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 pa.s.sed on to their own room.

"Doesn't it seem funny without anybody here?" 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.

"h.e.l.lo!" 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 sill with 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.

"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.

"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!" said 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."

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.