"MabelCHawley-FourLittleBlossomsOnAppleTreeIsland" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawley Mabel C)

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 principal, run from his office out into the yard.
Mr. Carter was really principal of the grammar school, where he spent most of
his time, leaving the primary grades under the control of Miss Wright, the vice-
principal. 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 bump 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.
"IЧI 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 classes," 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.
"Now suppose you tell me about it," suggested Mr. Carter mildly.
So Bobby told about the drive of the previous afternoon and of how his father
had landed the car in the bushes; he told about his scheme to prove that he
could steer, and of how Palmer had asked to try, too.
"But he didn't make the hole wide enough," complained the battered Palmer.
"First try I hit the side. I think it's an awful silly thing to do, anyway."
"Well, I went through without hitting anything!" said a voice unexpectedly.
"You're always ready to make a fuss when you spoil a good game, Palmer."