ed wheels.

Then Johnnie started for the village.

XXIV

HOME AGAIN

Johnnie Green drove his pony, Twinkleheels, back over the road that led
to the village. Now and then he stopped at a farmhouse to inquire
whether anybody had seen old dog Spot, who had vanished on the way home
from the circus the evening before.

Nobody had set eyes on him. And Johnnie Green drove on and on, feeling
more and more miserable all the while.

At last, as he turned a sharp bend of the road, he heard a bark. There
was no mistaking it. It was Spot's.

There was a joyful meeting then. Johnnie sprang out of the buggy and
Spot sprang into his arms. And Johnnie hugged the old fellow tightly,
right there in the middle of the road.

"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 a