THE WRECK OF THE RAFT
Though all of the four little Blossoms protested that they were not
the least bit sleepy, it was not long after Mother and Aunt Polly had
helped them to delicious brown bread and honey and milk and baked
apples that they were stumbling up the stairs to baths and bed. Linda,
a girl about fifteen, who lived with Aunt Polly and went to school in
the winter and worked during the summer, had made the two pretty
bedrooms as dainty as possible and had left a vase of flowers on the
table in each room. It was Linda, too, who brought armfuls of clean
towels and showed them which was the hot and which the cold water in
Aunt Polly's white and green bathroom.
The next day the four children and Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly, with
Linda and Jud part of the time and Spotty and Poots in constant
attendance, explored Brookside thoroughly.
They saw the poultry yard, where ducks and chickens and guinea-hens
and one lame turkey lived happily together. The other turkeys roamed
all over the farm, and Aunt Polly said that at night they slept out of
doors in the trees. She said they would be sick if cooped up in
houses, and that they had to roam half-wild to thrive.
The visitors called on Mrs. Sally Sweet, the beautiful gentle Jersey
cow that gave such wonderful rich milk; they saw the seven new little
white pigs; they took salt to the sheep that were in a stony pasture
and that came running when Peter called to them from the bars.
They made the acquaintance, too, of Jerry and Terry, the two faithful
farm horses, and Nelly Bly, the brown mare who had a small colt,
Felix, by her side. Meg had to be dragged away from the colt. She said
she had never seen such a darling little horse.
Jud Apgar was a tall, lanky boy, with the same pleasant drawling way
of speaking his father had, and the "evenest temper that ever was,"
Linda said. Linda should have known, because she was a great tease.
On their way back from the sheep pasture Aunt Polly and the Blossoms
stopped at the tenant house, and Mrs. Apgar asked them in to taste of
her fresh buttermilk. She had just finished churning, and the children
saw their first churn. They admired the firm yellow butter, but they
did not care much for the buttermilk, though Mother Blossom drank two
glasses of it and said it was delicious.
It was nearly dinner time now, for Aunt Polly, like many people who
live in the country, liked to have her dinner at noon, and they all
hurried home to get freshened up for the meal. Poor Dot, as usual, had
managed to soil her frock, and she had to be buttoned into a clean
dress.
"How'd you ever get that old egg on it?" scolded Meg, nevertheless
helping her to fasten the buttons.
"I didn't know eggs broke so easy," explained Dot. "I was looking in a
nest where a hen was sitting, and she flew up and scared me. And I
just touched one of her eggs and it broke."
Meg happened to glance from the window.
"Peter's brought the trunks!" she cried. "And the kiddie-car and a
bundle that must be the surprise Daddy told us about. Hurry, Dot."
The two little girls ran downstairs and found the others gathered
about the trunks and parcels on the front porch.
"Daddy's surprise!" shouted Bobby. "Let me open it, Mother?"
Mother Blossom handed him the shears and he cut the heavy cord.
Something brown and heavy was inside.
"It's a dress. No, it isn't, it's a tent! It's a tent and four Indian
suits!" Bobby was so delighted that he gave a war-whoop then and there
and began to do a war dance.
"An Indian suit!" shrieked Twaddles, trying to stand on his head.
"Indian beads!" cried Meg, holding up a long chain of bright colored
glass beads.
"And feathers!" Dot, too, had been digging in the package.
The rest of the afternoon was a busy time for them all. Jud helped
them set up the tent on the side lawn, and then the four little
Blossoms dressed up in their new suits and played Indians to their
hearts' content. There were jackets and trousers and feather
head-dresses for Bobby and Twaddles and squaw costumes and bead chains
for Meg and Dot. Jud made them each a wooden hatchet, which completed
the make-believe.
The next morning Mother Blossom had to go back to Oak Hill. The
children went as far as the gate to say good-by to her, but both she
and Aunt Polly, who was to drive her over, not in the car but with
Nelly Bly and a smart-looking red-wheeled buggy, thought that it was
better for them not to go to town.
When they had kissed her good-by and watched the buggy till it was
nothing but a cloud of dust in the road, the four little Blossoms
began to feel very queer indeed. They had never been alone in a
strange place without any mother before.
"Well, my goodness, if you're not here," said Jud cheerily, coming up
behind them. He pretended not to see the tears beginning to splash
down Dot's cheeks. "I'm going down to the brook to mend the line
fence, and I thought if you wanted to come along and play in the
water----"
They did, of course. Dot slipped her hand into Jud's and the others
followed, talking busily. What was a line fence? How could he fix it?
What could they play in the water?
Jud didn't mind questions at all. Indeed, he rather enjoyed answering
them.
"You see, this fence goes along the brook right in the center," he
explained carefully, "to show where your Aunt Polly's land stops and
Mr. Simmond's land begins. If we didn't have a fence there his cattle
would walk right through the brook and up into our meadows. Say, build
a raft, why don't you? I always did when I was a kid. Here, I'll show
you."
Jud in a few minutes had shown Bobby how to make a little raft, and he
and Twaddles finished it while Meg and Dot ran up to the house to get
some toys to sail on it. For a raft, you know if you have ever made
one, is no fun at all unless it has a cargo.
"We brought Geraldine!" cried Dot, running back, out of breath, with
her best doll. "And now I wish I'd brought her trunk. But here's Meg's
'Black Beauty' book. She says we can play that's a trunk. It's heavy.
And Meg is bringing your airplane, Bobby, and the singing bird for
Twaddles."
The singing bird was a little toy one of the neighbors in Oak Hill had
given Twaddles. It had come from abroad, and he was very proud of it.
It was a tiny yellow wooden bird that wound up with a key and sang
three tunes for all the world like a music box.
Bobby fixed the string, and the children arranged the toys on the
raft, the smiling Geraldine occupying the place of honor in the center
and leaning gracefully against the book which served her as a prop.
"Look, Jud!" shouted Bobby. "See it float!"
Jud, in the middle of the stream, waved his hand encouragingly.
"It's beginning to sprinkle," he called. "Better run on up to the
barn, out of the wet. You'll find Dad working there. Tie your
raft--this is only a shower."
Bobby obediently tied the raft to a tree root that extended out over
the water, and the four little Blossoms, taking hold of hands, raced
madly for the barn. They were only just in time, for as they reached
the door the rain fell in sheets.
"Most caught you, didn't it?" chuckled Peter, who was mending harness
in a little room that opened on to the barn floor. "A rain like this
could drown that littlest one."
"No, it couldn't," protested Dot, who was the "littlest one."
"Maybe Jud will drown," worried Bobby. "Does he stay out in the wet?"
"A bit of rain doesn't hurt Jud," said Peter comfortably. "He's used
to it, and his mother has dry clothes ready for him when he comes in.
Well now, look around, and make yourselves at home. You can do most
anything in Miss Polly's barn."
"Let's play see-saw," proposed Meg, pointing to a long board that
stood in the corner. "Could we have that, Mr. Peter?"
"Of course you can. I'll lay it across this saw-horse, so, and that's
as fine a see-saw as any one could ask for," said Peter, lifting the
heavy plank with ease.
Bobby and Meg took possession of the see-saw, and Dot and Twaddles
made the simultaneous discovery that hay was slippery. They found this
out because Twaddles had climbed to the top of a pile of loose hay and
was intending to reach an open window when his foot slipped and he
gently slid down to the floor.
"Let me do that," cried Dot, hastily scrambling up. "Watch me, Meg."
She sat down, gave herself a little shove and neatly slid down the
side of the hay. Then Twaddles tried, and then they took turns.
Spotty appeared at the barn door, wagging his tail engagingly. He was
"part white terrier" and "part something else" Jud had told the
children, and he had one funny black spot on his back near his tail.
In less than half an hour the rain had stopped and a watery sun was
struggling through the breaking clouds.
"Bobby!" Meg thought of something so suddenly, she stopped the see-saw
with a bump that jarred poor Bobby's teeth. "What do you know about
the things we left on the raft? Geraldine will be soaked!"
"And the wings of my airplane," cried Bobby. "Why, I never thought! We
should have taken the toys off. Let's get 'em now, and maybe Linda can
dry them in the kitchen for us."
Hastily calling the twins, Meg and Bobby set off, running for the
brook. The grass was very wet and their shoes were soaked in a few
minutes. But they didn't mind that if only the toys were not damaged!
Bobby reached the brook first. No Jud was in sight, but a neat, firm
fence showed where he had completed his work. No raft was tied to the
root, either.
"It's gone!" gasped Meg, who had followed Bobby closely. "My lovely
book I've never even read yet!"
"And my airplane I meant to have such fun sailing out where there is
lots of room," said Bobby mournfully. "Dot, the raft's floated away!"
Dot and Twaddles came up to them and Dot at first could not believe
the bad news.
"But you tied it, Bobby," she urged. "How could it get gone?"
"Don't say 'get gone,'" said Bobby absently. "I don't know how it got
loose, but it has. You can see for yourself. And all our toys are
lost!"
"Poor, poor Geraldine!" sobbed Geraldine's little mother. "All
drowned! And Twaddles' Dicky bird! Maybe, couldn't Jud have them,
Bobby?" she added suddenly.
Bobby had not thought of that.
"You run and ask him," he said, "while we walk down the brook a way
and look for 'em."