So he was allowed to take the car, and he went early in order to have time for play before the nine o'clock bell. Meg hung on behind him and the twins watched them out of sight enviously.

There was nothing in the world the twins desired so ardently as to go to school. They had been promised that they might start in the kindergarten the next term and they were already looking forward to that time.

"I want to play a new way," Bobby was explaining to Meg as he pedaled furiously. "You'll see--I thought it up all myself last night."

A crowd of boys swept forward to greet Bobby when he entered the school yard. Most of them had seen his car before--it had been a birthday present in February--but to several it was new and all admired it and wished for one exactly like it.

"Can't have any fun with it here," said Tim Roon, rather contemptuously.

Tim was apt to speak of the dark side of everything, and he had very good luck in finding a dark side to draw attention to.

"Yes, I can," insisted Bobby. "You'll see."

He went through the school yard, down to the end where an old- fashioned picket fence shut off the playground from a vacant lot that later would be divided off into the school gardens, a plot for each grade.

"What you going to do?" asked Tim Roon curiously.

The other children looked mystified, including Meg. She, too, wondered what Bobby could be planning to do.

"You'll see." Bobby repeated his favorite phrase.

From his blouse he drew a hammer, borrowed from the tool bench in the Blossom garage, and, awkwardly, for he was not used to the work, inserted it under the end of a picket. There was a ripping, grating noise, and the picket parted from the cross-piece.

"Bobby Blossom!" cried Meg. "What in the world are you going to do?"

CHAPTER III

HOW THE PLAN WORKED

"You'll see," said Bobby with maddening persistency.

While the children watched, he ripped off four more pickets. The cross pieces of the fence were old and rotten and when he put his foot on the lower brace and bore down heavily, it obligingly snapped in two.

"I'm going to ride right through that hole!" Bobby condescended to explain at last. "Daddy drove our car right in between three trees, and I'll bet I can steer through a narrow place, too. You watch."

Breathless the boys and girls stood back while Bobby pushed his automobile to a point he considered a proper distance from the opening in the fence. He took his seat, put his foot on the pedals, and tooted the horn.

"Here I go!" he cried, making his feet fly.

The car shot forward and, much to the surprise of every one except Bobby, went through the hole in the pickets safely and on out into the muddy lot.

"Pretty good steering," said Palmer Davis generously.

"Let me try," begged Meg. "I can steer, Bobby."

Meg always did everything Bobby did, and it never entered his head to refuse her. So she took the automobile, and, holding the wheel tightly, pedaled through the hole, though more slowly than Bobby had done. Palmer Davis was wild to try his skill, but Meg insisted on two rides and when she had finished the second one the warning bell rang.

"You can have it the first thing recess," promised Bobby to the disappointed Palmer, who felt better then and helped Bobby put the fascinating toy under the stairs in the back hall.

As soon as the recess bell sounded, Palmer and Bobby dashed down and out into the yard. Meg, who was a grade below them but in the same room, stayed behind to clean her desk, a favorite occupation with the little girls. Miss Mason, the teacher, was watering a shelf of plants, and the windows were all open to the lovely April sunshine. Meg hummed a little, she was so happy.

"Ow! Ow!" suddenly the most heart-breaking howl rose from the school yard, the cry of some one in great pain or sadly frightened.

"Some one is hurt!" cried Miss Mason, hurrying to the window that faced the playground.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" louder and louder the shrieks rose.

"Can't be killed and make a noise like that," said Miss Mason practically. "Can you tell who it is, Meg?"

Meg pushed aside one of the girls who stood in her way. She gave a glance from the window. She saw a crowd of boys surrounding the crying one and more boys hurrying from every part of the yard. The group parted for a moment and Meg glimpsed a bit of gleaming red tin. It was Bobby's automobile.

"It's Palmer!" Meg guessed instantly, "He must have hit the fence!"

She turned and ran from the room, leaving Miss Mason to reason out, if she could, what connection Palmer's howling had with hitting the fence.

Meg slid down the banisters, as the quickest way to reach the door, and was just in time to see Mr. Carter, the princ.i.p.al, run from his office out into the yard. Mr. Carter was really princ.i.p.al of the grammar school, where he spent most of his time, leaving the primary grades under the control of Miss Wright, the vice- princ.i.p.al. But he spent a certain number of days each month in the primary school office and the pupils soon discovered that he knew quite as well as Miss Wright what was going on in the lower grades.

"Oh, my!" gasped Meg as she sped after Mr. Carter. "I didn't know he was going to be here to-day. I wonder if Palmer is hurt much?"

Whether Palmer was badly hurt or not, he was certainly making a great noise. He continued to scream, "at the top of his lungs,"

Norah would have said.

"Ow! Ow!" wailed Palmer. "Ow-wow!"

"Here, here, boy, nothing can be as bad as that sounds," said Mr.

Carter, pushing his way in among the children and stooping down to Palmer, who was huddled in a heap on the ground, his feet and the tin automobile apparently inextricably mixed. "Stand up, Palmer, and let me see where you are hurt."

Palmer struggled to his feet, and Meg could see that he had a b.u.mp over one eye. The sleeve of his jacket was torn and his lip was bleeding slightly.

"Why, you're not so badly off," Mr. Carter comforted him, taking his own handkerchief and wiping off the streaks left by tears and dirt on Palmer's round face. "No bones broken, laddie, and Miss Wright will fix that lip with a little court-plaster. She knows first-aid. What in the world were you doing down at this end of the yard?"

There was a sudden silence. Meg, on the outside of the crowd, experienced a distinctly uncomfortable feeling.

"Were you coasting, Palmer?" asked Mr. Carter, righting the automobile as he spoke. Then he saw the fence.

"Who ripped off those pickets?" he demanded sternly.

"I--I did," admitted Bobby in a very small voice.

The clang of the gong sounded and Mr. Carter turned to the listening children.

"Go back to your cla.s.ses," he directed them. "You stay, Bobby and Palmer. I want to speak to you."

Obediently the others filed in, not without many a backward glance at the group by the fence.