OVER THE CROSS ROAD
Philip could be heard barking madly in the garage and Meg volunteered
to go and let him out. The others were too much absorbed in the horse
and sleigh to offer to release the dog.
"What's the name of the horse?" asked Dot.
"I forgot to inquire," Sam answered. "So you may call him anything you
like. He lives at the livery stable and you might name him after his
master, Walter Rock. Call him Walt for short, you know."
Philip, dancing and barking, came running over the snowy lawn and Meg
raced after him.
"The horse's name is Walt," Dot informed her importantly. "I think he
looks kind, don't you, Meg?"
"Of course he is a kind horse," said Meg. "He's a pretty color, too."
Walt was a spotted horse, brown and white, not a polka-dot horse, of
course, but with what Meg called a "pattern" of oddly shaped slashes of
white on his brown coat.
"He must be a foulard horse," Meg commented as the children climbed
into the soft clean straw which filled the box of the sleigh.
Sam shouted with laughter and Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly and Norah,
who were all standing in the doorway to see them start, called out to
ask what the joke was about.
"Tell you when we come back," shouted Sam, taking up the reins. "All
set back there? Then here we go, jingle bells!"
The horse set off at a trot and the four little Blossoms grinned at
each other delightedly. There were plenty of warm blankets in the
sleigh and the livery stable man had put in a fur lap robe that made
Twaddles think of a big black bear. None of the children had gone
driving in a sleigh very often, for Father Blossom used his car
practically all winter and kept no horses. Aunt Polly had horses and
for all the children knew she might have a sleigh, though they had
never seen one in the barn; but when they visited Aunt Polly at
Brookside Farm, it was summer and snow was the one thing furthest from
their thoughts.
"Meg," said Sam soberly as they left Oak Hill and turned into a country
road, "this kind of a horse is called a calico horse. I thought you'd
like to know."
"Well, foulard is something like calico--I mean the pattern is," Meg
replied. "I like calico horses."
"I wish I'd brought the sled," said Bobby. "We could tie on behind and
ride on it."
"It's more fun this way," Meg insisted, being a little girl who didn't
always want something she didn't have. "Do you like to drive a sleigh,
Sam?"
"Sure," said Sam over his shoulder. "Always did. When I was a boy and
lived in the country, we had a real old-fashioned sleigh, with red
cushions in it and everything. We used to drive down the river on the
ice then--that was sport, let me tell you."
"Let us drive on the river," said the four little Blossoms with one
voice.
"That's nothing but a creek, where you go to skate," Sam answered a
little scornfully. "This river I'm talking about was a real
river--wide and deep; boats came up it in summer time. We lived two or
three hundred miles north of here and it was three times as cold."
"Well, it's cold enough now," said Dot wisely. "Isn't it, Meg?"
"Yes," Meg agreed absently, "but look how pretty it is--I think snow is
lovely. And the bells sound so pretty, too. Here comes another
sleigh."
The children stood up to look, holding on to the back of the seat, to
steady themselves. Coming toward them were two horses, harnessed to a
sleigh much like the one Sam was driving--a light box set on two sets
of runners.
"From the creamery," said Sam, as his quick eyes saw the heavy milk
cans.
The man driving the sleigh called "Howdy!" and shook his whip at them
and Dot gasped and held on to Meg as Sam turned out for the other team.
The road was fairly well trampled in the center, but when it became
necessary for two vehicles to pass, they had to turn into the drifts.
The four little Blossoms felt their sleigh tilt alarmingly, but before
they had time to be frightened they were back on the level road again.
"Do--do sleighs ever tip over?" asked Dot anxiously.
"Oh, sometimes," Sam said cheerfully. "But if you are going to be
turned over in anything, Dot, always pick out a sleigh for the
accident; a motor car can pin you down and a railroad wreck is serious,
but when a sleigh turns over, you just slip out into the snow and
there's nothing to hurt you."
This sounded comforting, but the children agreed that they would rather
not be tipped over.
"I think we'll take this cross road over," said Sam, when they came to
a place where four roads met. "It may be a bit harder going and more
drifts to get through, but we'll save time at that."
"We don't have to save time, do we?" Bobby put in. "We're always
saving time, Sam--at least you are. And I think it would be fun to
drive as much as we want to, just once."
Sam laughed good-naturedly as he turned the horse into the road he had
chosen.
"You'd like a good time to last as long as possible, wouldn't you,
Bobby?" he said. "Well, with all the short cuts and all the time
saving I can do, we won't be home before dark; does that suit you?"
That suited Bobby exactly and he began to whistle.
"Say," Twaddles cried, interrupting the whistling suddenly. "Say, Sam,
I want to get out."
"You do? Why?" asked Sam, without turning his head.
"I saw a glove back there in the road," Twaddles announced. "A nice
glove, Sam, that somebody lost."
Sam said "Whoa!" to the horse and turned to look at Twaddles.
"How far back--a mile?" he asked suspiciously.
"Just a little way," Twaddles replied earnestly. "I want to go get it,
Sam. Please. It's a good glove."
"I suppose it is a worn-out mitten, but this is your trip, partly,"
said Sam, who was kindness itself and usually did all he could to make
the four little Blossoms happy. "So run along, but if you're not back
in an hour I am going on without you."
Twaddles laughed and Bobby helped him down. They watched him running
down the road, a small, sturdy figure, dark against all that whiteness.
"He's got it!" cried Dot, as Twaddles stooped and picked something up.
"Twaddles sees everything!"
Her twin did not run all the way back, because he couldn't. It was
hard going in the snow and his feet slipped. Besides, he was almost
out of breath.
"It's a good glove," the others heard him saying as he came within
speaking distance. "It's a very good glove and somebody lost it."
Bobby and Meg pulled him back into the sleigh and he held out the glove
for them to see. Sam Layton whistled in surprise when he examined it.
"Well, Twaddles, you were right and I was wrong," he said. "This is a
good glove; it's fur lined and almost new. Somebody is out of
luck--one glove is about as useless as one shoe lace."
"Maybe we'll find the man," Twaddles declared placidly.
"You believe in luck, don't you?" said Sam, starting the horse on his
way again. "That glove must have been dropped from some wagon or car
and probably last night. I think we're the first folks through here
to-day."
Bobby wanted to know how Sam could tell and when it was pointed out to
him that there were no tracks through the snow, he understood at once.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we found the other glove?" Dot suggested
suddenly.
She had been very still and thoughtful and this was what she had been
thinking.
Sam laughed and said that no one was ever as lucky as that.
"Daddy could wear them," Dot went on. "But maybe they wouldn't be the
right size."
Walter, the horse, was walking now and the bells did not jingle. The
road was drifted with snow and it was all even a very willing horse
could do, to pull a sleigh through them.
It was Bobby's sharp eyes that first spied something square and dark
ahead.
"There's a car!" he cried. "And I'll bet it's stuck!"
The horse pricked up his ears and stared steadily, while Sam gave a low
whistle.
"Must have been there all night," he said. "There are no tracks
through here. I suppose some one gave up the attempt and walked."
When they came up with the car, they found that no one was in it. It
was a small closed car and it was stuck in the drifts as Bobby had
guessed.
"I'll bet the glove belongs to the man who owns the car," said Meg.
"Your mother doesn't like you to say 'I'll bet,'" Sam reminded her.
"But perhaps the driver did drop the glove. I'll bet he's wondering
where he lost it."
The children shouted with laughter and Sam looked bewildered. Bobby
explained to him they were laughing because he said "I'll bet."
"Well you see, you set me a bad example," said Sam good-naturedly.
"You'd better be more careful."
"Why don't we tow the car along with us?" Bobby suggested.
"One reason, we haven't a rope and another reason, Walt has all he can
do to tow us and still another reason is that we don't want to be
accused of making off with a stranger's car," said Sam, and stopped for
breath.
"Well, anyway, there's a sled--we can take that, can't we?" said Dot
placidly.