"Robert Blossom," said Miss Mason, "come here to me."
Bobby went up the aisle which seemed at least two miles long. Miss Mason did not ask him if he had put the snow in her desk. She merely raised the lid again and pointed to the half melted snowballs.
"Take those out," she commanded coldly. "Throw them out of the window.
Then get a cloth and dry the inside of this desk and mop up the floor.
And you may stay an hour after school to-night."
Bobby had to make a separate trip for each mushy snowball, the eyes of the class following him from the desk to the window and back again with maddening interest. When he came back from a trip to the cellar to get a cloth from the janitor, for Miss Mason refused to help him, and began to dry the inside of the desk, they snickered audibly; but when he got down on his hands and knees and mopped the floor under the desk, they seemed to think it was the biggest kind of joke. They did not dare laugh aloud, but Bobby could feel them smiling and nudging one another.
"Next time, I hope, you will leave the snow outside where it belongs," said Miss Mason, when he had stayed his hour after school that night and she dismissed him.
"Yes'm," murmured Bobby meekly.
"My, it's been the worst day," he confided to Father Blossom that evening. "Nothing went right. I had the meanest time!"
CHAPTER XII
BUILDING A SNOW MAN
The rehearsals for the play went on merrily, and the children were faithful in attendance. Meg, though, was an hour late getting home from school one afternoon, and as Bobby could not practice without her, he was very much put out.