was a marshy piece of land that was full of springs which fed and kept puddles of mud moist through the dryest season. To-day, although everywhere else the dust was fine and white, the path along the spring lot was oozy and soft.

"Who's coming?" said Meg, looking up the road suddenly. "Look, Bobby, isn't that Tim Roon?"

Bobby glanced up from his favorite occupation of cracking stones.

"Yes, it is," he replied. "Wonder where he's going?"

His hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his head, Tim Roon came toward them, whistling loudly. When he was near enough to see the two children, he stopped.

"h.e.l.lo, smarties!" was his greeting. "How's teacher's pet?"

"I'm not teacher's pet," retorted Bobby indignantly.

"n.o.body said you were," answered Tim Roon. "Can't a person speak to your sister, without you taking it all on yourself?"

Bobby flushed angrily.

"You needn't speak to my sister unless you can talk right," he said rapidly. "Come on, Meg, call Philip, and we'll go."

The dog was hunting in the marsh and came bounding out at Meg's first call.

"Just a mutt." Tim Roon summed up poor Philip disagreeably. "You ought to see the dog my father's got. What's your hurry, anyway? You can't go till I'm ready to let you."

He stood directly in the path, on the only dry spot. If Meg or Bobby tried to go around him, they must step into thick, black mud.

"Teacher's pet!" mocked Tim Roon, pointing a dirty forefinger at Meg.

"She didn't know she had to tell she whispered! But I notice you could laugh at Charlie Black when he sat on the candy."

Meg did not see what that had to do with her whispering, and perhaps Tim Roon couldn't have told either. He was merely doing his best to be unkind and unpleasant, and succeeding as well as such ill-natured folk usually do.

"You get out of the way, Tim Roon!" cried Bobby. "Go ahead, Meg, I'll punch him if he touches you."

Tim was older and larger than Bobby, but the latter had no intention of allowing him to annoy his sister.

Meg tried to push her way past the short, st.u.r.dy body of Tim, who blocked her path. A quick twist of a vicious, sharp, little elbow jostled her into the mud, and she stepped in over one of her low shoes.

"You will, will you," snarled Bobby, angrier than he had ever been in his life. "You just wait--knocking a girl like that!"

Tim squared off, as he had seen fighters in pictures do, and Bobby lowered his head for a rush. But Philip, who had been an interested spectator, decided that the time had come for him to be of use. With a sharp bark, he lunged straight for Tim's legs, his sharp, even teeth showing on either side of his red tongue. Tim saw him coming, jumped to avoid him, lost his footing, and slipped. He fell into the thickest part of the mud, his foot doubled under him.

"Run, Meg!" shouted Bobby, who wisely decided that it was the better part of valor to take advantage of Tim's plight. "Come, Philip, run!

run!"

Pell-mell, the stones clattering in the bag Bobby still clutched, Philip racing ahead and barking like a mad dog, the two children ran down the road and did not stop till they reached the broad band of cement walk where the east boundaries of Oak Hill were drawn.

Then they stopped and looked back, Philip panting and growling a little as if he only wanted a word to go back and repeat his good work.

CHAPTER VII

A HARD LESSON

"My, I'll bet he's mad!" said Bobby. Tim was standing in the mud, trying to sc.r.a.pe some of it off his clothes. His cap was gone and great patches of mud clung to his face and hair. He was a distressed looking object indeed. While they watched, he glanced up and saw them standing there. He shook a fist at Bobby, and began to limp slowly off down the road.

"Do you suppose he is hurt?" asked Meg anxiously. "Maybe he ought to go to see Doctor Maynard."

"He isn't hurt," Bobby a.s.sured her confidently. "That mud is as soft as--as anything! Wasn't Philip fine to think of scaring him like that?"

Indeed, Philip had an extra good supper that night, after Bobby and Meg had told Mother and Norah all about the help he had given them, and the twins, when they came in from their drive, were filled with admiration for such an intelligent dog.

"My practicing's all done," announced Meg happily. "I don't mind it so much now, 'cause I want to be ready to play a.s.sembly marches when I'm in the third grade."

"If you want to see how rabbit pens ought to look," Bobby told Twaddles confidentially, "just go out and see those I fixed this afternoon."

"Huh," sniffed Twaddles with withering indifference, "I guess the rabbits don't know they're any better off!"

The first week of school went very smoothly, and both Bobby and Meg began to look forward to their reports at the end of the month. These reports were immensely important, according to Bobby, who was, of course, experienced in such matters.

"If Bert Figger gets eight in spelling, his father's going to give him fifty cents," Bobby told Meg.

"You'll get nine in 'rithmetic, I know you will," said Meg admiringly.

"You're awfully good in that, Bobby."

"Yes, I think I am," agreed Bobby. "I haven't missed one so far. Every answer I've worked out has been right."

He repeated this a.s.sertion at the supper table that night, and Father Blossom shook his head.

"Don't be too sure of that nine," he said warningly. "The work is going to get harder the further you go, you know. Trying for a nine is all right, but I don't like to hear you speak as though you didn't have to make any effort to reach it."

The next morning in school Miss Mason had something interesting to show her first grade pupils. It was a very beautifully ill.u.s.trated book of verses for children. The poems were written by famous poets, and each poet had signed his name to his own verse. The pictures were in colors and had been painted by well-known artists, who had signed their work with a pen after the pictures had been printed. So it was really a picture book, a poem book, and an autograph alb.u.m all in one.

"There are only three like it in the world," explained Miss Mason.

"They were raffled off at a fair for a children's hospital, and a friend of mine, one of the artists, won a copy. She sent it to me."

Miss Mason said the second grade might examine the book at recess or at noon, because they had been busy with their writing lesson while she was showing it to the younger children. Then, while the first grade was set to work to make a page of "S's," Miss Mason called the second grade to order for their arithmetic lesson.

"You will not need pencils and paper this morning," she announced. "We are going to have a little mental arithmetic."

Charlie Black groaned.

"That will do," said the teacher sharply. "Tim Roon, are you chewing gum again? Come and put it in the waste basket."

Tim gulped hastily.

"I've swallowed it," he declared.