When Meg had her apron full of apples she sat down near Dot, and the four ate as many sweet summer apples as four small people could who had eaten breakfast less than an hour before.

"There's Poots," said Meg suddenly, glancing up and seeing the black cat picking her way through the grass. "Do you suppose she is hunting birds?"

Poots blinked her green eyes innocently. If she were after birds, she had no intention of catching any before an audience. She sat down and began to wash her face.

A mischievous idea seized Twaddles.

"Rats, Spotty!" he shouted. "Rats!"

Now rats sounds pretty much like "cats," and the excited and startled Spotty did not stop to question which word Twaddles had used. He jumped up, his ears pointing forward.

"Rats, sic 'em!" said bad little Twaddles. "Rats, Spotty!"

Spotty barked twice sharply. Poots arose, her fur bristling. Spotty leaped at her, barking playfully. Away ran Poots, her black tail sticking straight up in the air. And after them raced the four little Blossoms, shouting and calling frantically.

Poots ran straight for the front wall and scrambled up it, leaving Spotty to bark wildly on the ground and make futile rushes at the solid wall he couldn't hope to climb. Some of the masonry was loose, and Poots, digging with her sharp claws, sent down a shower of dust into the dog's eyes. He whined, and dug at his eyes with both forepaws. Then he sneezed several times.

"You will chase me, will you?" Poots seemed to say, gazing down at him from her safe position. "The idea!"

"Well, we might as well pick up some of this stuff," said Twaddles, knowing that the fun was over.

"It's cooler—just feel that breeze!" exclaimed Meg. "Let's ask Aunt Polly if we can't go berrying after dinner."

Aunt Polly obligingly said they could, and after dinner the four little Blossoms scrambled into overalls Aunt Polly had bought and shortened to fit them.

"I wish your mother could see you," she said, as she gave them each a bright tin pail. "No need to worry about your dress now, is there, Dot?"

"Going berrying?" asked Jud, as they passed him, clipping the green hedge around the kitchen garden. "Better keep out of the sun."

The children walked down the road and turned into another field. They knew where the blackberry bushes grew, and they meant to fill their pails.

"Let's start here by this fence," suggested Bobby. "What's that over in Mr. Simmond's field?"

"It's a bull," answered Meg who knew all the animals at Brookside and on the neighboring farms by this time. "He's as cross as can be, but he took three prizes at the last Fair."

Twaddles ate the first dozen berries he picked and then he picked another dozen for Dot's pail. He decided that larger and better berries grew on the other side of the fence. He crawled under and his shout of delight brought the others.

"You never saw such big ones!" cried Twaddles gleefully. "Meg, look!"

"They are big," agreed Meg. "Come on, Bobby, let's go on the other side. Mr. Simmonds won't care."

Dot was already under the fence, and Meg and Bobby stooped down and crawled under after her.

The four little figures in blue overalls began to pick industriously. The berries were thick and juicy, and the bottoms of the tin pails were covered in a few minutes. Meg had just stopped to pull a briar from her thumb when she heard a bellow behind her.

There stood the bull, in the middle of the field, his head down between his knees, his feet pawing the ground, and his angry eyes glaring at the berry pickers.

"Oh, Bobby! The bull!" gasped Meg. "Run, Dot and Twaddles!"



CHAPTER XI

THE HOME LAUNDRY

Dot and Twaddles took one frightened look at the bellowing bull, and then dropped flat on the ground and began to squirm under the fence.

"Hurry, Meg," urged Bobby. "Don't stand there like that! Run!"

"I'm waiting for you," quavered Meg.

"All right, hurry," repeated Bobby.

He and Meg crawled under the fence and stood beside Twaddles and Dot. Then they looked over at the bull. He was not charging directly toward them, but at something else his angry red eyes had seen even before the children noticed it. Further down there was a gap in the fence where several rails were broken.

Meg shrieked in terror as she saw what the bull meant to do.

"Peter! Jud! Aunt Polly! Come quick!" she screamed, hardly knowing what she was crying.

"Coming!" called a big voice, and over the fence corner sprang Peter Apgar, a pitchfork in his hand. He had been gathering up the loose hay left along the edge of the field after the hayloader had gathered the main crop.

After Peter came Spotty, who met the bull just as that cross animal's nose appeared at the gap in the fence. Indeed, Spotty met him so suddenly that both grunted.

"I'll turn him. You stay back here out of sight," commanded Peter, running past the four little Blossoms.

The children were very glad to stay huddled behind the bushes, but they couldn't help peeping out now and then to see what Peter and Spotty were doing with the bull.

"Woof, woof!" barked Spotty.

"You will, will you?" shouted Peter.

He jabbed the bull with the pitchfork, and that surprised beast turned with a bellow. Holding the pitchfork so that it would not hurt him unless he tried to come at him, Peter forced the bull back through the fence, and then he and Spotty drove him across the field.

Presently Peter and the dog came back, a bit warm and breathless, and very glad the four little Blossoms were to see them.

"You can finish berrying in peace," said Peter. "I drove the bull into Simmonds' barnyard and told his man to keep him there. No farmer has a right to leave a cross bull at large."

The children set to work at the berries again, and, as nothing further happened to disturb them, they filled all four pails before supper time. Bobby and Meg helped the twins a little, and maybe they weren't proud to have berries of their own picking and cream, as Meg said, of their own milking, for their supper that night! And there were enough berries left over for four small turnovers. Aunt Polly made this pleasant announcement.

"I intended to bake cookies to-morrow morning," she said, smiling. "And I don't know why I shouldn't make turnovers, too, and maybe doughnuts. Perhaps some one would like to keep me company? Linda is going to spend the day with her mother in town, and like as not I shall be lonesome."

"We'll all keep you company," promised Bobby gravely.

So the next morning every one was up early because Linda wanted to have breakfast cleared away before Jud drove her over to town. Soon after she was gone Aunt Polly put on a large white apron and the four children trooped into the pleasant kitchen after her.

"Let me see," thought Aunt Polly out loud. "Meg should have an apron. Suppose I tie one of Linda's around your neck, dear? Hers are shorter than mine."

In a very short time Aunt Polly had rolled out the crust for the turnovers and filled them with berries and sugar.

"When they are done you can take them outdoors and eat them while they're hot," she said. "Make believe you're having a picnic."

"Can't we have a picnic, a real picnic?" asked Bobby quickly.

"Why, of course," agreed Aunt Polly. "I meant you should have a picnic weeks ago. Only time goes so fast. However, before vacation is over we'll have a real picnic with all kinds of good things to eat."

Every one was very much interested in the first batch of cookies, and Aunt Polly gave each one a sample, which was pronounced delicious.

Then Aunt Polly put on her big kettle and started to fry some doughnuts.

Dot, when no one was looking, took Spotty out into the hall and gave him half a cookie. Then they both came back into the kitchen wearing such an innocent air that Aunt Polly had to laugh.

"Spotty has a sweet tooth, all right," she declared. "Don't let him tease all your cookies away from you, dear. Twaddles, look out!"

The warning came too late, for Twaddles, reaching across the bowl of freshly fried doughnuts to get something, caught his sleeve on the rim of the bowl and succeeded in turning the whole thing upside down over himself.

"I really think," said patient, long-suffering Aunt Polly, when the doughnuts had been picked up and brushed off and Twaddles had explained how it happened, "I really think, that four children and a dog are too many to have in the kitchen on baking day. Anyway, the turnovers are done. I'll slip them on a plate and let Meg carry it out under the chestnut tree. Then you may have your picnic." And so it was settled.

"I wish," confided Meg, as she bit into a juicy bit of pie—Aunt Polly made wonderful berry pies—"I had my 'Black Beauty' book."

"I'll never have another doll like Geraldine!" sighed Dot. "Never! And what good are all her clothes? I haven't any doll to fit 'em."

"You might take a tuck in 'em for Totty-Fat," suggested Bobby, using the disrespectful name he had invented for Dot's old doll. "She's a sight. Oh dear! I wish I had tried to fly my airplane just once before I lost it."

"Well, there's my bird," mourned Twaddles. "Aunt Polly never heard it sing. And now she never will."

"I dripped a little juice on my dress," announced Dot doubtfully, after Meg had gone in to help her aunt wash dishes.

"I should think you had," said Bobby, gazing severely at the little girl. "I don't believe blackberry juice comes out, either. Prob'ly that dress will always be spotted now."

"Linda said when she was a little girl her mother made her wash her own dresses if she got too many dirty in one day," Dot declared. "Maybe I could wash this."

Twaddles and Bobby hadn't a very clear idea of how to wash a dress, and because it was something they had not done before, the idea appealed to them.

"We'll help you," offered Bobby generously. "I saw a piece of soap out at the barn this morning. And the rain barrel's full. Come on."

They trotted down to the barn. Neither Peter nor Jud was anywhere in sight, which was just what the washers hoped for. Of course, they argued, it wasn't naughty to wash a dress, but you never can tell what objections grown-ups are going to make. Sometimes they find fault with every single thing one wants to do.

"Let me rub the soap on," begged Dot, as Bobby unbuttoned her frock for her and she stepped out of it, a sturdy little figure in a brief white petticoat.

So Dot rubbed plenty of soap on the blackberry spots. It was harness soap, which Jud had been using for the leather harness, but the children thought it made a fine lather. Linda would have scolded had she seen them, for soap sets fruit juice stains so that it is almost impossible ever to get them out.

"Let's put in our handkerchiefs, too," suggested Bobby, pulling out a grimy square.

Twaddles had lost his, and Dot's was in the pocket of her dress and already wet, but Bobby added his to the wash.

"We must let 'em soak," advised Dot, who had been in the kitchen on wash days. "Linda says that gets the dirt out."

The three children balanced themselves on the edge of the rain barrel while they waited for their wash to soak.

"Well, for pity's sake, what are you up to now?" It was Jud's voice, and Jud came out of the barn so unexpectedly that he made them jump.

Twaddles tumbled to his knees, and Bobby stood up, but poor Dot lost her shaky balance and fell into the barrel with her dress and the handkerchief.

"There, there, sister, you're not hurt," soothed Jud, as he pulled the dripping child out and stood her on the grass. "For mercy's sake don't yell like that. Miss Polly will think you're killed!"

Dot was frightened and wet, and she had no intention of smiling at such misfortune. She cried so loud that Aunt Polly heard her and came running down to the barn, Meg running behind her.

"Why, Baby!" Aunt Polly was surprised to see streams of water running off her small niece, and at first she did not notice that Dot had no dress on.

"Where's your dress?" demanded Meg.

Aunt Polly picked up Dot, wet as she was, and started back to the house. Meg followed to help find clean dry clothes.

Jud looked at Twaddles and Bobby queerly.

"Just what were you doing?" he asked in a different voice than they had ever heard from easygoing, good-natured Jud. "What's that in the barrel?"

"We were helping Dot," said Bobby. "She got juice all on her dress, and, honest, she's worn eleven this week. So we thought we ought to wash this one."

"I see," replied Jud slowly. "Do you know you've spoiled a barrel of soft rain water that's worth considerable? To say nothing of soap."

"We used the green soap we found on the beam," put in Twaddles.

"You perfect imps!" groaned poor Jud. "That's my harness soap. I don't see how your town gets along with all four of you the year around. Well, you can just help me bail out this water—that's flat. Wring out that pesky wash and spread it on the grass to dry. Then each of you take one of those lard pails, and set to work."



CHAPTER XII

UP ON THE MOUNTAIN

Two subdued little boys went in to dinner that noon. Afterward Aunt Polly announced that she was going over to town.

"I have to drive Nelly Bly," she told them, "and as I couldn't take but one, I don't think it is fair to take any of you. As soon as the car is fixed, we'll have a long drive."

Jud had taken the automobile over to the one garage the week before and it was not ready yet.

"Now try to amuse yourselves and don't get into mischief," cautioned Aunt Polly, as Jud brought Nelly Bly and the buggy to the door. "I'm sorry I have to leave you when Linda is away, but you'll be all right. Jud will be within call, and I'll be back about five. I'm going to pick up Linda and bring her back."

"What are you going to do, Jud?" asked Dot, as Aunt Polly drove out of the gate. Dot was in a clean dry dress and none the worse for her ducking.

"Can't we help you?" asked Meg kindly.

"Now look here," Jud said, in his pleasant, slow voice. "I'm going to be all-fired busy in the back garden. If anything frightens you, sing out and I'll hear you. If you want to talk to any one, go down to the house, and Mother will listen to you. But please don't bother me."

"But what'll we do?" persisted Bobby.

Jud pointed to the tent that had been Father Blossom's surprise.

"Play Indians, why don't you?" he suggested. "Don't believe you've had those clothes on three times since you got 'em. If any one had sent me a tent when I was a kid, you couldn't have kept me from playing with it."

"We might as well play Indian," said Meg, when Jud had gone off to his garden, whistling. "Dot and I'll put on our suits and you and Twaddles wear yours. I wish I had a tomahawk."

"Girl Indians don't have 'em," said Bobby flatly.

"Well, they ought to," declared Meg. "Doesn't Dot look cunning in her suit?"

"Heap big Injun chief," announced Bobby, prancing about in his suit.

"Let's get captives and hide them in the tent," suggested Meg, who usually did most of the planning for their games.

"Where'll we get 'em?" asked Bobby doubtfully. "Jud's bigger than we are."

"No, we can't capture Jud," agreed Meg.

"Wow! wow! Whoop!" shouted Twaddles, tumbling down the steps and giving his best Indian yell as he came.

"Ducks and chickens might be captives," said Meg slowly, frowning at the interruption of Twaddles.

Ordinarily Meg was a good little girl and not given to mischief, but a spice of naughtiness seemed to be in all the four little Blossoms on this unfortunate day.

"Let's get the ducks, first," said Bobby. "That's a great idea, Meg. Come on, Twaddles, we have to capture the ducks."

They found the beautiful white birds swimming lazily about the artificial duck pond in the chicken yard, and they didn't seem to want to be captured at all. The children finally succeeded in driving them, twenty of them, that is, into the tent.

"Somebody will have to stay and see they don't come out when we get the chickens," said Meg. "Dot's too little—she'll let 'em out. I'll do it, if you'll stay when we get the chickens in, and let me capture the turkeys, Bobby."

Bobby assented, and Meg stayed behind at the tent while Dot, Twaddles and Bobby went after the chickens.

If you have ever tried to drive a hen into a certain place, you will know how very stupid she can be. The children were hot and cross before they had twenty-eight white leghorn hens penned in the tent with the ducks.

"They make an awful lot of noise," said Bobby nervously. "Jud will hear them."

"As soon as they find it's dark they'll think it's night," answered Meg comfortably. "Now I'm going after turkeys."

But the only turkey she could find was the lame one that lived in the chicken yard and was tame enough to allow herself to be picked up.

"Aren't they good and quiet?" said Meg with satisfaction, as she poked the patient turkey hen through the tent flaps and heard the soft mutterings of the ducks and hens, who thought it was night and time to go to sleep.

Just as the Indians had the last captive snugly fastened in, Peter, with Terry harnessed to the "market wagon," a light wagon that was used to take the butter and eggs over to town in, came down the drive from the barn.

"Whoa!" said Peter to Terry.

"Oh, Mr. Peter!" The four little Blossoms rushed out to greet him. "Where are you going? Can't we go? Where's Jerry?"

Peter surveyed the four Indians gravely.

"Well, as I'm going up in the mountain, I guess we won't meet any one who'll be scared to death," he said slowly. "So I don't know but perhaps you might hop in. Jerry? I left him in the stable. This wagon goes with one horse."

As the children scrambled in, Peter thought of something.

"Like as not Miss Polly'll be back before we are," he observed. "She might miss all four of you if no one's about. Jud!"

"Here!" shouted Jud from the back garden.

He came to the gate in the hedge.

"Jud, if Miss Polly comes home and doesn't find any children, just tell her they're with me and that we'll be home by six. I'm going up in the mountain."

"All right," said Jud.

"How do you go up in the mountain?" inquired Meg curiously, as they turned into the road.

She was sitting on the front seat with Peter, Twaddles was between them, and Dot was in her lap. Bobby stood up in the wagon behind them and looked over their shoulders.

"I guess I mean up on the mountain," Peter corrected himself. "We've got kind of a habit round here of saying 'in the mountain.' Ever been up there?"

The four little Blossoms had never been there—indeed they did not know there was a mountain near by.

"Well, I suppose it's more of a hill," admitted Peter. "But it's the best mountain we have. Queer people live up there. They don't see much of anybody, and some of 'em's as timid as deer. The children, now, run when they see a stranger coming."

"What are we going to get?" asked Bobby. He had been long enough on the farm to know that when one harnessed up a horse and wagon there was usually something to be fetched or carried.

"I'm going up to see if I can't get a woman to come down next week and help Mrs. Peter do some cleaning," explained Peter. "Help's scarce in the town, and some of the mountain-folk like to earn a little money in the summer. Miss Polly taking the buggy, I had to get along with the market wagon. 'Sides, the thought came to me that I might meet some one who wanted a ride."

Meg saw Peter's eyes twinkling and she guessed that he had meant to ask them to go with him all the time.

Terry was going up a steep road now, narrow as well as steep, and the untrimmed trees lashed against the curtained sides of the wagon as it passed.

"Here's Mrs. Cook's house," said Peter at last.

The children saw a little unpainted house standing in a clearing of half-chopped tree-stumps. A line of washing was strung between the two posts that supported a narrow roof over the door. Skins of animals were tacked on the sides of the house, and a large hound dog chained to a tree watched them closely.

"Can we get out and see the dog?" asked Meg, as Peter tied Terry to a convenient tree.

"I don't know as I'd touch the dog," said Peter. "Better keep away from him. He's a night hunter, and may be cross. There's Mrs. Cook's little girl—go and make friends with her If you want to."

Peter went up to the house door and knocked, and Meg walked over to a little girl seated on a tree stump.

The child was barefooted and wore a ragged dress, but her skin was a beautiful clear brown and her eyes were as blue as Meg's. She had lovely long brown hair, too.

"Hello!" said Meg.

Apparently the little girl had not heard her coming, for she jumped when Meg spoke and turned swiftly. Then she shrieked loudly and dashed for the house. Peter came out at once.

"Guess you frightened her," he said. "And Christopher Columbus, I don't wonder. You look like a band of Indians let loose."

"My! we forgot these clothes," said Bobby. "Meg didn't mean to frighten her. Look at Twaddles—she scared him pretty near stiff yelling like that."

Mrs. Cook came out to the wagon presently, to tell Peter that she would come the next week. She was a little thin, brown-faced woman, and she was even shyer than Dot, who usually shrank out of sight when there were any strangers around.

"These Miss Polly's 'lations?" asked Mrs. Cook, twisting her apron nervously.



CHAPTER XIII

LINDA IS UNHAPPY

"Every one of 'em," announced Peter. "These, ma'am, are the four little Blossoms!"

"We didn't mean to scare your little girl," said Meg bravely. "I guess she thought we were Indians. These are just play clothes."

"Emma Louise scares easy," said Mrs. Cook. "All my children do."

"How many have you?" asked Twaddles, meaning to be polite.

"Nine," replied Mrs. Cook serenely. "Four boys and five girls."

"We have to be going, if we get back in time for supper," hinted Peter, gathering up the reins. "I'll tell the Missus you'll walk down Tuesday morning, then, and I'll drive you home at night."

"Wait a minute," begged Dot, as Peter was about to turn Terry. It was the first word she had spoken since they had reached the Cook house. "Give these to the little girl."

It was the chain of gay-colored beads Dot wore around her neck with the Indian dress, and Mrs. Cook's face wrinkled into a smile of delight.

"Emma Louise will love 'em," she declared brightly. "I'm much obliged."

Dot was too shy to say anything, but she blushed and smiled and inwardly wished that Peter would drive on. Soon they were going down the mountain again.

"Aunt Polly's at home!" shouted Dot, as they turned into the drive and she saw a white figure rocking in the porch swing.

Aunt Polly was very glad to see them, and she had not been worried because Jud had told her where the children had gone. The milking was done, she said, and everything fed, so if they would get washed and dressed right away for supper, Linda would put it on the table while they were upstairs.

"Linda looked as if she'd been crying," said Meg, slipping off the Indian dress and pulling on a clean white pique. "Her eyes were all red."

"Maybe she was bad and her mother scolded her," said Dot.

At the supper table Aunt Polly listened to the story of the afternoon's drive, and heard about Mrs. Cook and the queer little house, but all the time she seemed to be thinking of something else. And there was certainly something seriously wrong with Linda. She scarcely ate any supper, and her eyes were red, as Meg said. Twaddles was sure she had the toothache. When he went out into the kitchen after supper he found her crying over the dishes, and she was cross to him and told him to get out of her kitchen.

"I guess Linda has the measles," reported the astonished Twaddles to the rest of the family, who were on the front porch.

"Yes, I guess she's sick," remarked Bobby. "She didn't want any cold chicken."

"Was she bad, Aunt Polly?" questioned Dot "Did her mother punish her?"

"Well, Linda and I had decided not to bother you with our troubles," said Aunt Polly, "but I see we can't hide a thing from your sharp eyes. I have bad news to tell you. While you were away with Peter this afternoon, and while Linda and I were in town, a miserable chicken thief got into the chicken yard and stole ever so many chickens. We don't know yet how many. And they took nearly every one of Linda's ducks. She has the ducks for her own, you know, and she uses the money for her school clothes. So that's why she's crying."

The four little Blossoms sat and stared at Aunt Polly. They had completely forgotten the chickens and ducks and the one lame turkey shut into the tent till this minute.

"Aunt Polly!" gasped Meg, in a very little voice. "Aunt Polly—please, we were just playing, and—and——" Meg could not go on.

"We were playing Indians," said Bobby, coming to the rescue of his sister, "and we had to have some captives. So—so——"

"We took the chickens and the ducks," went on the twins in concert.

"And the lame turkey," put in Meg.

"And shut them in our tent!" finished Bobby and Meg together.

"Put them in your tent?" repeated Aunt Polly. "Do you suppose they are there now?"

Away dashed the children, Aunt Polly after them, around to the side lawn. The tent was just as they had left it, and Meg cautiously unbuttoned the flap. A soft, comfortable little singing sound came out to them.

"Well, I never!" said Aunt Polly helplessly. "What won't you children do next!"

The four little Blossoms ran back to tell Linda that her ducks were safe, and you may be sure she was very glad to hear it. And in the morning they found the biddies and the ducks none the worse for their night in the tent.

Shortly after this, Bobby and Meg were awakened one night by a queer noise outside. Bobby heard it first and came creeping into Meg's room to see if she were awake.

"Meg! Meg!" he whispered, so as not to wake Dot. "Did you hear something?"

"Yes, I did," whispered back Meg. "Under my window. Wait a minute and we'll peep out."

Dot and Twaddles wouldn't wake up, "not if there was an earthquake," Daddy Blossom sometimes said, but Meg and Bobby were light sleepers and very apt to hear any unusual noise.

Together now they crept over to Meg's window and, raising the screen very softly, peeped out. Something large and dark was moving about on the lawn below.

"I guess it's Mr. Simmonds' bull," suggested Meg.

"Don't you think we ought to go down and drive him off?" asked Bobby, quite as if driving bulls off his aunt's lawn was a nightly task with him. "Or I'll go alone—I'm the man of the house."

As a matter of fact, he was. Aunt Polly and Linda slept in rooms across the hall at the back of the house, and apparently had heard nothing. But Meg had no idea of letting her brother face a bull alone.

"I'm coming, too," she whispered. "Let's put on our shoes—you know how wet the grass is at night. And here's a blanket, so you won't catch cold."

Wrapping herself in another blanket—Aunt Polly kept two light-weight blankets folded at the foot of each bed for chilly nights—Meg tiptoed carefully downstairs after Bobby. They knew their way about the house now, even in the dark. The front door was not locked, for people in the country seldom lock their doors.

"Why, Bobby!" Meg called softly. "Look! There's a lot of 'em! See! All down the drive! They can't be Mr. Simmonds' bull——"

"Well, not all of 'em," snickered Bobby. "There's only one of him. Come on, Meg, I'm going up to one and see what it is."

"Why, it's a calf!" cried Meg, in astonishment. "A darling baby calf! They all are! How many are there, Bobby?"

"I can count fourteen," said Bobby after a moment, for the night was not pitch black, but one of those soft summer nights with so many stars that after your eyes are accustomed to it you can see objects distinctly enough to count.

"Somebody's left their barnyard gate open," announced Meg. "What'll we do? Drive 'em into our barnyard?"

"Sure!" answered Bobby, just like a farmer. "That'll keep 'em safe till morning. And then Jud will find out whose they are."

Driving those fourteen baby calves was not such hard work as they had expected, for they were very amiable beasties and only wanted to nibble a little fresh sweet grass as they were driven on toward the barnyard. But Meg and Bobby had so much fun doing this that they forgot to be quiet, and just as they had the last calf safely inside and the big gate barred, two figures came running up to them.

"For the love of Pete!" said Jud, breathing heavily. "Meg and Bobby! And in their night clothes! Are you crazy?"

"There's fourteen baby calves in there," announced Bobby with dignity.

"Yes, and they would have had the whole lawn eaten up if it hadn't been for us," declared Meg.

Peter and Jud peered over the gate.

"Those are Tom Sparks' calves he bought for his auction next week," said Peter. "Guess he didn't pen 'em in good to-night. Well, you youngsters don't miss anything, do you? You run back to bed now, and in the morning we'll do a little telephoning."

And when Jud came up while they were at breakfast the next morning and told them that Mr. Sparks wanted to pay a reward of five dollars to the person who had saved his calves for him, maybe there wasn't great excitement!

Aunt Polly then heard the story for the first time, as did Dot and Twaddles and Linda.

"You take it," advised Linda, when Jud repeated the offer of the reward. "If the constable had put his calves in the pound it would have cost him twice that to get them out."

"But I don't like to have them take money," protested Aunt Polly.

"All right," said Jud suddenly. "Mr. Sparks can pay them back some other way."



CHAPTER XIV

THE PICNIC

Jud went off whistling, and soon after they had finished breakfast the four little Blossoms saw a tall, stout man drive in. His horse was a beautiful, shiny black animal, evidently groomed and tended with great care.

"That's Mr. Sparks," Linda informed the children.

The children ran out to see the calves being herded together, and Jud embarrassed Meg and Bobby very much by introducing them as the little people who had heard the calves in the night and gone downstairs after them.

"Meg heard 'em," said Bobby modestly.

"Well, well, well!" almost shouted Mr. Sparks, though that was his natural way of talking; he couldn't speak low. "I do certainly admire a girl with spunk enough to get up in the middle of the night and chase live-stock. You ought to be a farmer's daughter."

He paused and smiled at the children. It was impossible not to like this bluff, red-faced man with the loud voice.

"I had intended to give a little reward to the person who did me this service," went on Mr. Sparks. "Finding there's two of 'em, rightly I should double it. But Mrs. Hayward, I hear, doesn't want you to take money—good notion, too, in a way, I guess. Suppose I give you one of these little calves now. How would that do?"

"One of those darling little calves?" cried Meg.

"To keep?" echoed Bobby.

"To keep, of course," assented Mr. Sparks. "You pick the critter you want, and I guess Mrs. Hayward will pasture it for you."

"Sure she will," promised Jud, who was standing by with a delighted smile. "And after you go back to Oak Hill, I'll take good care of it and next summer you can come up and see your own cow."

Aunt Polly and Linda and Peter all had to be summoned, and then, with every one's help and advice, not forgetting the twins', Bobby and Meg selected a handsome cream-colored little calf that Mr. Sparks assured them would grow into a Jersey bossy cow like Mrs. Sally Sweet.

"What you going to call her?" he asked curiously.

Bobby looked at Meg.

"You name her," he suggested.

"All right. Let's call her Carlotta," said Meg promptly. "I think that is the loveliest name." So Carlotta the calf was named.

Carlotta did not seem to mind at all when her friends and relatives were driven off by Mr. Sparks. Apparently she liked Brookside farm and was glad she was going to live there.

"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Sparks," said Meg and Bobby for the twentieth time, as he drove out of the gateway after his recovered property.

A day or two after the finding of the calves Aunt Polly came out on the porch where the children were cutting up an old fashion magazine for paper dolls, and sat down in the porch swing with her mending basket.

"Do you know, honeys," she began, "if we don't have our picnic pretty soon, vacation is going to be over. Though what I am to do this long cold winter without any children in my house I don't see."

"Bobby and I have to go to school," said Meg. "But Dot and Twaddles could stay."

"We're going to school, too," declared Dot, with such a positive snap of her blunt scissors that she snipped off a paper doll's head.

"Of course," affirmed Twaddles, with maddening serenity.

"Well, I think we'd better talk about the picnic," interposed Aunt Polly. "When to have it, and whom to invite and what to have to eat."

"Sandwiches!" cried Meg, answering the last question first. "Let me help make 'em, Auntie?"

"Oh, of course," promised Aunt Polly. "And it seems to me that we had better go to-morrow. This spell of fine dry weather can't last forever, and when the rain does come we may have a week of it."

"Can Jud come?" asked Bobby.

"Yes, indeed," answered Aunt Polly, who had the happiest way of saying "yes" to nearly everything her nephews and nieces asked of her.

"And Linda?" asked Twaddles.

"Linda, too," agreed Aunt Polly.

"Where'll we go?" demanded the practical Dot.

"Over in the woods," said Aunt Polly.

"Let's get ready," proposed Meg, who knew a picnic meant work beforehand.

Every one scattered, Meg and Aunt Polly to the kitchen to help Linda pack the lunch boxes, as far as they could be packed the day before the picnic; Bobby to tell Jud that he was expected; and Dot and Twaddles on an errand of their own.

They were gone some time, and when they returned acted so mysteriously that Meg was quite out of patience.

"Be sure you have enough sandwiches," advised Twaddles, swinging on the kitchen screen door, a thing which always made Linda nervous.

"There might somebody come at the last minute," chimed in Dot.

Then she and Twaddles giggled.

"Those silly children," said Meg with her most grown-up air. "I suppose they think they sound funny."

Dot and Twaddles apparently did not care how they sounded, and they stayed in the kitchen, stirring and tasting, till Linda flatly declared that she'd put pepper in the pressed chicken instead of salt if they didn't stop bothering her. Jud came just at that moment and asked the twins to help him see if the new catch on the chicken yard gate worked all right, and the two little torments readily followed him.

Nearly everything was ready for the picnic by that night, and every one went to bed hoping for a clear day.

"The sun is shining, Meg! Meg, get up!" shouted Dot early the next morning. "We're going on a picnic!"

She made so much noise that she woke up Aunt Polly and Linda, as well as Bobby and Twaddles, and then, of course, there was nothing to do but to get up and have breakfast.

The four little Blossoms found Peter and Jud busy in the barn, putting clean straw in the bottom of the box wagon that was used to haul logs and brushwood in in the winter.

"Be ready in two jerks of a lamb's tail," announced Peter, using one of his favorite expressions.

When the heavy wagon rattled up to the front door, the four little Blossoms were already sitting on the straw. Aunt Polly and Linda were helped in by Jud, who also lifted in the boxes of lunch, and then Peter clucked to Jerry and Terry, and away they went, over the meadow into the woods, and up the narrow wagon road.

"See, isn't this pretty?" asked Aunt Polly, as the road suddenly came out into a clearing, and they saw the brook a bit ahead of them.

They all jumped out, and Peter turned the horses' heads toward home at once. He was anxious to get back to his work, but was coming for them at half-past four.

"We must get some flowers for the table," said Aunt Polly, after she had helped Linda put the boxes in a low branch of a tree where nothing could touch them. "Come, children, let's get a bouquet of flowers."

They gathered wild flowers, and also found some late blackberries which, placed on a wide green leaf as a dish, looked very pretty. Linda spread a white cloth presently, and was opening the boxes when the sound of a rattling wagon attracted her attention.

"If that doesn't sound like Mr. Sparks' old rig," said Linda curiously.

"It is," announced Dot complacently. "Twaddles and me asked him to come to the picnic, 'cause he gave Meg and Bobby the calf."

Although Aunt Polly murmured helplessly, "what will those children do next!" they were all very glad to see Mr. Sparks when he finally rattled up. And there was plenty of everything to eat—trust Aunt Polly and Linda for that.

Mr. Sparks brought a freezer of ice-cream with him, which his wife had made, as his contribution to the picnic, and though he had to go as soon as lunch was over, he assured the children that he had had a splendid time.

When the crumbs were all scattered for the birds, and the papers and boxes neatly buried, except one box of sandwiches they had not eaten and which they saved for Peter, Aunt Polly declared that she wanted to sit quietly for an hour and knit. Linda, too, had her embroidery, but the four little Blossoms wanted to go wading.

"I'll watch 'em," promised Jud.

So Meg and Bobby and Dot and Twaddles took off their shoes and stockings and pattered over the pine needles that covered the grass down to the edge of the brook.

Bobby dipped one foot in to test the water.

"Wow, it's cold!" he said. "Just like ice, Jud."

"You won't mind it after you've been in a little while," Jud assured him. "Now when I say come out, you're to come. No teasing to stay in! Is that agreed?"

"All right," promised the four little Blossoms. "Oh, ow! isn't it cold?"



CHAPTER XV

WHAT MEG FOUND

The first thing Dot did was to step in a deep hole and get her dress and tucked-up skirt wet nearly to her shoulders.

"It's all right," said Meg calmly. "Aunt Polly brought some dry things with her. I guess she expected Dot to go in bathing instead of wading."

This made Dot very indignant, but she pattered along after the others, and in a few minutes forgot to be cross. When you are wading in a clear, cold brook with little dancing leaves making checkered patterns on the water, and a green forest all around you, you can not stay cross long.

"I see something," said Bobby suddenly. "Look! Over there where it's wide! Don't you see it, Meg?"

"Looks like clothes," said Meg, shading her eyes with her hand, for the sun on the water dazzled her. "Maybe it's a wash. Aunt Polly said some of the hired men around here wash their clothes in the brook. Let's go and see."

"Here, here! Where are you going?" called Jud, as they began to scramble down.

"We saw something on the other side of the brook," explained Bobby. "We're going over to see what it is."

"Well, you just wait," ordered Jud. "That's the widest part of the brook down there, and all that side is swampy land. You can't land on it. You'll sink in. Wait till I take my shoes off, and I'll come and help you."

Jud took off his shoes and socks and rolled his trousers up to his knees. He wasn't afraid that the four little Blossoms would drown, for the brook was not very deep in any part. But it was wide at the point where Bobby wanted to cross, and there was no bank, only a piece of swamp, on the other side.

"Now I'll take Dot and Twaddles, and you and Meg hold hands," said Jud, as he stepped into the water. "Come on, Pirates, let's board yonder frigate."

The children giggled and stepped gingerly after Jud. They were glad he had come with them, for the mild little brook looked like a river to them as they got out into the middle of it.

"What do you suppose that is over there?" said Bobby. "I wish it was buried treasure. I never found any buried treasure."

"Maybe it is Indians," Meg suggested a little fearfully.

"With a flag of truce?" said Jud, understanding at once. "Well, Meg, I don't believe we have any Indians around here."

He made a dive for Dot and saved her from slipping, but she wasn't a bit grateful.

"I almost caught a crab," she sputtered.

Before Bobby could tell her that crabs didn't live in brooks, they had reached the piece of swamp land and all four children rushed for the fluttering bit of white which had attracted Bobby's attention.

"Why, it's a shirt!" said Twaddles in great disappointment.

Whatever he had expected to see, it certainly wasn't a shirt and he felt cheated. Jud had to laugh at the queer expression on his face.

Meg, however, did not laugh. She was eyeing the shirt closely and Jud saw that she had something on her mind. Perhaps Meg was his favorite among the children, if he had a favorite. He had once told Linda that Meg was a "regular little woman" and indeed, quiet as she was, she often saw things that other people did not notice.

"Jud," she said now, "that shirt hasn't any buttons on it and the pocket is ripped. And Linda brought her sewing basket."

Bobby looked at his little sister as though he thought she was losing her mind.

"What's a sewing basket got to do with it?" he demanded.

"It needs mending," said Meg soberly. "Maybe the man who washed it hasn't any needle and thread."

The twins declared that everyone had needle and thread, but Jud rather spoiled their argument by announcing that he had none.

"I can't sew, so what good would needle and thread do me?" he asked them.

Meg, forgetting the shirt for a moment, asked him what he did when buttons came off his clothes.

"My mother sews them on again," said Jud, "and Mother darns my socks and Mother mends the rips I get in my coats."

"There, you see!" Meg cried triumphantly. "This man hasn't any mother to sew buttons on him."

"On his shirt, you mean," giggled Dot.

"Well, maybe he hasn't," Bobby admitted. "I don't suppose he has, or he wouldn't have to do his own washing. But Linda's basket is on the other side of the brook."

"I'm going to take the shirt over to her and ask her to mend it," announced Meg. "I know she will. Then I'll bring it back and hang it on the bush and won't he be surprised!"

Jud chuckled.

"He'll be more surprised if he comes along and his shirt is missing," he laughed. "Why, he'll think the birds made way with it."

This was a new problem for Meg and she thought about it for several minutes.

"Dot and Twaddles can stay here," she decided, "and if the man comes, they can tell him that I will bring his shirt back as soon as it is mended."

But the twins did not take kindly to the idea of being left alone. They said they were going back when Jud went.

"Then you take the shirt, and I'll stay," said Meg, who seldom gave up a plan, once she had made it. "Please ask Linda to put the buttons on and mend the pocket and then you bring it right back."

Jud looked doubtful at the thought of leaving Meg, even when Bobby declared he would stay with her.

"I have to go, for the children can't get back alone," he said, "but you mustn't go away from here: I want to be able to find you when I bring the laundry home."

Bobby and Meg laughed and promised to stay close to the bush. Meg folded up the shirt and stuffed it in Jud's pocket, because she said Dot would drop it in the water if she tried to carry it and Twaddles would want to play with it and might get it dirty. Then Meg and Bobby watched the three wade back and when they reached the opposite bank, they waved to them.

Though Jud had said they could not land, there was a narrow strip of ground firm enough to hold them and it was on this the bush grew where the unknown man had hung his washing.

"I don't see any house for him to live in," said Bobby curiously.

"Maybe he lives in a tent," Meg answered absently, trying to see across the brook to the tree where she knew Linda was sitting.

"Let's walk down a little way," suggested Bobby. "We'll come right back: Jud didn't say we couldn't go wading. He only said to be here when he came. Maybe we'll find the man's house."

Meg was willing enough, for she was no more fond of sitting still than Bobby was. Holding hands, they began cautiously to wade down stream.

The water rushed more swiftly than they actually liked, but neither would say so. Instead they slipped over the stones and tried to walk as fast as the water, and presently Meg had to stop to get her breath.

"I hear a kitty crying," she said the next minute. "Listen, Bobby—don't you hear a cat?"

But as noises often do, as soon as Bobby listened intently, the noise stopped. He couldn't hear a thing and said so.

"There! Now don't you hear it?" cried Meg. "It's a little kitty and it must be lost. Oh, Bobby, we have to find it!"

Bobby could hear the kitten mewing now and he was as eager to find it as Meg was. But how could a kitten be in the brook?

"It's back there!" Meg said, waving her hand toward the marshy land. "Maybe, if we call it, it will come."

And together they called, "Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!" but the little faint "Meow" sounded just the same.

"Well, I'll have to hunt for it," declared Bobby, looking at the wet and soggy ground rather regretfully. "I hope there aren't any snakes in there," he added gloomily.

Meg had a horror of snakes and she didn't want her dearly loved brother to go where they might be. Neither could she go away and leave the kitten. So, like the brave and affectionate little girl she was, she said she was going with Bobby.

They hoped with all their hearts they wouldn't see a snake and they didn't know what they would do if they did, but they had no intention of leaving that forlorn kitty cat to its own fate. And, as sometimes happens, it turned out that they did not have to go where they dreaded to go at all.

"I see it!" cried Meg suddenly, her sharp eyes having searched the bank near them, where it jutted out into the water. "Look, Bobby, in that crooked tree, hanging out over the brook."

Bobby looked. At the very tip end of the longest branch, there clung a tiny ball of dirty white which must be the kitten.

"Scared to death," commented Bobby. "I don't see how we can get it down: the more I shake the tree, the harder it will dig its claws in. That's the way cats do."

But Meg was ready with a plan.

"You climb up the tree," she told Bobby, "and I'll stand underneath and hold my skirts out; you can pull the cat off and drop it down into my lap."

That was easier said than done, as they both discovered the next minute. For one thing, the water sucked past the tree in a current that forced Meg to brace her feet wide apart to keep her balance. And when Bobby had climbed the tree, he found the limb wasn't strong enough to bear his weight and he couldn't crawl out to the cat.

"If I had a pole, I could push her off," he shouted to Meg.

"Bend it down," she called. "Bend the branch down and I'll pick her off, Bobby."

And, after one or two unsuccessful attempts to bend the branch down, that was just what they did do. Bobby managed to bend it within arm's reach of Meg, who detached the little cat much as you pick a caterpillar off a leaf. Though the cat stuck tighter to the branch than any caterpillar was ever known to do.

"You're all right," said Meg soothingly, putting the kitten in her dress and gathering it up like a bag. "Soon as you get home, you can have something to eat and you'll feel much better."

It was hard work, wading against the current, but they helped each other and by good luck reached the bush, just as they saw Jud starting out from the other side. Dot and Twaddles danced impatiently on the bank, but he had evidently told them to stay there, for they did not follow him.

"Jud! Jud!" called Bobby and Meg, beginning to do a dance of their own. "You don't know what we found, Jud!"

"If I was you, I'd wait to do my prancing on, dry ground," Jud advised them as he waded across. "It's safer and drier."

"Did Linda do the shirt? Is it mended?" Meg asked eagerly, when Jud was within easy talking distance.

"Mended tip-top," announced Jud. "Buttons all on, pocket sewed back, rip between the shoulders all fixed. Never saw a neater job."

"Linda is good as she can be," Meg said gratefully, holding her skirts with one hand and reaching for the shirt with the other. "Let's spread it out just the way we found it."

They draped the shirt as Meg insisted she remembered seeing it, Jud all the while staring curiously at the little girl.

"What are you holding in your skirt?" he asked when she gave him her free hand and they were ready to cross the brook.

"It's a surprise," Meg said mysteriously. "I want to surprise Dot and Twaddles. You'll never be able to guess what it is, either, Jud."

And just as she said that, her foot slipped.



CHAPTER XVI

THE NEW CAT

Meg could not fall flat, for Jud had hold of her hand, but she did drop her carefully held skirt. There was a splash, a startled "Meow!" and a shriek from Meg.

"Don't let it drown!" she cried. "Jud, catch it, quick!"

If Meg had planned to surprise the twins, she could not have managed better. They couldn't quite see what was going on, but they knew that something had happened.

"What is it?" they called. "Can we come in, Jud, can't we come see?"

Jud made a quick scoop with his hand and brought out the miserable, clawing, spitting little kitten.

"You stay where you are!" he ordered the twins. "Say, where'll I put this?" he asked helplessly, turning to Meg.

She held up her skirt again and he dropped the kitten in it, since that seemed to be the only place, and as Meg afterward said she was "a little damp" from the cat's splash and more water wouldn't hurt.

Then Jud took hold of Meg's hand more firmly and Bobby's, too, and they managed to reach the opposite bank without any more mishaps.

"What is it? What is it?" Dot and Twaddles begged, running up and down madly. "Did you find something, Meg? Did you see the buttons on the shirt? Did the man come and ask you who took it?"

"We didn't see anybody," said Bobby, who felt it was his duty to answer this flood of questions. "I don't believe the man lives very near, because we didn't see any house. But Meg found something."

By this time Aunt Polly and Linda had come down to the brook, to see what was making the twins more excited than usual.

"Meg found something!" Dot told Aunt Polly.

"Did you, dear?" asked Aunt Polly, smiling. "Don't tell me it is another shirt, Meg."

Meg stepped back and faced the group dramatically.

"It's a cat!" she said, and held her "find" up for them to see.

To her amazement, Linda and Jud went off into fits of laughter and even Aunt Polly seemed to be trying not to smile.

"I don't see anything funny," Meg announced stiffly. "It's a poor little almost dead cat. Bobby and I found it down the brook, hanging on a tree and afraid to climb off."

"Why, the poor little thing!" said Aunt Polly with ready sympathy. "We must take it home and feed it, Meg."

"I'm only laughing," Linda explained, wiping her eyes, "because it is such a distressed-looking cat, Meg. It's so dirty and so little and so—so mad!" she finished as the cat humped up its back and spit at Twaddles who tried to stroke it.

"Stray kittens don't make friends very readily," said kind Aunt Polly. "They think everyone is their enemy, till proved otherwise. We must teach your kitten, Meg, that at Brookside Farm we like kitty cats."

"Where do you suppose it came from?" Bobby asked.

"Oh, some one had more cats than they wanted, so they turned it loose, down by the brook," said Jud. "It's a mean trick and if I ever caught a person doing it, I wouldn't waste a second giving him a piece of my mind."

Meg stared at the forlorn white kitten gravely.

"You don't suppose it belongs to the man who washed the shirt, do you?" she suggested earnestly.

Linda laughed. She was busily wrapping up the cat in tissue paper—of all things!—because she happened to have a big wad of it in her basket.

"There!" she said, handing the astonished kitten to Meg. "I can't bear to have dirty things around me—you carry her like that and as soon as we get home I'll wash her. If the cat did belong to the man whose shirt I mended, I suppose you'd feel like going back and cutting the buttons off, eh, Meg?"

Meg blushed a little.

"No-o, I wouldn't do that," she replied slowly, "but next time I wouldn't bother."

However, Jud said that he didn't think a man who had to wash his clothes in the brook and dry them on a bush had any cats.

"What are you going to call your find, Meg?" asked Jud when they were riding home at half-past four, Peter eating his sandwiches gratefully.

"Shirt," Meg answered placidly. "What are you laughing at? It's white, like the shirt we found, and if it hadn't been for the shirt we wouldn't have found the kitten at all and it might have fallen into the water and been drowned."

And in spite of some teasing and much joking, Meg continued to call the stray kitten "Shirt." True to her word, Linda washed the little creature and when its fur dried it proved to be very pretty, soft and silky. The kitty had blue eyes and by the time it was a full-grown cat, Aunt Polly was immensely proud of it.

For Shirt lived at Brookside Farm and did not go with the four little Blossoms when they went home to Oak Hill. Aunt Polly said Poots would miss him and that cats didn't like to change their homes, anyway, and Meg knew this to be true. And every year, at Christmas time, Meg remembered to send Shirt a Christmas present and when she came to visit Aunt Polly, he always seemed to know her.

The week of rain which Aunt Polly had predicted and which had led her to hasten the picnic, arrived two or three days after the adventure in the brook. The exceedingly practical Meg remarked at the breakfast table, the first rainy morning, that she didn't care if it did rain—Shirt was safe in a dry place and the man had had plenty of time to get his wash dry and take it in off the bush.

"I wonder what he said when he saw the buttons," speculated Dot.

But this was one question that never received an answer, for the children never saw the man who owned the shirt and they never heard whether he was pleased to find his mending done or not.

"Maybe he thought the birds did it for him," said Twaddles helpfully and was delighted when Jud told him that there was a bird called the tailor bird.

"Then he did it," Twaddles declared, and when Dot pointed out that they had seen Linda doing the work, Twaddles explained that he meant the man would think the tailor bird had done it.

It was talk like this between the twins that made Jud say it gave him a headache if he listened too long.

"We haven't had a rain like this in a long time," said Aunt Polly, glancing out of the dining-room window at the dripping leaves.

"Not since we lost the raft," Bobby reminded her.

"I wonder if we'll ever find that," said Meg for the fortieth time.

"If I were you," Aunt Polly announced briskly, "I'd think up the nicest thing to do for a rainy day and have just as much fun as I could."

"Let's go out in the barn," suggested Twaddles.

"We could see what Jud is doing," Dot chimed in.

"He's mending the corn shelter," said Bobby, who usually knew what was going on at the farm.

"I think it would be fun to play lighthouse in the barn and take our lunch and stay all day," Meg declared, having thought of this while the others were talking.

None of them knew what the lighthouse game might be, but it sounded new and exciting. Aunt Polly said she didn't see why they couldn't have a picnic in the barn as well as outdoors and she promised to help Linda put up a lunch for them.

"Only remember not to bother Jud, if he is busy," she cautioned them.

The four little Blossoms knew how to run "between the drops" and as soon as their lunch was packed, they kissed Aunt Polly and started for the barn at breakneck speed. Flushed and breathless and hardly wet at all, they burst into the barn and told Jud, who was busy on the main floor, that they were going to have another picnic.

"You do manage to have a good time, all right," he said approvingly. "Where are you going to play?"

They looked at Meg. It was her game and she was the only one who knew the best place to go.

"We have to play in the loft," directed Meg. "We're going to live in a lighthouse, Jud, and pull things up and down."

Jud did not understand at first and when she told him, he said that lighthouse keepers did not live at the top of the lighthouse and pull things up, but instead they lived in a neat little house built on the ground, like other houses, and climbed the tall stairs to take care of the light.

"Well, I think it would be more fun to live up high," said Meg, and Jud said that was the best of a "pretend" play. You could do it to suit yourself.

The four children scrambled up the loft ladder—practice had made this once difficult feat easy for them—and for a half hour jumped about in the clean, sweet hay, forgetting their game. The smooth, slippery hay, piled in such masses, never failed to fascinate them.

"Now let's play lighthouse," suggested Meg, when Twaddles had come down rather hard on his nose and was trying not to cry. "First thing we need is a basket and rope."

They found a basket Jud said they might take and he got a piece of rope for them. Then they argued about staying down on the floor of the barn to put things in the basket for, of course, each one wanted to pull the basket up; that was the interesting part.

"Take turns," Bobby advised. "I'll stay down first, and let Meg pull up first, because she thought of this game."

So Meg ran up the ladder and Bobby put in the lunch box and she pulled and tugged and at last succeeded in pulling the basket up to the loft.



CHAPTER XVII

RAINY DAY FUN

"I'll bury it in the hay, before Twaddles comes up," said Meg to herself. "He always wants to eat everything up right away."

She peeped over the edge of the haymow and saw the twins, one on either side of Bobby, staring up. They looked funny, for their mouths were open and Meg giggled a little.

"Send the basket back," Twaddles called. "We want to put something in it."

"All right—wait a minute," answered Meg.

She ran back and hastily stuffed the lunch box under the hay, pulling a pile over it so that it did not show at all. Then she rushed to the edge of the mow, but she was in such haste not to keep the others waiting that she dropped the basket, rope and all.

It rapped Dot on the head and she looked astonished.

"I don't see why you threw it at me," she said resentfully.

"I didn't," Meg explained. "I forgot to hold the rope. Shall I come down and get it?"

"Twaddles will bring you the rope," said Bobby. "Soon as I put something in the basket. Let's see, what shall we put in next?"

"There's Poots," Dot suggested, pointing to the cat who had followed them.

"I don't think she'll like it," objected Meg, but Bobby was eager to send the cat aloft and he and Twaddles together managed to stuff her in the basket.

Bobby held her there while Twaddles took one end of the rope in his hand and scrambled up the ladder to the waiting Meg.

"Where did you put the lunch?" he asked as soon as he reached the loft.

"I put it away," Meg assured him. "Are you going to help me pull the basket up, Twaddles?"

Twaddles was eager to help and he forgot the lunch. He stood back of Meg and they both began to pull. Poots meowed sadly as she felt herself rising and Bobby and Dot shouted to the pullers to "hurry up."

"Poots will jump out in a minute," warned Bobby.

Twaddles' foot slipped on the soft hay and he went down, slackening his hold on the rope as he fell. Meg turned to see what had happened to him, let the rope sag, and the basket fell a foot or two with sickening speed.

This was too much for any self-respecting cat and with a wild snarl Poots leaped clear over the heads of Bobby and Dot. The angry cat landed on his feet on the barn floor ten feet away, and dashed out into the rain. Getting his fur coat soaking wet was preferable to being hoisted about in a basket, he seemed to say.

"What did you do to Poots?" called Jud. "When he went out of that door, his tail was two feet around!"

"We were only playing with him," Bobby said. "But maybe he didn't like it much."

"If you have time to play with the cat, you have time to help me," declared Jud. "Don't you and Meg want to come and help me see if this sheller is going to work?"

Bobby and Meg loved to help Jud and they left their game cheerfully, to go to the corncrib. It was attached to the other end of the barn, so they didn't have to go out in the rain. Jud wanted to watch the machinery he had mended and he asked Meg to turn the crank and Bobby to feed in the ears of corn. They were never allowed to touch the sheller unless some older person was around, for little fingers could get easily nipped in the cog wheels. So they were rather proud to be especially asked to help Jud make it work.

"I thought the twins were coming," said Jud, absently, bending down to tighten a screw.

"They must have stayed to play with the basket," Meg replied.

And that was just what the twins were doing, playing with the basket.

"You put something in it and let me pull it up," commanded Dot.

"I haven't anything to put in it," Twaddles offered. "The cat's gone."

"Well you don't have to have a cat," said Dot impatiently. "I know what we can get—eggs!"

There were always two or three hens that persisted in stealing their nests and the twins had a fair idea of where these stolen nests were in the barn. They often found the eggs and took them in to Linda.

Now, after a few minutes' search, they found seven eggs and put them in the basket with great glee.

"Let me pull it up after you do?" asked Twaddles as Dot climbed up the ladder.

"Well—perhaps," she replied carefully. "I might want to pull it up more than once myself."

She began to pull on the rope and the basket dangled in the air. Whether the sound of voices made Dot nervous, or whether the basket was heavier than she had expected, it is hard to say. But just as Jud and Bobby and Meg came out on the barn floor, Dot let that basket fall.

"Good grief!" exclaimed Jud.

Twaddles seemed glued to one spot and the basket crashed down almost under his nose. The eggs broke and some splashed up and sprayed him, but most of the contents ran out on the floor in a bright yellow stream.

"You took eggs!" Meg said accusingly.

"Well, nobody said not to," answered Dot in a rather frightened voice, peering over the edge of the loft.

"All right, I'll say it now," Jud proclaimed. "After this, it is against the rules to put anything in the basket which will break. Remember that. And now, let me see if I can wipe you off, Twaddles."

Jud found a cloth and mopped the egg off Twaddles—fortunately not much had reached him—and then Dot suggested that they do something else.

"We could eat," Twaddles said placidly, which made Jud laugh.

"I'm going to start feeding the stock, so perhaps it isn't too early for you to have lunch," he said. "That is one sure way to keep the twins quiet, Meg."

Dot called after him that she hadn't said anything about eating, but Jud didn't hear her. He was already measuring out corn for the horses.

"Where is the lunch?" asked Bobby, who began to feel hungry himself.

"I know—I'll get it," Meg replied, and ran up the ladder.

She felt around in the hay where she had buried the box, but she couldn't find it. The other children came up and watched her curiously, but still she couldn't feel anything like a box.

"What are you looking for?" said Dot curiously.

"For our lunch," Meg told her, almost ready to cry. "I put it under the hay and now I can't find it."

Bobby and the twins hastily got down beside her and tossed the hay around. They looked where Meg said she put the box and they looked where she was sure it couldn't be, but all that happened was that they got very warm and tired indeed and not one sign of the lunch did they uncover.

"Do you know what I think?" said Twaddles wisely. "I think some rat found it and ate it. I've seen rats up here in the loft, lots of times."

Meg glanced around hastily. She wasn't at all anxious to see a rat.

"Rats couldn't eat the box and everything in it," Bobby argued. "They would leave pieces of paper and things that we would see."

"Then where is the box?" demanded Dot.

Bobby sat down to think and Meg waited respectfully.

"We'll have to get a pitchfork and turn over all the hay," Bobby decided. "That's the only way to find the box: it's lost in all this hay."

He was willing to go and get the pitchfork, but he was gone several minutes. When he came back, Jud was with him.

"Pitchforks and Twaddles won't mix," declared Jud firmly. "We'll have to manage some other way. Show me where you hid the box, Meg."

Meg showed him, as nearly as she could remember. Jud knelt down and felt under the hay, while the children stared at him as though they expected him to work some kind of magic.

"I think I can find it," he announced. "You all sit down and close your eyes tightly and don't open them till I give the word."

So they sat down on the floor and Dot put her head in Meg's lap, for it was hard for her to keep her eyes closed. She always wanted to see what was going on.

Meg counted to ninety-eight before she heard Jud cry, "All right!"

The four little Blossoms opened their eyes and there stood Jud, the lunch box in his hand. He was smiling.

"How did you find it?" asked Meg. "Was it under the hay?"

"On top," said Jud mysteriously. "You see, Meg, the box fell through the slats and landed on top of a ration of hay in one of the stalls. All I had to do was to go downstairs and get it."

Linda had packed the box so neatly and so firmly that nothing was damaged and the children had a delightful picnic up in the loft. They played there most of the afternoon, too, and often during the rainy days that followed. Indeed they amused themselves so well and were so little trouble to Aunt Polly, that she promised them one more outdoor picnic, the first dry sunny day that came.

"Be sure you save me some sandwiches," said Peter, when he heard about it.

They promised and it was Dot who woke up the household bright and early when she saw the sun streaming in at the window.

"We can have the picnic!" she shouted joyfully. "Aunt Polly, isn't it dry and sunny? Get up, Twaddles, we can have the picnic."

It was a sunny day, but it wasn't so dry, for the ground was still damp from so much rain.

"But if we go wading, the water's wet," argued Dot, and Linda, too, thought they might as well go.

"Don't forget my sandwiches," Peter reminded them as he saw them start.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE END OF THE VACATION

The four little Blossoms wanted to go to the same place where they had gone before and Jud drove them. Then he was to take the horses and wagon back for his father to use during the day and Peter would come for the picnickers in the afternoon and get his sandwiches.

"Don't go wading till Jud comes," said Aunt Polly, when good-natured Jud had gone back. "Help Linda spread out the rubber blanket, for we want to be comfortable while you play around."

The children spread out the blanket and on top of that Aunt Polly spread a cotton one and then she and Linda sat down to sew.

"Let's go see if there is another shirt spread out to dry," suggested Meg, and she was much excited when they saw a bit of white fluttering from a bush.

"'Tisn't the same place," Dot argued.

"Well, it's almost the same place," retorted Bobby. "Only it looks ragged," he added.

Meg was eager to go and examine the white thing, but she knew they would have to wait for Jud. Aunt Polly laughed when she heard about it and said that Meg would have Linda running a mending shop if she was not very careful.

"After we have lunch, if Jud is willing to take you, you may go over and see what it is," she told her little niece kindly. "You'd have every one nicely washed and mended if you could, wouldn't you, Meg?"

Jud came back on foot and after he had rested a minute, declared he was willing to wade the brook with the children. But Aunt Polly insisted they must have lunch first and of course no one wanted to miss that. As soon as the last crumb was gone, however, the children began to tease and Jud said they might as well go. He had laughed at the idea of another shirt, but half way across the stream he seemed to change his mind.

"Guess somebody lost his shirt," observed Jud, keeping a firm grip on Dot, who seemed to be trying to dance.

"Say, wouldn't it be funny," began Bobby, but Meg had the same idea at the same time.

"Do you suppose it could——" she said slowly.

"It's the raft!" yelled Twaddles, breaking away from Jud, and rushing into the bushes. "It's our raft—Oh, Jud!" Twaddles had stepped on a sharp stone.

"I wish you'd be a little more careful," said Jud calmly. "Well, it is the raft! Can you beat that?"

Tangled in broken reeds and a few prickly bushes, lay their raft, Geraldine smiling as sweetly as ever and still propped up against Meg's book. Nothing was missing, not even Twaddles' singing bird or Bobby's airplane.

"I'm so glad!" Meg kept saying. "I'm so glad! Now let's go home and play with them."

"It's lucky we've had this long, dry spell," said Jud, picking up Geraldine and eyeing her critically. "If we'd had one good storm, good-by toys."

Dot tucked Geraldine under her arm, Twaddles stuffed his bird into his pocket, Meg took her book and Bobby his airplane, and Jud offered to tow the raft. So slowly and carefully they made their way back to where Jud had left his socks and shoes.

Aunt Polly and Linda were surprised and delighted when they saw the children coming, for they had begun to wonder what they could be doing.

"You don't mean to tell me you found the raft!" exclaimed Aunt Polly, when she heard the news. "Why, that's the best luck I ever heard of."

And Linda said "My goodness!" over and over, and wanted to know just where they had found it and who saw it first and how they had managed to reach it.

"You've played enough in the water," said Aunt Polly, when each child had told the story. "Put on your shoes and stockings and see if you can't find me a maidenhair fern for my fern-box."

Meg found it first, and then Jud lent her his jack-knife and showed her how to take it up so that the roots would not be injured. Then he left her for a minute while he went back to get a paper cup from Linda to plant it in, and when he came back he found her backed up against a tree and looking frightened.

"What scared you?" he asked quickly. "Did you see a snake, Meg?"

"No," she whispered. "I don't know what it was. But it stared and stared at me, Jud."

"Well, where did you see it?" demanded Jud briskly. "Let me have a whack at it with this branch. Where'd you see it, Meg?"

"In the hole in this tree," answered Meg. "I was shaking more dirt off the fern when I looked up and there it was jiggling at me."

"Where?" asked Jud again, a bit impatiently. "I don't see any hole."

"I'm standing over it," said Meg, "so the thing can't get away."

Meg, you see, was frightened, but not too frightened to be interested and curious about a strange animal.

"I'm sure it's an animal, 'cause it moves," she told Jud, as she stood aside to let him look in the hole.

Jud put his hand in the hole—it was an old dead tree and hollow at the top—and drew out something soft and fluffy.

"Just as I thought," he chuckled. "It's a baby owl."

"Oh, how cunning," cried Meg, coming closer and venturing to put a finger on the bunch of feathers. "But what a funny face, Jud!"

Indeed the baby owl looked like a very young and foolish monkey as it sat in Jud's hands and rolled its head and stared aimlessly.

"He's pretty near blind," Jud explained. "In the daytime owls can hardly see at all. I suspect there's a nest in this old tree. Want to hold it for me while I feel?"

Meg was certainly not afraid of a baby owl, and she took it tenderly. Sure enough, Jud knew what he was talking about—he put his arm away into the tree trunk and brought out two more little owls.

Twaddles and Dot had come up by this time, and they were perfectly entranced with the queer little birds.

Jud carefully put the baby owls back. Then they planted the fern in the paper cup, found Bobby, who was trying to fish with a breadcrumb tied to a string, and told him about the owls, and then they heard the wagon coming for them.

"Have a good time?" asked Peter, as he helped them all in and the wagon started its noisy trip home. Peter was eating one of the sandwiches they had saved for him and looked very contented.

"Such a nice time," said the four little Blossoms.

"Was there any mail?" asked Aunt Polly.

"Just one letter," replied Peter.

But that was a very important letter, as the Blossoms found out when they were once more at home and Aunt Polly read it to them while Linda was getting supper.

"Mother's coming!" cried Bobby, meeting Jud on his way to the barn.

"That's fine," said Jud heartily. Then his face fell.

"But you don't want to go home yet!" he urged. "Vacation isn't over so soon, is it? There's lots we planned to do we haven't done."

"Mother's going to stay a week," said Bobby happily. "School doesn't open for two weeks, but we have to go home and get ready. Say, Jud, I didn't miss Mother—not such a lot, that is—but now I miss her dreadful much."

When Mother Blossom came she found all the children in the car with Aunt Polly to meet her. And the things they did during that one week, from another picnic to having all the new friends they had made at Brookside come to supper, including Mr. Sparks—well, Linda said there was more going on than there had been all through the summer, and Linda ought to have known!

"I s'pect Aunt Polly will miss us," said Twaddles the last morning of their visit, as Mother Blossom was buttoning Dot into a clean frock and Aunt Polly was on her knees locking the trunks.

"I s'pect I shall," said Aunt Polly, tears in her kind eyes.

This was too much for Twaddles.

"You come and stay at our house," he told her earnestly. "And you can come and visit school."

For the twins still insisted they were going to school.

Aunt Polly promised that she would come to see them some time during the winter and that she wouldn't cry any more but just remember the nice times they had had together that summer.

"And if you go to school, you'll learn to write, and then I shall look for letters," she said seriously.

So the four little Blossoms started home for Oak Hill and found a Daddy Blossom there very glad to see them, as well as Norah and Sam and Philip, who, as Meg observed, had "grown considerable." He wasn't lame any more, either.

And if you want to read about what Meg and Bobby did in school, and how the twins contrived to go to school, too, in spite of the fact that they were only four years old, you must read the next book about them which is called "Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School."

"Oh, but it's been a perfectly lovely summer, hasn't it?" said Meg, while she was helping unpack her things.

"Best ever," declared Bobby.

"And just think—we own a cow!" cried Dot.

"And maybe—when she gets big—we can milk her," added Twaddles. "Oh, I like the country—I do."

"Let's all buy a farm when we grow up," suggested Bobby.

"Let's!" all the others cried in chorus.

THE END