APPLE TREE ISLAND
"Now tell us, Daddy," begged Dot when, supper over, they were
gathered about the fireplace in the living room. "Tell us, 'fore
Twaddles and I have to go to bed."
"It isn't such a long story," began Father Blossom. "You can hear
it all before you have to go to bed. I don't know whether Mother
has told you, but when Bobby was a baby we spent a summer on Apple
Tree Island."
"It's funny I don't seem to remember much about it," remarked
Bobby anxiously.
"Well, old man, not so funny considering that you were about eight
months old," returned his father with a smile. "We rented a rather
pretty cottage very near the spot where Mr. Winthrop, a year or so
later, built his bungalow. Your mother started off for a walk one
day with Bobby, and she walked too far; he was heavy for a baby,
and she should never have tried to carry him. But she did, and she
walked as far as the other end of the island before her strength
gave out. Then what do you suppose she did, Meg?"
Meg looked serious.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe she cried?"
"Mothers don't cry," said Twaddles in fine scorn. "Do they,
Daddy?"
"I cried," confessed Mother Blossom, smiling at the astonished
Twaddles. "I'll never forget how I felt--so far from home and with
a heavy, fretting baby in my arms. I just sat down on a rock and
cried. And Bobby cried with me."
The four little Blossoms were too amazed to speak. To think of
Mother crying!
"Pretty soon some one came along the road," Father Blossom went on
with the story, "and, of course, they saw Mother and Bobby crying.
This some one was a woman in a gray wrapper, pushing a baby
carriage in which were two little children and a great many
packages. The children were two boys about three and four years
old, and the woman was their mother. She said her name was Mrs.
Harley and that she lived about a quarter of a mile further on.
She was very good indeed to Mother--made her little boys get out
and walk and put Bobby in with the bundles. Then she helped Mother
as far as her house, gave her hot tea and some bread and butter,
and kept her until Mr. Harley came home. He had a rickety old
buggy and a shabby horse and he harnessed up and brought Mother
and Bobby home in great style."
"That was nice," said Meg with satisfaction. "Can we go and see
Mrs. Harley when we get to Apple Tree Island?"
"There is no Mrs. Harley there now," answered Father Blossom
almost sadly. "She came to see Mother several times that summer.
Mr. Harley was shiftless and easy going, but extremely fond of his
family. They lived in a shack, but they loved each other devotedly
and that, you know, is much better than having a fine house. Well,
Mother never went to Apple Tree Island again--you youngsters kept
her too busy. But I went nearly every year because I've always had
to look after some property there for an invalid friend of Aunt
Polly's. I never went that I didn't see the Harleys and carry them
some message or gift from Mother. Four years ago Mrs. Harley met
me with the news that her husband had disappeared."
"Was he drowned?" asked Twaddles fearfully.
"No, no one thought so," answered Father Blossom. "Mrs. Harley
said that he had been acting queerly all that Winter--that he
would go for days without speaking, and then fly into a rage if
any one asked him a question." "He was always so good to his
family," said Mother Blossom, smoothing Meg's hair absently. "He
must have been out of his mind, Ralph."
"I think so myself," agreed Father Blossom. "Anyway, Mrs. Harley
told me that one morning, a wet, cold day in March, he got up
before it was light, lit a fire in the kitchen stove and went out
of the house. They never saw him again. He had a rowboat and this
they found abandoned on the south shore of Sunset Lake, showing
that he must have rowed over to the mainland.
"The next summer, when I went to Apple Tree Island, I was told
that Mrs. Harley and the children had also disappeared," continued
Father Blossom. "She had gone, leaving no trace, and taking the
two little boys with her. I went to see the shack and she had left
it as neat as wax inside and not one scrap of paper anywhere to
give a clue as to what she intended to do."
"Polly saw her after that," Mother Blossom reminded him.
"Yes, that's so, she did," agreed Father Blossom. "She stopped
there one afternoon and Aunt Polly tried to keep her over night;
but she was anxious to begin her journey and would not even stay
to supper."
The hall clock struck eight.
"Oh, dear," sighed Dot. "Just as things get exciting we always
have to go to bed!"
"That's the whole story!" announced Father Blossom, pulling her
down into his lap for a kiss. "There's no more to tell, chicken,
if you should stay up till midnight to listen. No one knows what
became of the Harley family, and I believe their shack is slowly
falling to pieces. I haven't been to the Island for two summers--not
since Mrs. Harley went off, in fact. And now don't let Mother
have to tell you twice what time it is if you want to be invited
to ride in the front seat with me on the trip to Aunt Polly's."
"Wouldn't you like to know where they went?" sleepily murmured
Dot, toiling upstairs after Mother Blossom and Twaddles. "Wouldn't
you, Mother?"
"Very much," said Mother Blossom promptly. "Mrs. Harley was so
kind to me, always, and we liked the whole family. I only hope she
had relatives who could help her with the children."
The next morning Miss Florence came with her needle and thread in
the little leather case she always carried, and Dot, in the
importance of being fitted for a new frock, quite forgot to envy
Meg and Bobby, who hurried to school.
Father Blossom came home from the foundry early that afternoon,
and when Dot and Twaddles heard him tinkering in the garage, they
ran out to see what he was doing.
"What's the little gate for, Daddy?" asked Twaddles.
"To keep the suitcases on the running board," explained Father
Blossom, busy attaching the "gate" to the car.
"Don't we take a trunk?" Dot wanted to know, managing to tip over
the box of screws.
"We'll ship those by express," explained Father Blossom. "Look
out, Dot, you'll step in that can of grease next. What's that
hanging from you--here, turn around and let me see."
Sure enough, a long strip of white muslin was streaming from under
Dot's petticoat.
"Dear me," exclaimed that small person in surprise, "I guess
that's the petticoat Miss Florence basted a ruffle on. I must have
forgotten to take it off."
"She's calling you now," announced Twaddles. "You go on in. I'll
stay and help Daddy."
"Well, do you know," said Father Blossom respectfully, "while I'm
very much obliged to you, I think there's nothing you can do for
me just at present. Can't you do something for Mother or Norah?"
"Norah's ironing," Twaddles answered disconsolately. "She says I
make her nervous when she's ironing. And Mother is helping make
Dot a dress."
"I'll tell you," cried Father Blossom. "How would you like to do a
little packing for me? You would? That's fine. Down cellar you'll
find an old basket; you take that up to my room and put everything
you find in the lowest desk drawer into it. Then I'll carry it
down when I come in. The lowest drawer, remember. I've been
wanting to clear that out for a long, long time, and I mustn't go
away on a trip and leave that trash there."
"Dot! Dot!" called Norah. "Your mother says you should come right
away."
Dot scuttled for the house, and Twaddles, delighted with the idea
of helping his father, ran to find the basket. Dot was securely
pinned into her new frock when he came panting upstairs, and she
implored him to wait until she could help pack, too. Twaddles
generously consented, and Mother Blossom warned them not to touch
anything except the one desk drawer. They promised, and when Dot
had resumed her old dress, without the basted petticoat, they
earnestly set to work.
"What a lot of stuff!" exclaimed Dot, turning over a rusty bolt
curiously. "What's this for, Twaddles?"
"I don't know," said Twaddles. "Don't putter, Dot. Mother says the
way to get a job done is to work steadily."
Thus admonished, Dot put both her hands in and brought up a
quantity of old papers mixed with bits of string, little ends of
sealing wax and many other things she would have liked to stop and
examine if Twaddles had not been the foreman.
There was a good deal of dust and loose dirt in the drawer, which
had been waiting for Father Blossom to put in order for months,
and Twaddles, who was really a neat little workman, brought a
newspaper, after they had the drawer cleared out, and spread it on
the floor. Then he tipped the empty drawer over this and all the
dirt and dust was caught on the paper.
"Now that's done," he announced with satisfaction, folding up the
paper and stuffing it on top of the already full basket. "I'll put
the drawer back and then I'll carry the basket down to the
cellar."
"Daddy said he'd take it," objected Dot.
"But he'll be glad to find I've done it," said Twaddles
confidently. "Look out, Dot--push that paper down. Gee! it is kind
of heavy."
He staggered off toward the stairway, the basket in his arms. He
had filled it so full that he could not see over the top and, just
as he reached the head of the stairs, his foot caught in a rug.
The basket pitched forward, but Twaddles caught the banister rail
and saved himself from falling.
"Glory be!" Loud rose the wail of Norah, who was in the lower hall
on her way upstairs with a pile of clean sheets. "Glory be, what's
all this dirt raining on my clean front stairs!"