141CHAPTER XVMR. FRITZ’S KITTENS
Of course Meg’s attention was held at once.
“Where did you get any kittens, Charlie?” she asked, half inclined not to believe him.
Charlie wriggled along the ground till he was a safe distance from Bobby, then scrambled to his feet.
“A man gave ’em to me,” he said. “He wants me to drown ’em!” and away he skated as fast as he could go.
“Bobby!” Meg almost screamed. “Bobby! don’t let him drown the kittens.”
Meg was, as her family said, “crazy” about all animals, and kittens were her special delight. But then Bobby didn’t like the idea of drowning four helpless little cats in the icy cold water of the pond, either. He started after Charlie Black, and Meg went after him and really142wished she didn’t have a new dress for a moment because she found the box a nuisance to carry.
Charlie could skate fairly well, but that was when he was watching where he was going. This time he was watching Bobby instead and as a result he failed to see a curb and went over it with a jolt that landed him on his knees. Before he could rise, Bobby and Meg had caught Up with him.
“Where––are––the––kittens?” gasped Meg.
“In a bag,” Charlie answered sullenly.
“You give them to us,” said Bobby sternly. “If no one wants them, we can take them home.”
“The man said to drown them––they’re his cats and I guess he has a right to say what he wants done with them,” Charlie retorted.
Meg thought about this a minute.
“I’ll go see the man,” she announced calmly. “Where are the kittens?”
Now whether Charlie really didn’t want to drown the little, soft helpless kittens, or whether he was afraid of Bobby––perhaps his reasons were mixed as reasons often are––no one knew. But he said that Meg and Bobby could come143home with him and he would give them the kittens.
The bag was in the woodshed and it was such a dirty old bag––made of canvas that looked as though it had been carried for years and never washed––that involuntarily Bobby held it at arms’ length from him.
“They won’t bite you,” said Charlie scornfully, thinking he was afraid of the kittens––they could be heard mewing inside the bag.
“What is the man’s name and where does he live?” Meg asked quietly.
“Ah, I was only fooling––he doesn’t care what happens to those old cats,” said Charlie. “It’s Mr. Fritz––over on Beech Street. He’s cross enough anyway without being asked a lot of extra questions.”
But Meg was determined to see Mr. Fritz and she made Bobby go around to Beech Street with her.
“It’s just as Charlie said––they are his kittens,” she argued. “And of course if he says they have to be drowned they have to be: only we won’t do it.”144
“Don’t you want to look at them?” asked Bobby, swinging the bag gently.
Meg shook her head.
“Not if somebody has to drown them,” she said.
Mr. Fritz lived in a large old-fashioned house, set back from the street. When the children rang the door bell a deaf woman who did all the housework for him––he was an old bachelor––came to the door.
“We don’t want to buy anything,” she declared, frowning at the bag Bobby was carrying.
“We’re not selling anything––these are kittens,” Bobby explained, but without raising his voice. He didn’t know she was deaf.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“Kittens!” Bobby repeated, a little more loudly. “Mr. Fritz’s kittens.”
“He wears gloves,” said the maid crossly. “And my bread is in the oven and I can’t be bothered.”
Meg stood on tiptoe and shouted.
“Is Mr. Fritz home?” she cried.145
To her dismay a deep voice somewhere back in the house answered her.
“That he is,” it said. “Won’t you come in?” and there stood Mr. Fritz himself, looking at her curiously.
Bobby with the bag and Meg with her dress box, stepped inside and the maid closed the door. That made the hall so dark that poor Bobby, unable to see where he was going, but moving ahead blindly, walked to the basement stairs and made the most fearful clatter as he lost his balance and fell half way. He managed to catch one arm around the banister rail and check his descent, but the bag of kittens went all the way.
“Bobby! Are you hurt?” Meg called fearfully.
“Bless me, child, I hope you haven’t broken anything,” said Mr. Fritz anxiously.
Bobby felt his way to the bottom of the stairs and found the bag.
“Not unless I smashed the kittens,” he said cheerfully, toiling up again.
Mr. Fritz opened the door of a room at the146back of the house and enough light came out to show Bobby and Meg how to go in. Once inside they found it was evidently Mr. Fritz’s sitting room. It was rather untidy, but comfortable and warm, with books and papers spread about.
“Now what can I do for you?” said Mr. Fritz, looking at his visitors very kindly and trying not to show that he was surprised to see them.
“I’m Bobby Blossom,” Bobby introduced himself, “and this is my sister Meg. We came to ask you if you would care if your kittens weren’t drowned.”
“Eh? My kittens––not drowned?” repeated Mr. Fritz. “But they are––I gave that Charlie––what’s his name––Black, I gave Charlie Black fifty cents to drown them for me this afternoon.”
Meg looked ready to cry. Any one thatpaidto have kittens drowned, must, of course, get what he paid for.
“He didn’t say you paid him,” Bobby said slowly. “Meg and I thought perhaps you wouldn’t care and we could keep them.”
“Are those the kittens in that bag?” asked147Mr. Fritz. “Do you mean to tell me that worthless boy hasn’t done anything with them? And he sends them back to me? Wait till I catch him!”
“Oh, he didn’t send them!” Meg cried in quick alarm. “He told us he had them and Bobby and I wouldn’t let him drown them. Then he said they were your kittens and you wanted them drowned. And of course you can do anything you want to with your kittens, but I thought you wouldn’t mind if we kept them.”
Mr. Fritz nodded his head several times.
“I see,” he said at each nod. “I see––you want to save the kittens and let them grow up and howl on the back fences. Well, I think there are enough cats in this world already. But as long as I don’t have to take care of the kittens, it makes no difference to me what becomes of them. You may have them, if you wish.”
Meg thanked him and was ready to go, but Bobby had something else on his mind.
“Do you want that fifty cents back from Charlie Black?” he asked.
“You could get it for me, I suppose,” Mr.148Fritz said with a laugh. “No, Bobby, let him keep his fifty cents. After all, he earned it, for the stipulation was that he was to dispose of the kittens. I didn’t say theymustbe drowned.”
Mr. Fritz shook hands with Bobby and Meg and asked them to come and see him again. He went to the door with them, which was fortunate for the hall was so dark Meg was afraid Bobby would fall downstairs a second time, and watched them go down the gravel path.
“We’ll have to hurry,” said Bobby. “Mother will wonder where we are.”
The twins saw them coming and their sharp eyes spied the bag the first thing.
“What have you got, Bobby?” shrieked Dot. “Bobby, what’s in the bag?”
“You needn’t tell the neighborhood,” Bobby said a little crossly, for he was tired, “but kittens are in it.”
“Kittens!” Twaddles shouted, leaping ahead to spread the news.
“Mother!” he called, racing into the house. “Oh, Mother, come and see the kittens Bobby has in a bag!”149
Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly and Norah came into the hall and Bobby sat down on the rug, with Meg and the twins almost on top of him.
“They’re four,” he explained as he began to untie the string that was knotted around the bag. “Charlie Black was going to drown them for Mr. Fritz, but he said Meg could have them. Maybe they are pretty.”
He turned down the bag and a black kitten walked out. Then a gray and white one. Then a yellow one and next a striped “tiger” kitten.
Norah started to laugh.
“Four, is it?” she giggled. “Then I must be seeing double, Bobby, for there’s six already and––yes, here’s another––that makes seven!”
Well, there they were––seven kittens, none especially fat and none especially pretty, all “just kittens,” as Twaddles named them.
But Meg thought they were lovely and she was anxious to take them out to the garage and give them some warm milk. The garage was always chosen as a good place to feed stray animals, for the cement floor could be more150easily washed than the linoleum that was the pride of Norah’s heart in the kitchen.
“Meg, darling, we simply cannot keep all those kittens,” Mother Blossom declared regretfully. “Seven kittens are a great many and I don’t believe Annabel Lee will welcome so much company.”
“But, Mother, we can’t drown them!” said Meg, her eyes round with horror. “We have to take care of them.”
“I think you children will have to find homes for them,” Mother Blossom announced. “Think over all the folk you know and try to find homes for these homeless little cats. That will be something for you to do, too, Dot and Twaddles.”
“I’m going to think now,” said Twaddles, sitting down on the lowest step of the stairs.
151CHAPTER XVIWHAT TWADDLES THOUGHT ABOUT
“I’m going to think, too,” Dot declared, sitting down beside Twaddles, to his great annoyance.
“You always talk,” he complained, as Dot pushed him over toward the wall.
Meg and Bobby postponed their thoughts till they had taken the kittens out to the garage and fed them. They begged a piece of rug from Norah and an old box from Sam, and they made a comfortable bed.
When they came in from their labors, Twaddles was still sitting on the stair step, but Dot had disappeared.
“How’s your brain working, Twaddles?” asked Bobby, as older brothers do.
“It’s working,” Twaddles answered soberly.
Norah said supper was ready at that moment, so there wasn’t time to find out what Twaddles152was thinking. And after supper came bedtime at its usual fast pace––the four little Blossoms were sure that something happened to the clock between supper and bedtime; the hands came unscrewed, or something, and went around twice as fast as they worked the rest of the day.
“We’ll find homes for the kittens when we come home this afternoon,” Meg promised at the breakfast table the next morning. “I’ve fed them, Mother, and can’t Dot and Twaddles take them some milk this noon? Miss Mason wants us to stay and practice the songs for Thanksgiving.”
Norah had put up a neat little lunch for Meg and another for Bobby and the twins were almost beside themselves with envy. Would the time ever come, they thought, when they could go to school and sometimes have to stay over the noon hour and not come home to lunch? They were sure there could be nothing more exciting, except the actual going to school, than taking one’s lunch in a boy and eating it with a crowd of other hungry children.
“Let’s go see the kittens,” Twaddles suggested,153as soon as Bobby and Meg had gone.
Dot trotted after him to the garage. They found Sam busily picking up little furry bodies and scolding under his breath.
“These blamed cats,” he told the children, “don’t know when they’re well off. They keep climbing out of that box and first thing you know I’m going to step on one; then there will be a nice squalling.”
Dot and Twaddles helped him stuff the kittens into the box and he pulled the rug over the top, saying that if it was dark enough inside, perhaps they would go to sleep.
“I have to take your father out to the foundry,” said Sam, opening the big door. “Now see that I don’t run over any live stock on my way out.”
The twins watched him take the car and saw to it that no kittens were in his path. As soon as he had gone, Twaddles looked at Dot.
“Let you and me find homes for ’em,” he said distinctly.
“Homes for the kittens?” Dot asked doubtfully.154
“Of course. We can do it,” declared Twaddles with magnificent confidence.
“Suppose people don’t want them,” Dot offered. “Lots of people have cats.”
“Well, lots haven’t,” was Twaddles’ reply to this argument. “We’ll keep going till we find the folks who haven’t any.”
But Dot was not feeling ambitious that morning.
“They’re awfully heavy to carry,” she said, “and they cry.”
Then Twaddles showed that he had spent much time and thought on his plan.
“We’ll only carry one––for a sample!” he told her triumphantly. “A cat is a cat, isn’t it? And we’ll explain they have different colors but look just alike except for that. We’ll go to different houses, the way Mr. Hambert does, and let folks order a kitten. Then we can take it to them.”
“Mr. Hambert has samples!” cried Dot, beginning to understand. “Easter he has a nest and Christmas he has spun sugar Santa Clauses––and he only takes one. We can do it, can’t we, Twaddles?”155
“Didn’t I just say we could?” demanded Twaddles. “Which one is the best sample?”
They hastily upset the box and the kittens rolled out on the floor. Dot wanted to take a black one and Twaddles leaned toward the yellow one, so, not without some argument, they finally compromised on the “tiger” kitten.
Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly were busy in the house, and when Twaddles and Dot came in to get their hats and coats and explained they thought they could find a home for a kitten, no one objected to their going out. They could go anywhere in Oak Hill with perfect safety and they knew just about every one in the town.
“We won’t say anything about finding homes for all of the kittens,” said Twaddles as he stuffed the “sample” inside his coat, “because if we can’t get folks to take them, Bobby and Meg will laugh. Where’ll we go first, Dot?”
“The grocery store,” said Dot, who couldn’t get Mr. Hambert and his methods of doing business out of her mind.
“Grocery stores don’t want cats,” Twaddles argued. Nevertheless he turned up the street156that would lead him to the main store in Oak Hill, where kind Mr. Hambert was a clerk when he wasn’t out delivering orders in the country.
“They do, too,” shot back Dot. “They need cats to keep the mice away––Meg said so once. Anyway, we can ask ’em.”
There were a number of people in the store lined up before the counter and the twins had to await their turn. They were so interested in watching one of the clerks slice ham with a machine, that when Mr. Hambert came up to them, smiling, and asked what he could do for them, they jumped.
“We don’t want to buy anything,” said Twaddles hesitatingly.
“Then you must be selling something,” Mr. Hambert laughed good-naturedly.
“No––but we came to see if you didn’t want a cat,” Twaddles announced a bit jerkily. “We––we brought you a sample!” and he pulled the little kitten from his coat and held it out to the astonished grocery clerk.
“Good gracious!” said Mr. Hambert “Are you selling cats?”157
“We’re not selling them,” Twaddles insisted. “We’re getting homes for them. This is a sample.”
Mr. Hambert began to laugh and so did several of the customers who had been listening.
“Come, now, Hambert, you do need a cat,” said the man who was waiting for the sliced ham. “Didn’t you tell me last week your old Minnie died? Now here’s her successor. All ready delivered at your door and no trouble for you at all.”
“I can’t take cats,” Mr. Hambert retorted. “Tell you what you do, Twaddles, go into the office and see what Mr. Morris has to say.”
Mr. Morris was the owner of the store and he had a desk in a small private office far back from the counters. Twaddles marched down the aisle and Dot after him. They found Mr. Morris reading a newspaper and looking as though he might not be very busy. He smiled when he saw them.
“Hello!” he said, “what brings you calling?”
“Don’t you want a nice kitten, Mr. Morris?” asked Twaddles persuasively. “It will grow158up and catch mice and rats, and it won’t need much to eat. If Minnie is dead, you really need a cat, don’t you?”
Well, it took several minutes to make the grocery man understand what they were trying to do, and then he laughed and they had to wait till he wiped his eyes and could speak plainly. But, after all this, Mr. Morris said he would be very glad to take the kitten and it could live in the store and would be sure of a comfortable home.
“But we can’t leave this one––it’s a sample,” Dot explained earnestly. “We’ll bring you your kitten this afternoon––it will be just like this one, only a different color.”
“Are you sure it will be as good a mouser and as sweet-tempered and as pretty?” demanded Mr. Morris. “I wouldn’t want to be disappointed.”
The twins assured him that all the kittens were lovely and that gave him another thought. He wanted to know how many there were.
“Seven,” said Twaddles, “and Mother said seven are too many to keep.”159
“I agree with your mother,” Mr. Morris said. “And I believe, if you go to see my sister, Mrs. Tracy, that she will be glad to take a kitten; she’s expecting her little grandson to come for a visit next week and she would be glad to have a pet ready for him. You know where Mrs. Tracy lives, don’t you? Over on Hammond Square?”
Twaddles and Dot knew, and they hurried over to Hammond Square eagerly. Sure enough, Mrs. Tracy was glad to have a kitten, and like her brother, she wanted to keep the “sample.” But when matters were explained to her and she understood that she could have her kitten that afternoon, she was quite satisfied.
“That makes two,” said Dot, as they went down the steps.
Finding homes for the five other kittens wasn’t so easy. The twins went to every house where they knew any one and some of these people already had cats and others didn’t want any cats. But they listened politely, though they always laughed, and some of them told the twins of friends who might be glad to have a kitten.160
The poor little “sample” was growing quite rough looking and frowsy, from being pulled in and out of Twaddles’ coat so many times, and it was almost noon when they had disposed of all but one cat.
“Let’s go ask Miss Alder,” suggested Dot as they passed a handsome house set in a circle of evergreen trees.
“She’ll chase us,” Twaddles argued. “She can’t stand children––they make her nervous.”
Dot had heard this, too––Miss Alder was a wealthy and elderly woman who lived alone except for two maids. She didn’t have much to do with her neighbors and she had nothing at all to do with the children in Oak Hill. She didn’t like them and most of them were afraid of her.
“You needn’t come, if you don’t want to, but I’m going to ask her,” said Dot, turning in at the path which led to the white doorway of the Alder house.
“Well––I’ll come––you’ll need to show her the sample,” Twaddles murmured, wondering what made his knees feel so queer.
161CHAPTER XVIIMISS ALDER’S HOUSE
Dot rang the bell and waited quietly, but Twaddles kept hopping up and down the steps. He was down, when the door opened suddenly and he was so afraid Dot would go in and leave him outside that he rushed up the steps, two at a time, and the maid nearly shut the door in his face.
“Go away, boy!” she said distinctly. “We don’t allow boys around here.”
This was discouraging, but Dot refused to be dismayed.
“I’m a girl,” she stated firmly. “Could I see Miss Alder?”
“Well––I’ll ask,” the maid answered. “Wait a minute.” And she closed the door.
“Mother says it is very rude to keep any one waiting at the door,” whispered Dot. “She always asks ’em in.”162
“You can come in,” the maid announced, opening the door before Twaddles could answer Dot. “But the boy will have to wait.”
“He has to come, too––he has the sample,” said Dot, who had no intention of going into a strange house alone.
“Are you selling something?” the maid demanded. “It won’t do you any good to see Miss Alder if you’re selling something; she won’t look at samples.”
“For goodness’ sake, Agnes, are you going to stand there at the door all day?” said some one. “Either come in and close the door or go outside and finish your conversation.”
Dot glanced up and saw a face peering over the maid’s shoulder. She saw dark eyes and white hair and a rather grim mouth. But Dot smiled her friendly little smile and spoke clearly.
“How do you do, Miss Alder?” she said, as composedly as Meg would have said it. “Don’t you want a little kitten? We’re trying to find homes for them and we have––all but one.”
Now Miss Alder liked cats and she found163herself liking Dot. But she couldn’t unbend all at once.
“Are you sure your feet are clean?” she asked crisply. “Well, then, come in, both of you. I can’t stand all this cold air. Come into the sitting room and tell me what you call it you are doing.”
Twaddles and Dot followed her into a pleasant sunny room, with a fireplace in which a fire was merrily blazing. Miss Alder’s chair was by the window and she pointed to a sofa nearby.
“Sit down there and keep your feet on that rug,” she directed the twins. “If there is one thing I cannot stand it is to have my floors tracked up. Now what were you trying to tell me about a kitten?”
Twaddles pulled the little tiger kitten out of his coat and held it toward her.
“That’s the sample,” he said gravely. “We had seven of them––Meg and Bobby brought them home, because Mr. Fritz was going to have them drowned.”
“And you’ve been going around, trying to get164homes for them?” said Miss Alder approvingly. “Why, I think that is very kind of you. Could you find people who would give them homes?”
Twaddles told her where they had been and what the people had said, and all the time he talked Miss Adler was stroking the kitten which she had taken on her lap. She asked a great many questions and she did not laugh at all. She was most serious, and when she had heard the whole story, she said that she thought they were just as good as they could be.
“Most children wouldn’t go to so much trouble,” she said. “Why, you are friends worth having––and I should like a kitten very much indeed. Why don’t you let me keep this one?”
Twaddles looked uncertainly at Dot.
“It’s the sample,” he said uneasily.
“You mean itwasthe sample,” Miss Alder corrected. “If you have six kittens promised, you don’t need any more samples; and if you leave this one here with me, why, that will be one delivered and will save you that much extra trouble. Besides, I particularly like tiger cats.”
The twins saw how sensible this was, and they165agreed to leave the kitten. Then Miss Alder showed them her pets––she had canaries and goldfish and a white poodle dog who seemed to like the kitten very much, though it humped up its back and spit at him and would have nothing to do with him.
“They’ll be friends in less than a week,” Miss Alder declared comfortably.
The noon whistle reminded Dot and Twaddles that they would be late for lunch and they hurried off, but not before Miss Alder had asked them to come and see her again.
“You’ll want to see how the kitten grows,” she told them.
Meg and Bobby were home from school before the twins arrived and the family were just sitting down to lunch. They had explained to their mother and their Aunt Polly that Miss Mason had put off the practicing of the Thanksgiving songs until the next day.
“So we ate the lunch that Norah put up for us at recess, Mother; and we can eat the regular lunch now,” said Meg.
“The kittens are one short,” said Bobby as166soon as the twins came in sight. “Meg and I went out and counted them.”
“Where have you children been all the morning?” Mother Blossom asked Dot and Twaddles. “You look excited, too. Is anything the matter?”
The twins were bursting with news––any one could see that.
“All you have to do, Meg,” Twaddles informed her casually, “is to deliver the kittens; we have it all fixed.”
“Deliver them? Deliver them where?” said Meg, staring.
“Oh, around,” Twaddles returned airily. “Dot and I have been out and found homes for them all.”
“Not the whole seven?” said Bobby, staring in turn. “Seven homes, Twaddles? Who wants seven kittens?”
Mother Blossom looked at Aunt Polly and laughed.
“Do you wonder Daddy says he doesn’t know what to expect when he comes home at night?” she said. “Twaddles and Dot, will you please167stop talking in riddles and tell us where you have been and what you have done?”
Thus encouraged, the twins began to talk at once, and though it was difficult to understand them the family finally managed to learn what they had done.
“My goodness, I call that a good morning’s work,” said Aunt Polly at last. “To find places for seven kittens! Why, Dot and Twaddles, there isn’t anything you can’t do, if you stick to a plan as you have to this.”
“But one kitten is lost,” Meg pointed out. “There are only six left.”
“That was the sample,” said Twaddles calmly. “We left it at Miss Alder’s house, because she likes tiger cats.”
And then Bobby and Meg were surprised again, to hear that the twins had been to Miss Alder’s house, and they had to hear what had happened there and what she had said to them.
“Will you help us take them around this afternoon?” asked Dot. “We can do it faster if we all go; they are so squirmy to carry.”
Of course Bobby and Meg promised to help168deliver the cats and they hurried home from school to keep their promise. As the houses where the kittens were to go were pretty well scattered––the twins had worked hard and they had covered most of Oak Hill that morning––it was decided that Dot and Twaddles should take three of the kittens and Meg and Bobby the other three. The twins were to go to the grocery store and two houses near there, including Mrs. Tracy’s, while Meg and Bobby would deliver the cats at the other end of the town.
“You never know what those children are going to do,” said Meg as she and Bobby walked down Spruce Avenue, “but I am awfully glad they found homes for the kittens; Mr. Fritz will be glad, too. I don’t believe he wanted them drowned, but he didn’t know what to do with them.”
Bobby nodded absently. He was watching some one further up the street.
“That looks like Charlie Black,” he said. “I don’t want to pass him when we’re carrying these kittens––he might try to start an argument and169hurt them; let’s go down this next street and cut around the block.”
Meg was willing, for she knew that Charlie Black––who was on his roller skates again, might try to snatch a kitten, and would certainly do his best to torment them in some way.
The people who had promised the cats a home were very glad to see the kittens, and Meg and Bobby felt glad to think that the little creatures would be sure of care and attention. Meg was planning to tell Annabel Lee all about it that night, when around the corner came Charlie Black and almost skated into them before he saw them.
“You take the kitten, Meg,” said Bobby hurriedly. “I’ll wait for you.”
There was only one kitten left and Meg ran across the street with it and up the steps of Mrs. Anderson’s house.
She had to wait a few minutes for some one to answer the doorbell and a few minutes longer were required to explain to Mrs. Anderson’s sister, who had not been at home that morning170when the twins called, and then Meg ran back to rejoin Bobby.
“What are you doing, peddling cats?” asked Charlie disagreeably.
“We’re not drowning them,” Bobby replied.
“Think you’re smart, don’t you?” said Charlie. “Well, Bobby Blossom, you’re not so smart as you seem to think––catch me, if you can,” and he made a dive at the little basket in which Meg had carried the kittens.
He twisted it from her hands and shot off down the street, Bobby after him. But Charlie had a good start and as the pavement was cement and exceptionally smooth, he seemed to be having things his own way for the first two blocks. Then he turned his head to see how close Bobby was and an ash box tripped him.
“Go away!” he whined as Bobby caught up with him, Meg following closely on his heels. “Go away––don’t you dare touch me!”
Bobby leaned over him and took the basket, handing it to Meg.
“You get up and let me punch you!” he said171hotly, but Charlie was in no haste to get to his feet.
“Let me alone,” he cried. “You let me alone and I’ll tell you something, Bobby! Honest I will. I’ll tell you who spilled the ink on Miss Mason’s book.”
Meg heard and almost dropped her basket.
172CHAPTER XVIIITIM ROON IS FOUND OUT
Bobby continued to stand over Charlie Black, ready to pounce on him should he try to jump and run.
“Honest, Bobby,” Charlie whined again. “I’ll tell you who spoiled the book.”
“Well, who did?” demanded Bobby gruffly.
“You won’t hit me? Promise,” said Charlie, very much frightened.
“All right, I won’t hit you,” promised Bobby. “Who did it? You?”
Charlie Black scrambled to his feet.
“I’ll get killed if I’m found out,” he declared, “but Tim Roon did it, Bobby. I saw him. He spilled ink all over it, ’cause he was sore at Miss Mason. An’ he wouldn’t let me tell.”
Bobby and Meg were so excited that they hardly knew when Charlie Black skated away, after insisting that Tim Roon would certainly murder him if he ever discovered that he had told the secret.173
“Tell? Of course we’ll tell everybody,” said Meg, dancing along beside Bobby, who had taken the box from her again. “Oh, hurry up, Bobby. You’re so slow, and we must let Mother know.”
At home the news was received with great rejoicing, and the twins had to relieve their feelings by banging on the dining-room gong till Norah descended on them and confiscated the padded stick. But Bobby was rather sober through all the noise, and presently Mother Blossom perceived this.
“I don’t think it’s fair to tell,” said Bobby, when she questioned him. “I’ll get Tim Roon into trouble, and Charlie Black, too. Course I’d like Miss Mason to know I didn’t do it, but I hate to make such a fuss.”
“Isn’t he silly, Mother?” demanded Meg. “If you don’t tell, Bobby Blossom, I’m going to school before you’re up and tell every one I meet.”
“Now, Meg!” remonstrated Mother Blossom. “This is Bobby’s affair, remember. But, Son, you shouldn’t feel as you do. Every one who174heard that you were accused of spoiling the book has a right to know that you have been absolved. I will write Miss Mason a note and explain it fully, and then Tim and Charlie will have to take the consequences. Any boy that will stand aside and let another be unjustly accused deserves whatever he gets.”
Mother Blossom’s cheeks were quite pink and her blue eyes had little sparks in them, just as Bobby’s did sometimes when he was angry.
“Mother is right,” declared Father Blossom, who had come home early and had heard the story from Aunt Polly, Meg, the twins, and Norah before he had taken off his overcoat. “Don’t fret about Tim and Charlie––those young scamps need a couple of interviews with Mr. Carter if they are not to grow up utterly reckless.”
So the next morning Bobby carried a note to Miss Mason, and when she had read it she actually hugged him and begged his pardon as simply as if he had been a grown-up friend. She wanted to tell the whole class how mistaken175she had been, but Bobby nearly fainted at the thought and begged her not to.
“I’ll tell them one by one, then,” announced Miss Mason, who, it seemed, could not do enough to make up for her unkindness.
Before the morning session was called nearly every child in the room knew that Bobby Blossom had not touched Miss Mason’s book but that Tim Roon was the culprit. Tim and Charlie had been sent down to the principal’s office by Miss Mason before assembly, and Miss Wright had telephoned for Mr. Carter. He came over at once, and Tim and Charlie spent an unhappy hour with him.
“You’re both cowards,” he told them hotly. “I’d have you up before the class to confess your underhanded scheme if I didn’t know that it would embarrass Bobby more than it would you. The school law won’t let me keep you longer than an hour at night, but every night for a month you’ll stay an hour after school. And, Tim, here’s a note for your father. Don’t try to get out of delivering it. I’ll call him up at176six o’clock to-night and ask if he has received it.”
Tim gave his father the note that night, and something very serious happened to him. More than that, he had to work every Saturday for a long, long time in his father’s store to help pay the money his father insisted on sending to Miss Mason. Of course it was impossible to replace the book, for the autographs could never be collected again, but Mr. Roon was determined to pay Miss Mason the sum her friend had spent for the book. It was a great deal of money, but “the Roons always pay up,” declared Mr. Roon, “and if it takes Tim the rest of his lazy life, he’s got to work out the money.”
Soon every one but Tim forgot the book, for the Thanksgiving Day exercises were drawing nearer and nearer. The Blossoms always had wonderful times Thanksgivings, and this year, with Aunt Polly with them, they meant to have the best holiday yet.
Such boxes and barrels as came down from Brookside Farm, packed by Jud and his father, and reminding the four little Blossoms of the177good times they had had that summer. There were red apples and green apples, yellow pumpkins, potatoes, turnips and beautiful crisp celery, black walnuts and butternuts, wonderful for cake and candy and what Dot called “plain eating,” and, most wonderful of all, two great plump turkeys.
“Those are some you saw running around, Twaddles,” Aunt Polly told him as he helped her unpack the box. “Remember how they looked? You thought they were chickens.”
The morning before Thanksgiving Day fresh eggs and butter came by parcels post.
“If you’d only sent a tablecloth and a few forks, Polly,” laughed Mother Blossom, “I shouldn’t have had a thing to do about getting dinner.”
Meg and Bobby couldn’t think much about the dinner. Wasn’t this the day they were to recite?
“Wouldn’t it be too awful,” said Meg, at the breakfast table, “if when I got up on the platform I should forget every word?”
“But you won’t,” Mother Blossom assured her.178“You’ll remember every word. See if you don’t. You come home to lunch, don’t you, children, and get dressed?”
“Yes. And then we have to be back by half-past one,” said Bobby importantly. “The exercises begin at two. Where’s my bag of apples?”
The children of the Oak Hill school every year brought gifts of food to the Thanksgiving Day exercises which were afterward distributed among the poor families of the town. Bobby took apples this year and Meg was to take two jars of home-made preserves.
They hurried through the morning at school, rushed home and found a devoted family on hand to help them dress.
“There were such lots of things brought,” chattered Meg, as her mother buttoned her into the new white frock and Aunt Polly tied her hair-ribbon. “They liked your potatoes, Dot.”
“And my popcorn?” asked Twaddles anxiously.
The twins, not to be cheated out of the fun, had insisted on sending Thanksgiving gifts, too.
“Yes, they thought that was great,” said179Bobby, shining and neat in his new suit. “Hurry, Meg.”
“Come early and get good seats,” called Meg as they trotted off.
At exactly two o’clock the whole school marched into the assembly room and took the seats reserved for them. The first and second grades were seated on the platform, because experience had taught the teachers that some of the younger children invariably fell either up or down the platform steps if they had anything at all to do with them. On one side of the platform the school committee sat, headed by Rufus Hornbeck.
Bobby’s recitation followed the first song, and he and the five boys with him breathed a great sigh of relief when they were through and went back to their seats free to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.
Then came more songs and more recitations, and then finally it was Meg’s turn. She had discovered where her father and mother and Aunt Polly and the twins were sitting, and when she came out to speak she looked straight at them180and smiled. And the five verses were as straight and clear in her mind as though she were reciting them to Mother Blossom in the sitting room at home.
“What a dear little girl, and what a pretty dress!” said an old lady sitting back of the Blossoms, as Meg made her little bow at the end and the room broke into hearty applause.
Twaddles turned around to beam approvingly at the old lady.
“That’s my sister,” he informed her.
Rufus Hornbeck and two others of the committee had to make rather long, tiresome speeches, and when that was over the audience joined in singing “My Country, ’tis of thee,” and the exercises were over.
“Oh, look!” exclaimed Bobby, as they opened the school door and stepped out into the street.
It was almost dark, for the days were fast shortening, and a fine, light snow was falling softly. Already the ground and walks were white, and the fences were taking queer shapes.
“Snow!” chorused the four little Blossoms in181ecstasy. “Let’s ask Sam to mend the sleds to-night.”
The snow fell all that night and all the next day and people said it was an old-fashioned white Thanksgiving. An old-fashioned white winter it proved to be, too, and if you want to hear what fun the four little Blossoms had playing in the white snow, you will have to read the next book about them, called “Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun.”
“If we only had new sleds,” sighed Bobby. The sleds they had were somewhat old and broken.
“We might get new ones,” said Meg hopefully.
“I’m going to learn to skate this winter,” remarked Twaddles.
“So am I,” added his twin.
And here, for a time, we will leave the four little Blossoms and say good-by.