"Everybody's so mean," he scolded, going off in a corner by himself to eat his lunch at noon. "I never saw such a lot of horrid folks."

To add to his unhappiness, Norah had forgotten that he didn't like tuna fish sandwiches and had given him all that kind. Bobby knew that very likely she had packed egg or some other good mixture in Meg's box and that by merely asking he could trade with his sister. But no, it suited him to feel that Norah had deliberately spoiled his lunch for him.

"Robert, you haven't been out of the room this morning," cried Miss Mason, swooping down on him. "Go out and get some fresh air and see if you can't be pleasanter this afternoon. What you need is to play in the snow."

Bobby dashed downstairs and out into the yard, wishing violently that he could punch some one. He even rolled several s...o...b..a.l.l.s in the hope that some of his friends would come along and offer themselves as targets. Then a mischievous idea popped into his mind.

"I'll fill up Miss Mason's desk," he chuckled. "She needs to play in the snow, too."

This very bad boy proceeded to fill his arms with s...o...b..a.l.l.s and stole up the back stairway, where he would be less likely to meet any one, into his cla.s.sroom. The room was empty, and Bobby arranged his s...o...b..a.l.l.s neatly in Miss Mason's desk, which happened to be an old-fashioned affair with a hinged lid.

"She can play with it," murmured Bobby, closing the lid softly and running downstairs again so that he might come in with the others when the bell rang.

It had stopped snowing, and the sun was shining warm and bright, dazzling to the eyes. Bobby felt better already, for some mysterious reason, and he plunged into a hilarious game of tag that lasted until the signal rang.

When he went into his cla.s.sroom he glanced quickly at Miss Mason's desk. It looked as usual, and when the reading lesson was given out, he quickly forgot the hidden s...o...b..a.l.l.s. Palmer Davis was standing up to read a paragraph when the cla.s.s first heard something.

"Drip! drip! drip!" went a soft little tapping noise.

Miss Mason heard it, too. She thought the pipes in the cloak room had sprung a leak perhaps.

"Teacher!" Tim Roon's hand waved wildly. "Teacher, your desk's leaking!"

Tim, for once, did not have a guilty conscience in connection with a piece of mischief, and he was delighted to have an opportunity to call attention to the fact.

"It's leaking all over!" he volunteered.

"That will do, Tim," said Miss Mason calmly.

She raised her desk lid and peered in. Then she closed it and surveyed her cla.s.s. Bobby could feel his face getting red. He looked down at his book.

"Robert Blossom," said Miss Mason, "come here to me."

Bobby went up the aisle which seemed at least two miles long. Miss Mason did not ask him if he had put the snow in her desk. She merely raised the lid again and pointed to the half melted s...o...b..a.l.l.s.

"Take those out," she commanded coldly. "Throw them out of the window.

Then get a cloth and dry the inside of this desk and mop up the floor.

And you may stay an hour after school to-night."

Bobby had to make a separate trip for each mushy s...o...b..ll, the eyes of the cla.s.s following him from the desk to the window and back again with maddening interest. When he came back from a trip to the cellar to get a cloth from the janitor, for Miss Mason refused to help him, and began to dry the inside of the desk, they snickered audibly; but when he got down on his hands and knees and mopped the floor under the desk, they seemed to think it was the biggest kind of joke. They did not dare laugh aloud, but Bobby could feel them smiling and nudging one another.

"Next time, I hope, you will leave the snow outside where it belongs,"

said Miss Mason, when he had stayed his hour after school that night and she dismissed him.

"Yes'm," murmured Bobby meekly.

"My, it's been the worst day," he confided to Father Blossom that evening. "Nothing went right. I had the meanest time!"

CHAPTER XII

BUILDING A SNOW MAN

The rehearsals for the play went on merrily, and the children were faithful in attendance. Meg, though, was an hour late getting home from school one afternoon, and as Bobby could not practice without her, he was very much put out.

"Where have you been?" he demanded. "Everybody's been waiting for you.

Miss Mason didn't keep you in, did she?"

Meg looked uncomfortable.

"No, I didn't have to stay in," she admitted.

"Then where were you?" insisted Bobby.

"I was hunting for my locket," confessed Meg. "I heard Daddy say the snow melted a lot last night, and I thought maybe I could find it. But I didn't." She sighed deeply.

Meg still clung to the hope of finding her locket, though the rest of the family had long ago given up the idea that it would ever be found.

A day or two later when the children came into the school yard they were surprised to find a small army of snow soldiers drawn up to receive them. There were six men in a row, headed by a captain, wearing a rakish snow hat and carrying a fine wooden sword.

"Who did it?" asked every one. "Did Mr. Carter make 'em?"

Miss Wright was ready to tell them.

"Some poor tramp who was once a sculptor made them for you," she told the wondering pupils. "John, the janitor, tells me that he was here all last night keeping the fires going because he was afraid the pipes would freeze. This poor artist saw the light, and knocked at the door to ask if he might come in and get warm. I'm glad to say John asked him in and shared his midnight lunch with him. Then he took him home to breakfast with him. But first the artist made these snow men to please you, and perhaps to see if his old skill still was left to him."

"Let us make a snow man in our back yard," proposed Bobby to Meg on the way home from school that afternoon. "Dot and Twaddles tried it, but there wasn't enough snow then. We can make a good one."

They found the twins ready to help them, and in a very short time they had rolled a huge s...o...b..ll that was p.r.o.nounced just the thing for Mr.

Snowman's body.

"We can't make long thin legs like the soldiers," said Bobby regretfully. "I wonder how the man made 'em like that. We'll have to have short roundish legs for ours."

The short "roundish" legs finished, they had still to make the head.

This was done by rolling a smaller s...o...b..ll and mounting it on the large round one.

"Now he needs a face," said Dot, gazing with admiration on their work.

"How'll you make his eyes and nose, Bobby?"

"With coal," said Bobby. "Meg, will you go and get some lumps of coal?

And ask Mother if there is an old hat we can have. He ought to have a hat."

Meg ran info the house, and was back again in a few seconds, carrying a handful of coal done up in a bit of newspaper.

"Mother's hunting up an old derby hat," she reported. "She'll throw it to us. Oh, Bobby, doesn't he look funny?"