CHAPTER V
OFF FOR CLOVERBANK
Nan Bobbsey and some of her girl chums, as well as Danny Rugg and the boys with whom Bert Bobbsey played, also wondered why Bert had to go to the principal’s office.
“Did Bert do anything?” whispered Grace Lavine, who sat behind Nan.
“I don’t know,” was the low-voiced reply. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see him.”
“Well, anyhow, he couldn’t have thrown any snowballs,” said Nellie Parks. “I mean like the time he once did and Danny said he broke the church window.”
“No,” agreed Nan, remembering the winter when she and her brother and the smaller twins “kept house,” with Mrs. Pry ill in bed.
“Was Bert fighting with any of the fellows?” inquired Charlie Mason of Danny, who sat near him. “Mr. Tarton doesn’t like fighting.”
“I know he doesn’t,” Danny answered. “But I don’t believe Bert was. It must be for something else.”
“Attend to your lessons now, children. Bert will be back soon,” said Miss Skell.
Nan gave a sigh of relief on hearing this. It could not be so very serious, then.
As for Bert, his heart was beating rather faster than usual as he entered Mr. Tarton’s office, but the smile with which the head of the school greeted the pupil seemed to tell the boy that he was not brought down for anything serious.
“Good-morning, Bert!” said the principal. “I called you here to see if you have a top in your pocket—you know what I mean—a top that spins with a string wound around it. Have you such a top?”
“Why—er—yes—yes, sir,” stammered the boy. What in the world could Mr. Tarton want of a top? Could he have turned childish and have a desire to play with a top in his office, Bert wondered.
Then another thought came into the mind of the lad. Perhaps Mr. Tarton thought Bert had been playing with a top during class time. So the boy said:
“But I didn’t have it out in the room, Mr. Tarton! Really I didn’t! I was spinning it in front of the school, but I put it in my pocket when I came in and——”
“Yes, I know you did, Bert,” and again Mr. Tarton smiled. “I saw you spinning your top, and that’s why I sent for you. I want you to come and spin the top for me in front of the class in science.”
This was more and more puzzling.
The principal must have seen that Burt was puzzled and a bit worried, for he laughed a little and said:
“It’s all right, Bert. The science class is studying motion, and I want to illustrate to them the principle of the gyroscope. I have that kind of a top here, but I had no common top, and I remembered seeing you spin yours, and that it was a large red one, which can easily be seen when you spin it on the platform in front of the high-school class. You see I want to show the science boys and girls the difference between a gyroscope top and the common top.”
“And you want me to spin a top in school—for a lesson?” asked Bert in surprise.
“That’s it—yes,” answered the principal.“I think you know what a gyroscope top is, don’t you?” Bert did, having been given one for Christmas. Mr. Tarton quickly brought his queer top out and spun it.
A gyroscope top is a heavy, small wheel fitted inside a round ring of metal, and the ring has a sort of top peg on it. When the heavy wheel inside the metal ring is set spinning by means of a string wound about it and pulled off, the wheel goes so fast that it will hold up the metal ring in any position. Thus the gyroscope top will spin upside down, lying on its side and in many other positions.
“But your top will spin in one way only, and that is standing straight up, Bert,” said the principal. “That’s what I want the boys and girls in the high-school class to understand. Of course I could tell them about it, but they will learn much more quickly if they see the two different tops spinning in front of them. So come with me now, if you please, and bring your top.”
Bert could hardly help smiling as he followed the principal to the high-school part of the building. It seemed so queer to be asked, as a favor, to spin a top in class. But the older boys and girls were as much in earnestas was Mr. Tarton. They wanted to learn this rule about spinning bodies, for the earth we live on, you know, spins about like a giant top. So the high-school lads and lassies did not laugh when Mr. Tarton wound up and spun the gyroscope nor when Bert set his red top to spinning. They asked many questions and seemed eager to learn. Bert himself was much interested.
“You are a good top-spinner,” said Mr. Tarton to him when the lesson was over. “You may go back to your class, and you may take the gyroscope top with you and tell Miss Skell I said you could spin it and show the smaller boys and girls how it works.”
So the mystery of why Bert was sent to the principal’s office was soon solved. Going back to his room, in a few words Bert told Miss Skell about it. He also delivered the message about the gyroscope, and soon the boys and girls were much interested in watching Bert spin it on Miss Skell’s desk.
“If she’d let us write a composition about that funny top I believe I could do a good one,” said Nellie Parks to Nan when the class was let out for the noon recess.
“But the prize composition must be about something that happens on our summer vacation,” answered Nan. “Oh, I do hope I win the prize!”
“I hope you do, too,” said Nellie generously. “There’s no use in me hoping for it. I never can write a decent composition. But I hope you win, Nan!”
“Thanks,” replied Bert’s sister.
On the way home Nan told her brother how worried she had been when he was sent to the principal’s office.
“I was worried myself, at first,” Bert admitted. “But I had to laugh when he asked me to spin the top.”
“I wish Mr. Tarton would send for me and ask me to turn somersaults in class!” laughed Freddie, when he heard his older brother and sister talking about what had happened. “I can do them fine—look!”
And on the grass at the edge of the sidewalk he flopped down and turned three somersaults one after the other.
“Good!” cried Bert.
“I can do that, too!” declared Flossie. “Want to see me?”
“No! No!” objected Nan. “You mustn’t!Not here on the street! You’re a girl and Freddie is a boy—that’s different!”
“Well, I can turn somersaults as good as he can!” declared Flossie.
But by this time they were nearly home, and as Flossie was eager to see what Dinah had for lunch she ran on ahead, forgetting about the somersaults.
Around the lunch table that noon Bert told about the spinning tops, and Nan spoke of Miss Skell’s offer of a prize for the best composition on the summer vacation happenings.
“Mother, do you think anything will happen when we get to Cloverbank?” asked the little girl eagerly.
“Many things may happen,” was the answer. “I hope they will all be happy happenings, though; for you can just as well write about them as about sad ones, I should think.”
“Oh, yes!” agreed Nan. “I want them to be happy and funny.”
The end of the school term was coming. By Thursday the last examinations would be over and then would come the closing session.
It was all settled about the Bobbsey twins going to Cloverbank. Mr. Bobbsey had written to Mr. Watson, thanking him, his wife, and also “Baby May,” for the kind invitation to come to spend the summer on the big country place.
“We will drive to Hitchville in the automobile,” Mr. Bobbsey said, in talking over the plans. “Cloverbank is the name of Mr. Watson’s farm, and it is just outside Hitchville.”
“Will Dinah and Sam come with us?” asked Flossie, for she loved the dear old colored couple who had so long looked after the children.
“No, Sam and Dinah are going to have a vacation, too,” Mrs. Bobbsey answered.
“Are we going to take Snoop and Snap?” asked Freddie, as he looked at the dog and the cat who were playing together out in the yard. The two were great friends.
“I fancy there will be many animals on Mr. Watson’s farm, so there will be no need to take Snap and Snoop,” Mrs. Bobbsey replied. “We will send our dog and cat away to be boarded for the summer as we have done before.”
“Well, I’m going to take my fishing pole, anyhow,” declared Bert.
“And I’m going to take my toy fire engine,” declared Freddie. “The farmhouse might catch fire and I could put it out.”
“Don’t take too many toys,” warned his mother. “Your engine is all right, and Flossie may take one of her dolls. But we haven’t room for all your things.”
It was not easy for the two smaller twins to leave their many playthings behind, and Flossie could hardly decide which of her many dolls she wanted with her. But at last the choices were made, Bert and Nan took what they wanted (Nan’s choice was a book or two) and finally everything was packed ready to leave.
The last day of school came. Good-bye messages were exchanged and pupils and teachers separated to meet again in the fall, which now seemed a long way off.
“Don’t forget about the prize composition!” called Miss Skell to her pupils.
“We’ll remember!” promised Nan.
The Bobbsey twins could hardly wait for the hours to pass until they should be in the car and on the road to Hitchville. But atlast the house was closed. Snap and Snoop had been sent away, not without many farewells on the part of Flossie and Freddie. Sam and Dinah had departed to visit relatives. Then away from Lakeport rolled the Bobbsey family.
“I hope a lot of things happen before we get back,” remarked Nan to her mother. “I want them to put in my composition.”
It was a pleasant day for the start of the trip. Mr. Bobbsey expected to reach Hitchville early in the evening.
Most of the morning had passed and they had covered nearly a hundred miles of the journey when came a question which was always asked, sooner or later, on all the trips the Bobbseys took.
“When do we eat?” demanded Freddie, about eleven o’clock.
“Why, you aren’t hungry now, are you?” inquired his mother.
“Sure I am,” he said. “I can eat a lot. And I wish I had a drink of milk.”
“We didn’t bring any milk along,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “I was afraid it would sour, the weather is so warm.”
“I fancy we can get some milk to drinkwith our lunch at that farmhouse,” said Mr. Bobbsey, pointing to one a short distance ahead. “I see cows in the field back of it, and they must sell milk. We’ll stop and inquire.”
A basket of Dinah’s best lunch had been put up to eat on the trip, and milk would make a welcome addition to it, Mrs. Bobbsey thought. Her husband was right in his guess about the farmhouse. When the auto stopped there the lady said they would be glad to sell as much milk as the children could drink.
“Bring your lunch in and eat it under the trees in the yard,” she invited. “It’s cool and shady there. I’ll bring the milk up from the cellar.”
“It will be nice to get out of the car for a change,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, and soon there was a jolly little picnic party under the trees in front of the old-fashioned farmhouse.
The children would have been pleased to stay there most of the afternoon, to look about the place, but when lunch was over and each of the twins had had two glasses of milk, Mr. Bobbsey suggested that they had better travel on, as he did not want to arrive in Hitchville after dark.
Back into the car they climbed, and with many thanks to the good-natured farm lady, once more they were on their way. Flossie and Freddie were quieter now, as they always were after lunch, and even Bert and Nan did not talk as much as they had during the first part of the trip.
But soon the quiet of the journey was broken by Mrs. Bobbsey, who gave a little jump. Their mother was sitting in the rear with Flossie and Freddie. She exclaimed:
“There’s something in this car!”
“Why, of course there is!” laughed her husband. “The whole Bobbsey family is in it!”
“No, I mean something else—something extra! Some kind of an animal!” insisted his wife. “I can feel it moving around my feet! Listen! What is it? Stop the car, Dick! There is some animal in it!”