’ve been here three hours,” said Father Blossom, smiling. “The circus has to have its supper and be ready for the evening crowd, you know. You wouldn’t want them to be too tired to go through their tricks for Norah and Sam, would you?”
Of course Dot didn’t want the circus to get120completely tired out, so she agreed that perhaps it was time to go home.
They brought Norah such glowing accounts of the things they had seen that she was “all in a flutter,” she said, and indeed she did serve the potatoes in a soup dish. But as Father Blossom said, most anything was likely to happen on circus day.
“You must all go to bed extra early to-night,” he warned the children. “If Meg and Bobby are late for school to-morrow, the circus will be blamed. Dot looks as if she couldn’t keep her eyes open another minute.”
Meg and Bobby went to bed when the twins’ bedtime came, for they were tired, and they fell asleep at once. But suddenly the loud ringing of the telephone bell woke them.
121CHAPTER XIIIA MONKEY HUNT
“Daddy! Daddy!” cried Meg, tumbling out of bed and running into the hall. “There’s the telephone.”
Father Blossom came out of his room. He had been reading and was fully dressed, for it was not late for grown-up people, only about ten o’clock.
“I’m going, Daughter,” he said. “Perhaps Mother has decided to come out on the late train.”
Meg leaned over the banisters to listen, and Bobby joined her there. The twins did not wake up, for they were sound sleepers.
Father Blossom took down the receiver and said “Hello!” Then they heard him ask a quick, low question or two, and then he laughed. How he laughed! He threw back his head and fairly shouted. Meg and Bobby had to laugh, too, though they had not the faintest idea what the joke was about.122
When Father Blossom hung the receiver up, he was still laughing. He glanced up and saw Meg and Bobby.
“You’ll get cold. Run back to bed,” he said. “That was Sam telephoning. What do you suppose happened? The cage of monkeys upset in the ring and the door-catch broke and they’re all loose! Sam said half the audience chased them around the tent and it broke up the show.”
“Did they catch them?” asked Meg, her eyes big with interest.
“Not one,” answered her father. “Get into bed immediately, children. Perhaps you’ll meet monkeys on your way to school to-morrow.”
“I wish we could,” murmured Meg, cuddling sleepily into her warm bed. “Wouldn’t that be fun!”
“I’d like to catch a monkey,” said Bobby to himself, as he climbed into his bed in the next room. “Maybe he’d do tricks for me.”
In the morning Meg and Bobby were out in the kitchen before breakfast, getting from Norah the details of the monkeys’ escape.
“’Deed then, I hope they catch every one of123’em––bad ’cess to ’em,” said Norah indignantly. “Thieving, sly, little torments! Didn’t they claw Mrs. O’Toole’s bonnet nigh off her head last night, to say nothing of scaring her into fits? Don’t say monkey to me!”
On their way to school the children found that the news of the overturned monkey cage was known to the whole town. Not a boy who didn’t hope to be able to catch a monkey or two.
“There’s a reward offered––five dollars for each monkey,” Palmer Davis reported when he met Meg and Bobby at the school door. “Yep––my cousin told me; and he’s in the Oak HillDaily Advertiseroffice, and I guess he ought to know.”
The majority of the children in Miss Mason’s room stayed downstairs till the “warning bell” rang and then hurried to their room to put away their coats and hats in the cloak room. It was Miss Mason’s rule that they must be quietly in their seats, ready for the march to the assembly hall, when the nine o’clock bell rang.
“It’s too cold to hang around out here, so let’s go up,” suggested Palmer Davis on this morning.124“The warning bell will ring in a minute, anyway.”
Meg and Bobby were willing, especially as the air was sharp and chill, cold enough for snow Meg thought, though of course it never snowed so early in the fall, and they trooped happily upstairs. A number of boys and girls were already in the room and Miss Mason was working at her desk. Her hat was off and lay on one of the school desks, for she meant to carry it over to the teacher’s room as soon as she had worked out an example for the little girl who had asked her help.
Nina Mills pushed her way into the cloak room ahead of Meg and Bobby, and as the latter grasped the swinging door they heard Nina give a loud yell.
“Look out! Get away!” She came tumbling out of the cloak room, her face white with terror. “There’s a monkey in there!” she gasped.
Half of the pupils immediately scattered. Most of the girls fled screaming, and some of the boys followed them. Miss Mason stood up, undecided what to do.125
“Get a pole and kill him!” shouted Tim Roon, from a safe position behind the bookcase. “Mash him ’fore he has a chance to fight.”
“Don’t be silly,” snapped Bobby. “A monkey can’t hurt you. Let’s catch it.”
Now, no one had any experience, in catching a monkey, and they were willing to let Bobby go about it as he saw fit.
“One of you hold open the door,” he decided after a minute’s thought. “Meg, you stand there and hold out your dress. I’ll go in and chase him out to you. Are you afraid? ’Cause I’ll stand to catch him and you can chase him out if you’d rather. Only your dress will help.”
Meg said she wasn’t afraid and took her place in the doorway. Palmer Davis volunteered to hold the door back, and the others stood as far away as they could.
“Look out! Here he comes!” shouted Bobby suddenly.
Meg spread out her skirts. A small, black ball hurled itself through the door, rolled between Meg’s feet and jumped to a desk. Like a flash the monkey ran lightly over the desk tops,126down the aisle, reached the desk where Miss Mason’s hat lay, and seized it in one paw. She made a frantic grab for it, but missed. With a derisive chuckle and some remark in monkey talk that no one could understand, the monkey gained the open window and scampered down the fire-escape.
“My best, new hat! Run after him!” wailed Miss Mason.
The nine o’clock bell had rung five minutes before, but no one thought of that. The entire school knew that one of the circus monkeys had been found in Miss Mason’s room, and there was no question of holding assembly till it was driven out or captured.
Pell-mell down the stairs ran the children after the monkey. His quick eyes glanced about for a haven. A tall pine tree stood near the front gate, and toward this the monkey ran, a pack of screaming children after him. He had the best of them when it came to climbing, and before the first boy reached the tree he was half way to the top.
“We can’t climb that,” said a fourth-grade127pupil disconsolately. “All the branches have been cut to keep it off the ground. How’ll we ever get that hat back?”
But Miss Mason had no intention of losing her best hat, and she was already telephoning for one of the town firemen to come and bring his longest ladder. When he heard that he was to rescue a monkey he was indignant; then when she reminded him of the reward, he thought that after all he might be able to do it. So the children had the fun of watching him come with his ladder and climb up to get, after some difficulty, both monkey and hat.
Dear knows when the children would have gone back to school after the monkey was brought down, for he proved to be a friendly animal and was evidently used to petting, and every one was eager to make his acquaintance, but Miss Wright finally came out and ordered them all into the building, and after that affairs gradually settled down. But many were the secret wishes that every school day could start with a monkey hunt.
At noon Meg and Bobby had so much to tell,128and the twins were so interested and so full of self-pity to think that they couldn’t go to school and find monkeys in the cloak room that Mother Blossom’s piece of news was almost overlooked.
“I have something nice to tell you,” she said at last, smiling mysteriously, as she helped them to pudding.
“Something nice?” puzzled Meg. “Can Annabel Lee sleep on my bed?”
Meg was sure that the comfortable kitchen was not comfortable enough for the cat, and she teased persistently to be allowed to have Annabel Lee sleep at the foot of her bed at night.
“Nothing at all to do with Annabel Lee,” said Mother Blossom. “This is something that will please you all. Don’t play with your spoon, Bobby––you’ll be late going back to school.”
“Company?” demanded Twaddles, who was very hospitable.
“You saw the letter come,” laughed Mother Blossom. “Well, I’ll have to help you this much––wearegoing to have company.”
“I know,” cried Meg, almost choking over129her pudding. “I know! Aunt Polly’s coming! Oh, goody!”
“Is she, Mother?” asked Bobby delightedly. “Honest? When? Soon? Can we go to meet her?”
“Yes, she’s coming,” replied Mother Blossom. “Not right away. About a week before Thanksgiving, she says, and then she’ll stay over the holiday.”
“Oh, that’s ever so far off,” objected Twaddles. “I thought maybe she’d come to-morrow or to-day.”
Mother Blossom smiled.
“Thanksgiving is only about three weeks off,” she reminded him. “Aunt Polly will be here in less than two weeks. And Meg and Bobby have to begin to practice their Thanksgiving pieces soon, don’t you, children?”
“Miss Mason’s going to give ’em out this afternoon,” replied Bobby. “Say, Mother, do I have to learn a piece? Girls like to wear fussy clothes and get up on the platform and speak or sing, but I feel awful.”
“Well, that will be for your teacher to say,”130returned Mother Blossom. “I don’t suppose either you or Meg will have to learn very long poems. And think, dear, wouldn’t you like to have a part in the exercises when Aunt Polly will be here to see you?”
Bobby hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps he would like to have Aunt Polly hear him recite something.
“But nothing with gestures,” he said firmly. “I’m not going to get up there and wave my hands and yell.”
131CHAPTER XIVAUNT POLLY ARRIVES
When Meg and Bobby came home from school that afternoon they brought the news that each had been given a Thanksgiving recitation to learn. Miss Mason did not feel as sure as she had at first that it was Bobby who had spoiled her book. Mr. Carter’s championship of Bobby was not without results. Still, she did not wholly absolve him, and while she was fair enough not to mention the subject again, Bobby knew that she had not forgotten. He was surprised when his name was read aloud as one to have part in the exercises.
“There’s six of us boys,” announced Bobby to Mother Blossom. “We all come out at once and take turns saying a verse. Tim Roon and Charlie Black aren’t in it. Miss Mason said that last year they promised to learn a part and they never even tried. And then they spoiled the whole thing by staying away from the exercises.”132
Meg was waiting her turn impatiently.
“I have the longest piece!” she began breathlessly the moment Bobby finished. “Five verses, Mother! And we’re not going to have any time to study in school! Will you hear me?”
Mother Blossom said of course she would, and Meg began studying her verses that very night after supper.
“You’ll have to have a new white dress,” decided Mother Blossom. “You’re growing so fast, Meg, that none of your summer dresses will do. I’ll have to call up Miss Florence and see, if you can stop in to be measured to-morrow.”
For cheerful little Miss Florence, who flitted about from house to house making pretty dresses for little girls and their mothers and sisters, had sprained her ankle a day or two before and Doctor Maynard would not hear of her leaving the house for weeks and weeks.
“Lucky it wasn’t my wrist,” Miss Florence had laughed. “I can still sew, if my customers come to me.”
Mother Blossom telephoned that afternoon, and Miss Florence said that she could begin133Meg’s new dress early the next week. She would only have to come two or three times to try it on, and then Miss Florence would send word when she or Bobby might come after it. Miss Florence had no one to run errands for her.
What with practicing “pieces,” and being fitted for a new dress, and going to school and playing a little every day, the time fairly flew, and before Meg and Bobby knew it Aunt Polly had come.
“How you’ve grown!” she cried when she saw the four little Blossoms. “Why, I don’t believe Jud would know you if he saw you.” Jud had been a great friend of the children’s when they visited Aunt Polly at Brookside Farm, and they had other friends to ask after, too.
“How’s Carlotta?” demanded Meg eagerly. Carlotta was the calf given to Meg and Bobby as a reward for help they had given one of Aunt Polly’s neighbors.
“Carlotta is growing,” said Aunt Polly, smiling. “And Linda is going to school, which leaves me all alone in the house. I declare I134was glad to close it and come down to you, Margaret.”
Aunt Polly was Mother Blossom’s widowed older sister. The children loved her dearly, and now, each with a red apple in hand from the bag Aunt Polly had brought them, they crowded around to ask if she wouldn’t like them to rehearse.
“Rehearse?” asked Aunt Polly, puzzled. “Rehearse what, blessings?”
“Bobby and I have to speak a piece in school the day before Thanksgiving,” explained Meg, “and the twins always have to say poetry, too, when we practice. Mother hears us every night; don’t you, Mother?”
“What fun!” Aunt Polly clapped her hands, her eyes sparkling. “I don’t know when I’ve been to any school exercises. By all means have a rehearsal, Meg. Your father, mother and I will be the audience.”
The children went out of the room, and Bobby came back alone. He went to the center of the room, bowed a little stiffly and said his six-line verse rapidly.135
“Of course it will sound better with six boys taking turns,” he explained, slipping into a chair near Aunt Polly to enjoy the rest of the entertainment. “My, I hope I don’t forget it that afternoon!”
Dot came next, walking composedly, and she gave them “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” her old stand-by; that was one verse Dot was always sure of.
When Twaddles’ turn came he bowed, thought for a full minute, and then launched into the Mother Goose rhyme of “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.”
“Pumpkins are for Thanksgiving,” he assured Aunt Polly anxiously, in case she should think his selection strange.
“Of course they are!” she cried, drawing Twaddles into her lap and hugging him. “I suspect Jud is packing the largest he can find into a box now to send us for our pies.”
Meg had been upstairs and put on one of her summer white dresses, too short in the skirt and too tight in the sleeves, for Meg, as Mother Blossom had said, was growing very fast.136
“You just ought to see the dress Miss Florence is making me, Aunt Polly,” Meg said, her blue eyes shining. “It has two tucks in the skirt, and puff sleeves–––”
“And a pink sash,” chimed in Dot.
“Well, what about your piece?” asked Father Blossom. “You don’t suppose there is any danger that you’ll march up on the platform Wednesday afternoon and recite a verse about pink sashes and tucks, do you, instead of Thanksgiving?”
Meg was sure she wouldn’t do that, and to prove it, she recited her whole five verses very nicely, and with no mistake.
“She has gestures––Mother showed her how,” said Bobby, very proud of his pretty sister. “I don’t like to wave my hands, but I like to watch other people do it.”
A few days before the all-important Wednesday Miss Florence telephoned––she had a telephone in her house now that she could not go out––and said that Meg’s dress was finished. When Bobby and Meg came home from school at noon for lunch, Mother Blossom told them to137go around by Miss Florence’s house that afternoon and get the frock.
“Dear, dear, if I’m not stupid,” fussed Miss Florence, folding the crisp, dainty folds of the dress a few minutes after the children had rung her bell and announced they were to take the package. “Here I’ve gone and saved this nice box for it, and it hasn’t a lid. If I lay sheets of tissue paper over it and pin them carefully, do you think you can carry it?”
“Sure I can,” said Bobby. “You don’t need a cover, Miss Florence. Come on, Meg.”
“Be careful and don’t drop it,” warned Miss Florence, hobbling on her lame ankle to the door to watch them down the steps. “Isn’t it a miserable day out!”
Meg and Bobby didn’t think it was a miserable day, though the wind was raw and cold, and the ground, soft from the first freeze, was slippery and muddy. But, as Bobby had once said, they were fond of “just plain weather.”
“Oh, dear,” wailed Meg when they were half way home, “here comes that mean, disagreeable Tim Roon. He’s the hatefulest boy!”138
Tim Roon, as usual, was loitering along, his hands in his pockets, his lips puckered up for the whistle that didn’t come. Tim never quite did anything he started to do, whether it was to weed his father’s garden or whistle a tune.
“Hello!” he said, stopping close to Meg. “What have we in the large box?”
“Go ’way,” returned Meg fearfully. “Leave Bobby be. That’s my new dress.”
Tim’s voice changed to a high, squeaky, thin note.
“‘Call me early, Mother,’” he chortled, “‘for I’m to be Queen of the May, Mother, I’m to be Queen of the May.’”
“You take the box, Meg,” said Bobby angrily, “while I hit that big chump.”
Meg reached for the box, but Tim was quicker and he knocked it spinning. Then away he went, running at top speed, his shouts of laughter echoing up the street.
“I’ll bet it’s all mud!” mourned Meg, crying a little. “Oh, Bobby, did it fall in a puddle?”
Bobby was peeping under the tissue paper covers.139
“’Tisn’t hurt a mite,” he declared. “Not one spot, Meg. See, the box fell right side up. Isn’t that lucky?”
Just at that moment Charlie Black came flying around the corner on his roller skates and ran into Meg before he could stop himself. He knocked her down and landed on top of her.
“Meg, Meg, did he hurt you?” Bobby had Meg on her feet in a second. “No? You sure? Well, just you watch me pound him.”
Bobby was furious, and hitting Charlie Black he felt would relieve his feeling almost as much as a fight with Tim Roon. The two bad boys never lost an opportunity to torment him or Meg, and Bobby felt that here was a heaven-sent opportunity to even up old scores.
“I’ve got my skates on,” whimpered Charlie, as Bobby leaned over him. “Don’t you dare touch me, Bobby Blossom! Go ’way! I tell you ’tisn’t fair! I’ve got my skates on!”
“Well, I don’t care if you have!” roared Bobby. “Stand up, and see what you’ll get! Stand up!”
Charlie much preferred to lie down, and now140he simply rolled over on his back and pawed the air wildly.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” he kept crying. “Go away! Leave me alone.”
Bobby looked disgusted.
“You leave me alone and I’ll give you something,” Charlie whimpered. “Honest I will, Bobby.”
“What?” said Bobby shortly.
Charlie Black sat up and tried to grin at Meg.
“I got four kittens,” he said, careless as usual of his grammar. “They’re beauties.”