CHAPTER IIIFOUR GRATEFUL CHILDREN
JUST as the pumpkin burst, two things happened; Mr. Carter stepped inside the door and the gong rang to announce the end of recess.
Tim Roon shot for the door and the children followed. Tim was eager to escape the principal and the others did not want to be late in returning to their classrooms. But Mr. Carter stood in the doorway and did not move to let them pass.
“What was that noise I heard just now?” he asked. “It sounded like an explosion.”
No one answered and Mr. Carter turned to Miss Wright who had come downstairs to see why so many pupils were absent from their rooms.
“Say to the teachers, please,” he said, “that Iam detaining the children; they will come up presently.”
“Oh, dear!” whispered Meg to Bobby, “now he’s going to scold.”
The principal heard her and he smiled a little.
“Not scold, Meg, unless someone deserves it,” he said pleasantly. “What was that noise I heard?”
“The pumpkin blew up,” replied Meg uncomfortably.
“The pumpkin blew up!” repeated Mr. Carter in astonishment. “Whose pumpkin? What made it blow up?”
Meg was silent.
“Bobby,” said Mr. Carter, “was it your pumpkin?”
“No, sir,” answered Bobby.
“Please, Mr. Carter,” said Edward bravely. “It was my pumpkin. I brought it for the poor people. But it was only a hollow one.”
“Well, why did you want to blow it up?” asked Mr. Carter, puzzled. “And what did you do to it to make it blow up, Edward?”
“I didn’t do anything to it,” protested Edward.
“I want to know and I want to know at once, what caused that pumpkin to explode,” said the principal sternly and Tim Roon wished suddenly that he had had nothing to do with it. “Edward!”
“Yes, sir?” poor Edward replied faintly.
“What made your pumpkin explode?” asked Mr. Carter.
“A candle,” said Edward, who really believed that Tim Roon had put a candle in his pumpkin. “They said a hollow pumpkin had to have a candle in it.”
“Nonsense,” declared Mr. Carter. “No candle ever exploded. Who put the candle in your pumpkin?”
Bobby thought “telling tales” under any circumstances, the most dreadful thing anyone could do. He did hope that Edward would not give Tim away. Tim had the same hope, but he did not trust the fat boy. Instead, he leaned against him and pinched him.
“You know what will happen to you, if you tell,” he whispered warningly.
“Ouch!” cried Edward, but the principal’s sharp eyes had seen Tim.
“So you’re the culprit, Tim,” he said severely. “I might have known. What did you put in the pumpkin? Tell me the truth.”
“A firecracker,” replied Tim sullenly.
“Did you light it?” persisted Mr. Carter.
Tim nodded. He knew what was coming.
“Very well,” said the principal. “I will wait for you, Tim, while you put the scattered apples back as you found them and carry out the pieces of pumpkin. Then you and I will go up to the office and have a little talk. I think your father will be surprised to hear that you are carrying matches in your pocket. You may go back to your rooms, children, and please go quietly.”
It was all very well to tell then to go quietly, but such a buzzing of tongues as sounded in the halls and corridors as the boys and girls went upstairs! They talked about how frightened they had been when the pumpkin explodedand they talked about what might happen to Tim and they wondered what made him think of lighting a firecracker and how Mr. Carter had happened to come just in time to hear the noise of the explosion.
“I think it was a silly thing to do,” said Bobby indignantly. “Meg was so close to that pumpkin her hair would have been burned if I hadn’t pulled her back. And now Edward hasn’t even a jack-o-lantern to give the poor people.”
School closed at one o’clock that day because the next day was Thanksgiving, and of course as soon as Meg and Bobby reached home the twins demanded to know about the thank-offerings. Twaddles was delighted to hear about his bottle of cologne and he said that he was sure it would look nice on the Bureau. As Meg observed, there was no use in trying to explain that again to him, so she didn’t try.
When they told of the pumpkin Edward Kurler had brought and of the trouble Tim Roon had made for himself, Twaddles listened breathlessly, but Dot turned up her small nose.
“Huh!” she said scornfully. “I think Edwardis a very queer boy. Nobody could eat a hollow pumpkin, could they, Norah?”
“Not a very hollow one,” admitted Norah, “but neither can I make tarts from a hollow bowl, Dot. If you don’t stop ‘tasting’ pretty soon, we’ll have no tarts for tomorrow.”
The four little Blossoms were in the kitchen, helping Norah who was very busy getting ready for the Thanksgiving Day dinner. Bobby and Meg had found the twins hovering around the kitchen table when they came home from school and they had had their lunch in the kitchen, for Mother Blossom was in the city for the day and Father Blossom seldom came home to lunch.
“And now we’ll help you,” said Meg, as soon as they had finished lunch. So Norah had four helpers for the rest of the afternoon.
“I’d as lief have four whistling winds to help me rake leaves,” said Sam, coming in for a drink of water and finding Norah surrounded by willing hands and exceedingly willing little mouths. “But then, ’pears to me you are managing to turn out some work, Norah,” and Sam helped himself to a couple of sugar cookies froma golden-brown pile left to cool on a clean cloth.
“You’re as bad as the children,” sighed Norah, but she gave Sam two more cookies before she told him to “be off.”
“Sam says he’s thankful it hasn’t snowed yet,” reported Meg at the dinner table that night. “He says he wants to finish painting the garage roof before it snows.”
“What are you thankful for, Meg?” asked Father Blossom suddenly.
“Tarts!” cried Dot, before Meg could answer, managing to tip her glass of milk into her lap.
“Dot, you must learn to be more careful,” said Mother Blossom. “I suppose I ought to be thankful it wasn’t cocoa you upset. And you answered when Daddy was speaking to Meg.”
“I can’t think in a hurry,” apologized Meg, while Dot was being mopped up with a clean napkin. “Could you wait a minute, Daddy?”
“I’ll ask you again tomorrow morning,” said Father Blossom. “I’ll expect each one of you to be able to tell me then why you are thankful. Think it over carefully and then you’ll be ready.”
“Why am I thankful?” said Meg to herself,over and over that evening till bedtime came. “Why am I thankful, I wonder?”
“Oh, Daddy!” Bobby called down over the banisters, after he was supposed to be in bed. “Daddy! Is it just the same to think why you are thankful and what you are thankful for?”
“Just about the same,” answered Father Blossom. “If you think about what you are thankfulforyou’ll soon knowwhyyou are thankful. Do you understand?”
“I—I guess so,” said Bobby doubtfully and he went back to bed.
In the morning the four little Blossoms found a chocolate turkey at each plate and Mother Blossom explained that they were a present from Daddy.
“Well, who can tell me for what they’re thankful?” asked Father Blossom, as Norah brought in the oatmeal.
“I know, Daddy!” cried Twaddles. “I’m thankful I found Bobby’s knife.”
“You found my knife?” said Bobby, frowning. “You found my knife? Why, my knifeisn’t lost—I left in the top drawer of my desk in my room.”
“Yes, I know you did,” admitted Twaddles, “and I borrowed it to whittle a new mast for my boat and I couldn’t remember where I left it. But Norah found it on the back stoop,” concluded Twaddles cheerfully.
“If you don’t leave my things alone!” began Bobby wrathfully. “I’ll—I’ll——”
“Now we won’t have any quarrels Thanksgiving morning,” said Father Blossom quietly. “Bobby, suppose you tell me what you are thankful for.”
“For turkey,” said Bobby promptly, forgetting to be angry at Twaddles as he remembered the plump bird he had seen hanging in the “cold room” where Norah kept her food supplies and the refrigerator.
“I’m thankful for the maple sugar Aunt Polly sent us,” cried Dot. “You said we could have a piece after breakfast, Mother.”
“Meg?” asked Father Blossom. “What are you thinking of, dear?”
Meg raised her blue eyes and smiled sunnily.
“I’m thankful Mr. and Mrs. Harley and Dick and Herbert found each other,” she said simply.
Meg, you see, remembered the Harleys who had once lived on Apple Tree Island and the trouble and sorrow they had known when the family was separated.
“I think we’re all thankful for the Harleys,” said Mother Blossom, “and I’m thankful for my whole Blossom family this morning!”
Thanksgiving dinner was to be at one o’clock and little Miss Florence, the dressmaker, was coming, and Mrs. Jordan and her lame son Paul, for whom the four little Blossoms had once given a fair.
“If we can’t have Aunt Polly, or any of the dear farm folk, at least we can make a happy day for someone else,” Mother Blossom had said, when she sent Bobby to invite Miss Florence and Mrs. Jordan.
“And after dinner, I’ll take everyone for a ride,” promised Father Blossom, “that is, if it doesn’t snow.”
So the four children spent their morning between the kitchen, where Norah and MotherBlossom were cooking the most delicious smelling things to eat, and the garage, where Father Blossom and Sam were going over the car to make sure that it would be in good order for the drive that afternoon.
“It’s my turn to sit up with you, isn’t it, Sam?” asked Dot eagerly. “You always take Meg, but it is my turn, really it is.”
“Your father is going to drive,” replied Sam to this. “I’m going to lend Norah a hand with all the dinner dishes. You can argue with him about riding on the front seat, Dot.”
Though Father Blossom had bought the car the spring before, the four little Blossoms still argued about whose turn it was to ride with the driver nearly every time they went for a ride. They had a system of “taking turns,” but this did not always prevent friction because sometimes the twins both squeezed into the front seat and then neither one was willing to admit that “counted.” As a rule, though, they settled the dispute amiably and without any suggestion from Sam or Father Blossom.
“Mother says we must come in and put on ourbest dresses, Dot,” said Meg, coming back to the garage from a trip to the kitchen. “The table is all set and it’s most time for the company to come.”
“All right, I’m coming,” Dot answered, brushing past Father Blossom who was washing his hands at the lavatory in one corner of the garage.
“Wait a minute, Dot,” he said, catching hold of her blouse. “What on earth have you in your pockets, child?”