Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 4.djvu/143

 "Thank you, ma'am, thank you. We fellows have been hard at it for an hour, and we are as hungry as bears; hey, Bertie?"

"I'm fond of jumbles," was the young student's suggestive reply, as he peeped over the walls with a nod and a smile.

"Bless my heart, what has come to the Professor!" thought Mrs. Bouncer, as she hastened away, while Mr. P. waved his paste brush and Bertie kissed his hand to her.

The neighbors said the same when they saw the two playmates walking out together, as they often did in fine weather. Five old ladies, who sat all day at their different windows watching their neighbors, were so astonished at the sudden appearance of the Professor, hand-in-hand with a yellow-haired little laddie, that they could hardly believe their spectacles. When they saw him drawing Bertie round the square on his sled Racer, they lifted their ten old hands in utter amazement, and when they beheld him actually snowballing, and being snowballed by, that mite of a boy, they really thought the sky must be going to fall.

Mamma heartily enjoyed all this; for through her doctor she had learned much about Mr. P., and