First and foremost I must beg Mr. Gorrisen's pardon, Mother said. It seemed to me I could ask the whole world's pardon if only Mother's eyes wouldn't look so sorrowful. I wanted very much to go right down to Mr. Gorrisen's lodgings; but Mother said she thought it was only right that I should beg his pardon at school, so that all the class should hear. It was embarrassing, frightfully embarrassing, to ask Mr. Gorrisen's pardon—but I did it notwithstanding. I said, "Please excuse me for singing out in class."
"H'm, h'm," said Mr. Gorrisen. "Well, go back now and take your seat."
Since then I have sat like a lamp-post in his classes—yes, I really have. Many a time I should have liked to have some fun—but then I would think of Mother's sorrowful eyes and so I have held myself in and kept from any more skylarking.
CHAPTER XVIII
WHEN THE CIRCUS CAME
I was going to school one day, but was pretty late in getting started. The trouble was that our yellow hen, Valpurga, had been sick, and since, of course, I couldn't trust any one else to attend to her, I had made myself late.
When hens begin to mope, keeping still under a bush, drawing their heads way down into their feathers, and just rolling their eyes about, that's enough;—it is anything but pleasant when it is a hen you are fond of. That's the way Valpurga was behaving. I gave her butter and pepper, for that is good for hens.
But it wasn't about Valpurga I wanted to tell. It was about the circus-riders being here.