Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm

“Twaddles means the soap,” giggled Meg. “You can’t smell a bath, silly.”

Father Blossom laid down his carving knife and fork.

“I can’t stand that,” he declared positively. “Twaddles, you needn’t tell me just handling a soapy dog is responsible for the whiffs of carbolic I’m getting. What is that in your pocket?”

A dark wet stain was slowly spreading in the square little pocket of the blouse Twaddles wore.

“I––I saved a piece,” he stammered. “I thought Spotty, Aunt Polly’s dog, ought to have some. It’s awful healthy for dogs, Daddy. Sam says so.”

Father Blossom had to laugh.

“I don’t doubt it,” he admitted. “But that’s no reason why we should have to smell it. Wrap it up and put it away if you like for Spotty. And then come back and we’ll see if we can finish supper in peace.”

“Good-by, Daddy! Good-by, Daddy dear! Good-by, dear, darling Daddy!”

The four little Blossoms all tried to hug their father at once. They were at the station, where Sam and the car had brought them, and the train that was to take them on the first lap of the journey to Aunt Polly’s farm was turning the curve down the track.

“Be good,” said Father Blossom, speaking as clearly as he could with Dot hanging around his neck and Twaddles pounding his chest affectionately. “Help Mother all you can, and be sure to write me nice letters.”

Then Father Blossom and Sam got off and stood on the platform talking through the open window until the train began to move slowly.

“Good-by!” shouted the children. “Good-by, Daddy! Good-by, Sam!”

Meg leaned over Twaddles, who was seated next to the window.

“Don’t forget to feed Philip,” she cried.

Sam waved his hand to show that he heard and understood, and the train went faster and faster. In a few minutes Oak Hill station was far behind them.

“Now we’re started,” announced Bobby, with satisfaction.

“Did my kiddie-car get on?” asked Twaddles anxiously. “S’posing they forgot it?”

“Is that why you were hanging round the baggage-room?” demanded Bobby. “Course the kiddie-car is on. I saw Mr. Hayes putting it on. You ask the conductor.”

But the conductor, who came through presently for tickets, didn’t know.

“I tell you what you do,” he said, his eyes twinkling at Twaddles. “You ask the brakesman to take you into the baggage car and let you look around. Then you can see for yourself.”

“But that is making a great deal of trouble,” protested Mother Blossom. “You can easily wait till we get to Brookside, dear.”

“Let him go, let him go,” advised the conductor cheerily. “It will kind of break up the monotony of the trip, ma’am. These little folks are going to get pretty tired before they get to Alawana.”

So Twaddles marched off importantly with the conductor to find the young, good-natured brakesman, and the three little Blossoms rather wished they could go, too.

“What happens when we get to Alawana, Mother?” asked Bobby. “Do we change cars?”

“Here comes Twaddles,” announced Dot. “Did you find the kiddie car?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s there,” reported Twaddles, squeezing in past Meg, and climbing into his place beside his twin. “There’s lots of trunks and things there, too.”

During the long stretches when the train hummed steadily along and there was nothing to be seen from the car windows but miles and miles of green fields and woods with here and there a house, the children played a game Mother Blossom had known when she was a little girl.

“My ship is loaded with apples,” Bobby would say.

“My ship is loaded with apricots,” Meg would declare.

Dot usually had to think a minute.

“My ship is loaded with––with ashes,” she might announce finally.

“My ship is loaded with at;” this from Twaddles.

“Oh, Twaddles!” Bobby would scold. “You can’t load a ship with ‘at.’ That isn’t anything.”

“’Tis, too,” maintained Twaddles stubbornly. “It begins with ‘a,’ doesn’t it? And it’s a word. So there.”

If Twaddles had his way and was excused from thinking up another word, it would be Mother Blossom’s turn.

“My ship is loaded with asters,” she might say, smiling.

When no one could think of another word that began with A, they would go on to B. This game amused the children for many minutes at a time. They had just started on words beginning with C when the train reached Alawana.

“I’m hungry,” declared Meg, when they all stood together on the platform and the train that had brought them from Oak Hill was nothing but a black speck in the distance. “We had breakfast an awful long time ago.”

“I guess it was yesterday,” said Dot mournfully.

Mother Blossom laughed.

“Poor chickens, you are hungry,” she said. “Never mind, I see a nice little restaurant across the street. Let me find out when the boat goes, and then we’ll have a good, hot lunch.”

The Lake Tobago boat, Mother Blossom found out, left in half an hour. Their train had been late. However, the dock was not far off, and Mother Blossom was sure they would have time for sandwiches and milk at least.

All the children were tremendously excited at the thought of going on a steamer, as not one of them had ever been on a boat. There was no lake or river near Oak Hill, and the largest body of water the four little Blossoms had seen was the town reservoir.

“If they have sails, I’m going to roll ’em up and down,” Dot announced, so thrilled at the prospect that she upset her glass of milk down the front of her frock.

The shower-bath of milk rather subdued Dot for the moment, and lunch was finished without further mishap. Then a brief walk through the pretty little country town brought them to the lake.

“O-oh! Isn’t it lovely!” breathed Meg. “Just see how it sparkles in the sun. Don’t you like it, Dot?”

“It’s all right,” agreed Dot carelessly.

Her quick eyes had spied an old organ grinder and his monkey on the other side of the dock. She slipped under the rope, where the people who wanted to take the boat were standing, and ran over to the music.

“We needn’t have hurried,” said Mother Blossom, coming back to her little folk. She had been to the office to have the baggage checks looked after. “The boat is held up for another half hour because of some engine trouble. Where’s Dot?”

She stood in the crowd gathered about the organ grinder, a little girl with shining dark eyes and a milk-splashed frock, watching the clever bowing and scraping of the small monkey with evident delight. Then a sudden movement of the people about her startled her. She remembered that she was supposed to go somewhere with the rest of her family. She saw people hurrying toward a large automobile with nine or ten long seats in it, and she hurried toward it, too. A man helped her up the high step, and she found a seat just behind the driver.

The automobile was lumbering up a narrow white road with woods on either side of it before Dot realized where she was.

“Why, this isn’t the boat!” she said aloud.

The lady seated next to her glanced at her curiously.

“The boat?” she repeated. “This jitney goes to Fermarsh. You’re not traveling all alone, are you, little girl? You don’t look more’n five.”

“I was four in June,” announced Dot with dignity. “Twaddles was, too. We’re twins. But I have to go to Little Havre on the boat.”

“You’re going in the opposite direction,” said the woman placidly. She did not seem to care. “What’s that on your dress?”

Dot’s tears brimmed over.

“Milk,” she sobbed. “I tipped it over. An’ I have to go on the boat with my mother.”

The jitney driver heard and turned.

“What’s this?” he asked. “You belong on the boat, little girl? Well, now, don’t cry; we’ll fix it. I heard they had engine trouble to-day, and like as not they’ll be late starting. Long up the road a spell we’ll meet the two o’clock jitney coming back, and I’ll see that Dave Gunn takes you in with him. An’ if you do miss the boat my wife’ll take care of you over night and we’ll ship you up to Little Havre on to-morrow’s boat.”

Sure enough, their jitney had not gone very far when they saw another jitney coming toward them.

“Hi, Dave!” called the driver of Dot’s jitney. “Got a passenger for you. A little lady who tangled up her traveling directions and missed getting on the boat. You take her with you, and see that she lands on the steamer.”

Mr. Gunn stopped his machine and came over to the other jitney.

“Come on, Sister,” he said pleasantly, lifting Dot down gently.

“Why, you are little to be traveling on your own. I’ve got three home ’bout your size.”

No one remembered seeing a little girl in a green dress and a brown straw hat.

Just as Mother Blossom was wearily wondering if she should telegraph Father Blossom that Dot was lost, a motor jitney lumbered down to the dock. Some one in a green dress and a brown straw hat was sitting on the front seat beside the driver.

“Mother! Mother!” shouted Dot.

There was just time for her to tumble out of the car into her mother’s arms, just time for Mother Blossom to give the driver a dollar bill and say a word of thanks, and then the steamboat whistle blew loudly once.

“That means she’s starting,” said the jitney man. “Run!”

And hand in hand, Mother Blossom and Dot raced down the wharf and over the gangplank on to the deck of the boat, just as it began to slide away.

“We thought you weren’t coming,” said Meg anxiously.

“Where did you find Dot?” asked Bobby and Twaddles in the same breath.

Dot smiled serenely.

“I came back myself,” she informed them. “The jitney man told me how.”

Mother Blossom sat down on a camp-stool and fanned herself with Twaddles’ blue sailor hat.

“See if we can’t get to Brookside without any more mishaps,” she commanded the children. “If we had missed the boat, think of the worry and trouble for Aunt Polly. Even if we telegraphed she wouldn’t get it before she started over to meet us.”

The four little Blossoms promised to be very good and to stay close together.

“There’s another wharf! Do we stop there? Yes, we do! Come on, Dot, let’s watch!” shouted Twaddles, as the steamer headed inshore toward a pier built out into the water.

“Keep away from the gangplank,” warned Mother Blossom. “You mustn’t get in people’s way, dear.”

The pier was something of a disappointment, because when the boat tied up there the children discovered that only freight was to be taken off and more boxes carried on. There was only one man at the wharf, and apparently no town for miles.

“Doesn’t anybody live here?” asked Twaddles, almost climbing over the rail in his eagerness to see everything.

“Let me see the chickens,” cried Dot, climbing up beside her brother.

Her elbow knocked his hat, and because he hadn’t the elastic under his chin, it went sailing over on to the wharf. One of the men rolling a barrel toward the steamer did not see the hat and calmly rolled his barrel over it.

“Now you’ve done it!” scolded Meg, in her big-sister anxiety. “That’s a fine-looking hat to go to see Aunt Polly in. Hey, please, will you bring it back here with you?”

The man with the barrel heard and turned. He picked up the shapeless broken straw that had been Twaddles’ best new hat, and brought it to them, grinning. Several people who had been watching laughed.

“It does look funny, doesn’t it?” said Meg. “You’d better go and show it to Mother, Twaddles.”

Twaddles went back to Mother Blossom and dangled his hat before her sadly.

Twaddles said truthfully enough that he hadn’t been anywhere, and explained what had happened to the hat. The boat was out in the lake again by this time and steaming on toward Little Havre.

“Where are the others?” asked Mother Blossom. “Tell them we get off in fifteen or twenty minutes, and I want them all to come and stay near me.”

Presently the boat scraped alongside a wide wharf and a number of people began to bustle off.

“Where are we going now?” asked Twaddles, his round eyes dancing with excitement. Twaddles certainly loved traveling.

“Don’t you ’member?” said Meg importantly. “We have to go to Four Crossways, and Aunt Polly will meet us. There’s a bus that says ‘Four Crossways,’ Mother.”

“Isn’t that nice?” beamed Bobby, when he heard of this arrangement. “Our trunks will get there the same time we do.”

The children watched this trailer being loaded, and then all climbed into the bus and began the journey to Four Crossways. There were so many people on their way there that Bobby and Twaddles had to be squeezed into the front seat between the driver and the man who took the fares, and they liked this immensely.

“We’re going to Brookside,” volunteered Twaddles, who was sociably inclined, as soon as the driver seemed to have his engine fixed to suit him and the car was purring up the straight, wide road.

“To see Aunt Polly,” chimed in Bobby.

“There’s a lot of you, isn’t there?” said the driver, smiling.

“Bless their hearts,” she said warmly, when she had kissed Mother and had hold of a child with either hand. “Are they all tired out, poor lambs? It’s a fearful place to get to, especially the first trip.”

Mother Blossom assured her sister that they were all right, and as glad to see her as she was to see them.

“I left the car around on a side street,” explained Aunt Polly, leading the way. “You see so many horses are still afraid of automobiles that we think it more thoughtful not to leave ’em standing on the main street. Yes, I drove over alone for you––either Peter or Jud will come over to-morrow for your trunks.”

This last was in response to a question Mother Blossom had asked.

“Who’s Peter and Jud?” Bobby wanted to know first.

“Peter Apgar is my tenant farmer and runs the farm for me,” said Aunt Polly, pulling over to one side of the road to let a huge load of hay go past. “Jud is his son. You’ll like Jud. They live in a house about a quarter of a mile from our house.”

“How is Spotty?” came from Meg. “I thought maybe you’d bring him with you.”

“Spotty is very lively and well,” answered Aunt Polly. “I like a farm dog to stay at home and watch things, so I’ve never trained him to ride in the car with me. By the way, Meg, we have a new addition to our animal family that I’m sure you’ll like.”

Meg was immediately curious––what was it?

“Is that his name––Poots?” inquired Meg. “How funny!”

“Well, he’s a funny cat,” replied her aunt. “And now, children, if you look sharp you’ll see Brookside!”

She turned the car into a neat graveled roadway which parted a pretty concrete wall exactly in half, while Twaddles was puzzling how those things that looked to him like chickens could ever turn into big juicy turkeys.

Eagerly the four little Blossoms tumbled out. They saw a compact, modern house that looked even from the outside as if one might find all sorts of unexpected corners within. A green lawn bordered each side of the driveway, and in one direction was a red-tiled house with smoke coming out of the chimney and in another a birdhouse perched on a high pole near the gate the four little Blossoms had just come through.

Bobby spied the other house and Meg saw the home for the birds, just as people always see whatever they are most interested in first.

“Flowers!” said Dot.

She had seen the hollyhocks that stood up straight and tall against the fence that shut off the back of Aunt Polly’s house.

Peter Apgar had come up to take the car and perhaps to see the new arrivals. The four little Blossoms liked him at once, and when he spoke in a soft, lazy drawl that was good-nature itself they knew he was going to be a good friend.

“Can’t say you’re lonesome now, Miss Polly,” he chuckled pleasantly. He always called her Miss Polly, never Mrs. Hayward. “And I guess Jud is as good as useless to me the rest of the summer. What these youngsters don’t think up to do, he will,” the farmer added, with a broad grin.

Though all of the four little Blossoms protested that they were not the least bit sleepy, it was not long after Mother and Aunt Polly had helped them to delicious brown bread and honey and milk and baked apples that they were stumbling up the stairs to baths and bed. Linda, a girl about fifteen, who lived with Aunt Polly and went to school in the winter and worked during the summer, had made the two pretty bedrooms as dainty as possible and had left a vase of flowers on the table in each room. It was Linda, too, who brought armfuls of clean towels and showed them which was the hot and which the cold water in Aunt Polly’s white and green bathroom.

The next day the four children and Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly, with Linda and Jud part of the time and Spotty and Poots in constant attendance, explored Brookside thoroughly.

They saw the poultry yard, where ducks and chickens and guinea-hens and one lame turkey lived happily together. The other turkeys roamed all over the farm, and Aunt Polly said that at night they slept out of doors in the trees. She said they would be sick if cooped up in houses, and that they had to roam half-wild to thrive.

The visitors called on Mrs. Sally Sweet, the beautiful gentle Jersey cow that gave such wonderful rich milk; they saw the seven new little white pigs; they took salt to the sheep that were in a stony pasture and that came running when Peter called to them from the bars.

They made the acquaintance, too, of Jerry and Terry, the two faithful farm horses, and Nelly Bly, the brown mare who had a small colt, Felix, by her side. Meg had to be dragged away from the colt. She said she had never seen such a darling little horse.

On their way back from the sheep pasture Aunt Polly and the Blossoms stopped at the tenant house, and Mrs. Apgar asked them in to taste of her fresh buttermilk. She had just finished churning, and the children saw their first churn. They admired the firm yellow butter, but they did not care much for the buttermilk, though Mother Blossom drank two glasses of it and said it was delicious.

It was nearly dinner time now, for Aunt Polly, like many people who live in the country, liked to have her dinner at noon, and they all hurried home to get freshened up for the meal. Poor Dot, as usual, had managed to soil her frock, and she had to be buttoned into a clean dress.

“How’d you ever get that old egg on it?” scolded Meg, nevertheless helping her to fasten the buttons.

Meg happened to glance from the window.

“Peter’s brought the trunks!” she cried. “And the kiddie-car and a bundle that must be the surprise Daddy told us about. Hurry, Dot.”

The two little girls ran downstairs and found the others gathered about the trunks and parcels on the front porch.

“Daddy’s surprise!” shouted Bobby. “Let me open it, Mother?”

Mother Blossom handed him the shears and he cut the heavy cord. Something brown and heavy was inside.

“It’s a dress. No, it isn’t, it’s a tent! It’s a tent and four Indian suits!” Bobby was so delighted that he gave a war-whoop then and there and began to do a war dance.

“An Indian suit!” shrieked Twaddles, trying to stand on his head.

“Indian beads!” cried Meg, holding up a long chain of bright colored glass beads.

“And feathers!” Dot, too, had been digging in the package.

The rest of the afternoon was a busy time for them all. Jud helped them set up the tent on the side lawn, and then the four little Blossoms dressed up in their new suits and played Indians to their hearts’ content. There were jackets and trousers and feather head-dresses for Bobby and Twaddles and squaw costumes and bead chains for Meg and Dot. Jud made them each a wooden hatchet, which completed the make-believe.

The next morning Mother Blossom had to go back to Oak Hill. The children went as far as the gate to say good-by to her, but both she and Aunt Polly, who was to drive her over, not in the car but with Nelly Bly and a smart-looking red-wheeled buggy, thought that it was better for them not to go to town.

When they had kissed her good-by and watched the buggy till it was nothing but a cloud of dust in the road, the four little Blossoms began to feel very queer indeed. They had never been alone in a strange place without any mother before.

They did, of course. Dot slipped her hand into Jud’s and the others followed, talking busily. What was a line fence? How could he fix it? What could they play in the water?

Jud didn’t mind questions at all. Indeed, he rather enjoyed answering them.

“You see, this fence goes along the brook right in the center,” he explained carefully, “to show where your Aunt Polly’s land stops and Mr. Simmond’s land begins. If we didn’t have a fence there his cattle would walk right through the brook and up into our meadows. Say, build a raft, why don’t you? I always did when I was a kid. Here, I’ll show you.”

“We brought Geraldine!” cried Dot, running back, out of breath, with her best doll. “And now I wish I’d brought her trunk. But here’s Meg’s ‘Black Beauty’ book. She says we can play that’s a trunk. It’s heavy. And Meg is bringing your airplane, Bobby, and the singing bird for Twaddles.”

The singing bird was a little toy one of the neighbors in Oak Hill had given Twaddles. It had come from abroad, and he was very proud of it. It was a tiny yellow wooden bird that wound up with a key and sang three tunes for all the world like a music box.

Bobby fixed the string, and the children arranged the toys on the raft, the smiling Geraldine occupying the place of honor in the center and leaning gracefully against the book which served her as a prop.

“Look, Jud!” shouted Bobby. “See it float!”

Jud, in the middle of the stream, waved his hand encouragingly.

Bobby obediently tied the raft to a tree root that extended out over the water, and the four little Blossoms, taking hold of hands, raced madly for the barn. They were only just in time, for as they reached the door the rain fell in sheets.

“Most caught you, didn’t it?” chuckled Peter, who was mending harness in a little room that opened on to the barn floor. “A rain like this could drown that littlest one.”

“No, it couldn’t,” protested Dot, who was the “littlest one.”

“Maybe Jud will drown,” worried Bobby. “Does he stay out in the wet?”

“A bit of rain doesn’t hurt Jud,” said Peter comfortably. “He’s used to it, and his mother has dry clothes ready for him when he comes in. Well now, look around, and make yourselves at home. You can do most anything in Miss Polly’s barn.”

“Of course you can. I’ll lay it across this saw-horse, so, and that’s as fine a see-saw as any one could ask for,” said Peter, lifting the heavy plank with ease.

Bobby and Meg took possession of the see-saw, and Dot and Twaddles made the simultaneous discovery that hay was slippery. They found this out because Twaddles had climbed to the top of a pile of loose hay and was intending to reach an open window when his foot slipped and he gently slid down to the floor.

“Let me do that,” cried Dot, hastily scrambling up. “Watch me, Meg.”

She sat down, gave herself a little shove and neatly slid down the side of the hay. Then Twaddles tried, and then they took turns.

Spotty appeared at the barn door, wagging his tail engagingly. He was “part white terrier” and “part something else” Jud had told the children, and he had one funny black spot on his back near his tail.

“Bobby!” Meg thought of something so suddenly, she stopped the see-saw with a bump that jarred poor Bobby’s teeth. “What do you know about the things we left on the raft? Geraldine will be soaked!”

“And the wings of my airplane,” cried Bobby. “Why, I never thought! We should have taken the toys off. Let’s get ’em now, and maybe Linda can dry them in the kitchen for us.”

Hastily calling the twins, Meg and Bobby set off, running for the brook. The grass was very wet and their shoes were soaked in a few minutes. But they didn’t mind that if only the toys were not damaged!

Bobby reached the brook first. No Jud was in sight, but a neat, firm fence showed where he had completed his work. No raft was tied to the root, either.

“It’s gone!” gasped Meg, who had followed Bobby closely. “My lovely book I’ve never even read yet!”

Dot and Twaddles came up to them and Dot at first could not believe the bad news.

“But you tied it, Bobby,” she urged. “How could it get gone?”

“Don’t say ‘get gone,’” said Bobby absently. “I don’t know how it got loose, but it has. You can see for yourself. And all our toys are lost!”

“Poor, poor Geraldine!” sobbed Geraldine’s little mother. “All drowned! And Twaddles’ Dicky bird! Maybe, couldn’t Jud have them, Bobby?” she added suddenly.

Bobby had not thought of that.

“You run and ask him,” he said, “while we walk down the brook a way and look for ’em.”

Dot ran off to the Apgar house as fast as her short legs would carry her, to find Jud and ask him if he had taken their toys in out of the rain. The other children followed Bobby along the brook.

“Because our feet are as wet as they can be, now,” he said, “and if Aunt Polly is going to scold, getting them wetter won’t make her scold any more.”

“It looks like more rain,” worried Meg, scanning the clouds. “Why don’t we go back, Bobby, and come out after dinner? If the raft floated as far as the woods, the trees will keep it dry.”

Bobby was very damp and very hungry, and he, too, thought that after dinner would be a better time to hunt for the toys.

“Come on, Twaddles,” he shouted. “We’re going back.”

It wasn’t very deep, but it was very wet, and though Bobby reached him in a second, poor Twaddles was frightened.

“I’m so co-old!” he wept loudly. “I want Mother!”

“Well, don’t stand here all day,” said Bobby practically. “Take hold of Meg’s hand, and we’ll run to the house. Linda was making soup this morning, Twaddles. Think how good nice, hot soup will taste!”

Meg took his hand, and, Bobby on the other side, Twaddles ran with all his might toward dry clothes and hot soup. It was raining hard again.

“Why, children!” Aunt Polly met them at the door, for she had long ago come back from taking Mother Blossom to town. “Has anything happened? I found Dot in the hammock crying for her doll and–––But Twaddles is dripping!”

“He fell in the brook,” explained Bobby concisely.

“Poor lamb!” comforted Aunt Polly. “Come upstairs, dear, and Auntie will see that you’re rubbed dry. And Bobby and Meg, don’t stand around in those wet shoes one minute. Change them immediately.”

Half an hour later four clean, dry little Blossoms were at the table enjoying Linda’s delicious soup and other good things. The day had turned to a cold, rainy, dismal one, very different from the promise of the sunny summer morning. Aunt Polly said they would have to manufacture their own sunshine that afternoon.

“You mustn’t think of going to hunt for the toys till to-morrow, and only then if it’s clear,” she announced firmly. “Likely as not the raft sank, and you mustn’t feel too bad about the toys. You’ll find plenty of other things to play with on the farm.”

“Who wants to help me milk?” asked Jud, passing the kitchen door as they were talking to his mother.

“Oh, Jud, I do!” begged Meg. “You promised to show me how.”

“We’ll all come,” said Bobby. “Aunt Polly isn’t going to have supper till seven o’clock to-night, ’cause the minister is coming. We’ve got oceans of time.”

“Dot looks dressed up to me,” announced Jud. “Keep her out of the mud, somebody.”

“This is my prettiest dress,” said Dot serenely, smoothing down the folds of her white dotted swiss under her coral-colored sweater.

Mrs. Sally Sweet looked mildly interested when she saw such a number of people coming into her comfortable barnyard, and when Jud drove her into the barn and fastened her in the stanchion, all the children stood around to watch.

When Jud had the pail nearly full of milk, he rose carefully.

“Now, Meg,” he said, “you sit here. Easy now; don’t be nervous. Don’t you know a cow won’t give milk if she knows you’re nervous? Now work your fingers like this–––”

Meg sat on the three-legged stool and tried to do exactly as Jud told her. Bobby and Dot and Twaddles stared at her open-mouthed. She was actually milking a live cow!

“Keep right on; that’s fine,” encouraged Jud. “You’re doing first rate.”

His father called him just then, and he ran to the door to see what was wanted. Meg, beaming, kept on milking. All would have been well if Mrs. Sally Sweet hadn’t remembered her calf, Buttercup, and opened her mouth to give a tremendous and unexpected, “Moo!”

“For goodness’ sake!” cried Jud, coming back in time to view this wholesale damage. “What have you been up to now?”

Meg explained.

“There must have been eggs in that hay,” said Twaddles disapprovingly.

“Some hen stole her nest, and you’ve finished her hopes,” sighed Jud. “I must say you’re a sweet looking mess. Wonder what Miss Polly will say?”

“My! and the minister’s coming to supper,” announced Bobby, remembering this for the first time.

“I thought you looked dressed up,” Jud groaned. “I suppose I ought to have paid more attention. Well, come on, we’ll go up the back way and I’ll tell Miss Polly most of it was my fault.”

“Twaddles!” gasped poor Aunt Polly, for Twaddles was ahead.

“We––we––we were learning to milk,” said Meg apologetically.

The minister and his wife took one look at the four, and then they sat down on the back doorstep and laughed and laughed. After a minute Aunt Polly joined them, and then the children and Jud began to giggle.

“Hurry and get into something clean,” commanded Aunt Polly, wiping her eyes. “Linda is just putting supper on the table. I don’t care what you put on, as long as it is clean. I spent an hour dressing you, and now see the result.”

The four little Blossoms made haste to scurry into clean suits and dresses, and in a short time were ready to come downstairs and meet the minister and his wife properly.

“To-morrow morning,” said Bobby, as Aunt Polly put out the light and kissed them good-night, “we must go and hunt for the raft.”

But in the morning Peter Apgar rattled up to the door while they were still at the breakfast table, with Jerry and Terry harnessed to an empty wagon.

“Anybody here want to go over to the mill with me?” he called loudly.

Of course the four children were wild to go, and Aunt Polly said that she was sure Peter had room for every one.

“Take good care of them, Peter,” she said, following them down to the gate.

“I will,” promised Peter. “I’ve got an old quilt spread down in the bottom for them to sit on. If the jolting tires ’em two can sit up with me, taking turns.”

Spotty wagged his tail as they drove off, but he would not follow the wagon. He knew it was his place to stay and take care of Aunt Polly.

When they reached the mill, Jerry and Terry were tied to a post and Peter and the children went inside. Bobby was rather disappointed with the outside of the mill; he had expected it to look like the mills he saw in pictures, with great wide sails flattened against the sky.

“Electric power runs this mill,” Peter explained when Bobby asked where the sails were. “You’ll find plenty to see inside.”

A short, stout man in a dusty white coat met them, and Peter gave him his order.

“I’ve some little folks from down the state a way with me,” Peter told the man. “Guess you can show ’em round the mill a bit this morning?”

“I should say so!” was the hearty answer. “Come along, everybody, and we’ll see just how grain is milled.”

“It must be fun to be a miller!” said Bobby, when they were ready to go and the noon whistle blew and the big stones stopped turning as the power was shut off. “Maybe when I grow up I’ll run a mill.”

Rattling home in the big wagon with two sacks of “middlings” in the back with them, Twaddles and Dot decided that they, too, would have a mill some day.