"What in the world has kept you here ever since yesterday?" Johnnie asked.
Spot must have understood. Anyhow, he dashed to one side of the road. And, following him, Johnnie found there a robe that belonged to his father. It had dropped out of the carryall the evening before, when the Green family were on their way home from seeing the circus. Nobody in the carriage had missed it. But old Spot, running under the carriage, had seen it fall. And he had stayed behind to guard it all through the long night.
Of course Spot couldn't tell Johnnie Green all this. But Johnnie wasn't slow in guessing what had happened.
He picked up the robe and put it under the seat of the little buggy. Then he and Spot both jumped in. And Johnnie turned Twinkleheels' head toward home.
Back at the farm almost everybody said that old dog Spot was a hero. Farmer Green exclaimed that Spot was a faithful old fellow. And Mrs. Green set out such a meal for him as Spot had never seen before in all his life.
Now, there were two or three of Spot's neighbors in the farmyard that didn't like the praise he was getting. Turkey Proudfoot, the gobbler, remarked that if people didn't know enough to come home to roost at night he saw no reason for making a fuss about it. Miss Kitty Cat declared that so far as she was concerned she would have been just as well pleased if Spot hadn't come back to the farm at all. And Henrietta Hen had more to say than anyone else. She hurried up to old dog Spot himself and insisted on talking with him.
"Huh!" she exclaimed. "You only spent one day at the circus, while last fall I stayed a whole week at the county fair."
"Did you hear a band at the fair?" Spot asked her.
"Yes!"
"Did you see any races?"