Tim met Bobby half way, and they grappled. The other boys closed in around them.

“Pound him good, Bobby!” advised Palmer excitedly. “The sneak! Kicking a player like that!”

“Sit on his head,” squeaked Bertrand in a funny little voice excitement always gave him. “Sit on his head, the big coward!”

Bobby did not even hear these. He was hitting wherever he could, and grunting like a small pig as Tim rained blows upon him. Tim was so much older and stronger that all the advantage was on his side. Charlie Black was hovering around the outside of the circle, not daring to say anything for Tim, but hoping his chum would win.

“Hornbeck!” suddenly cried Charlie in wild alarm. “Hey, fellows, here comes old Hornbeck. If he catches us ”

Charlie never finished his sentence, but took to his heels, followed by the rest of the boys. Only Tim and Bobby, rolling over and over on the ground, had not heard the warning.

“Quit this this instant, I tell you!” roared a hard voice, and some one grasped Bobby by his collar, jerking him to his feet. “Fighting like two wildcats! What do you mean by such performances on the school grounds?”

It was Mr. Hornbeck, and he had Bobby in one hand and Tim in the other, and as he spoke he shook each boy violently.

“What do you call it you’re doing?” he roared again.

Tim ran out an impudent tongue, but said nothing. The committeeman’s eyes under his high silk hat glared at Bobby.

“We were just playing football,” stammered Bobby hastily.

“Football!” cried Mr. Hornbeck, giving each of them a tremendous shake. “Football! You young imps! Don’t tell me you don’t know of the rule that primary-grade boys are to stay off the field during football practice. If I ever catch you around here again I’ll have you up before Mr. Carter. He’ll teach you to remember.”

Still retaining his grip on their collars, Mr. Hornbeck marched them across the lot to the street.

“Now scoot,” he ordered.

They needed no second command. Tim fled up the street and Bobby ran down, each as fast as he could go.

“My stars and stripes!” ejaculated Sam Layton, meeting Bobby as the boy came running in the driveway, “is that what they do to you at school? Learning must be rather hard work.”

No wonder Sam was surprised. Bobby’s coat was torn, his blouse grimed with mud. A great bruise was on one cheek, and his cap was crushed and dirty. His hands and face looked as though he had been rolling in the mud, which, as we know, he had.

“I had a fight,” explained Bobby coolly. “I guess I do look a little dirty.”

“Come on out to the garage and I’ll brush you off. No sense in scaring your mother stiff,” said Sam. “Who won the fight?”

“I guess old Hornbeck did,” answered Bobby thoughtfully, rubbing a finger that was sore from handling the ball. “Anyway, he had a lot to say about it.” And then he gave Sam a few particulars as he cleaned himself.

A few days later Meg and Bobby were going home from school when Meg suddenly remembered that she had forgotten her books.

“Well, I suppose we can go back and get ’em,” grumbled Bobby, “but why won’t to-morrow do? What do you want them for to-night?”

“I told you,” said Meg patiently. “Mother is going to cover them with calico, the way she had her books when she was little. Some of the covers are so torn I hate to have to use them.”

“All right,” sighed Bobby. “We’ll go back. I think girls have the worst memories!”

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 passed 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.

“Hello!” 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.”